One or more crew members at ThisIs50.com are jacking blogger posts.
Check this post at Nah Right.
Now see this post by "Jynx Millionaire" at ThisIs50.com.
Apparently this isn’t the first time these people have ripped him off. I haven’t checked in with Eskay on what he wants to do and he may not want my help right now but he’s going to get it anyway.
I’m sure this violates Ning’s terms of service. Ning is ThisIs50′s host and I’ll be in touch with them.
If you see your stuff on ThisIs50.com and you’re scared to do something, please let me know. I’m fine with being point man on this nonsense.
Update:
So I contacted the folks at Ning with this info in this post and they pointed out that the content owner needs to contact them directly. Their message included:
"We take the rights of intellectual property owners very seriously and, as a service provider, our policy is to respond to the valid notices of alleged infringement we receive by removing allegedly infringing material as quickly as possible."
"With what you’ve given us, we have no way at this point of knowing the
circumstances under which this blog post was reposted. We will need more
information from the original poster of this content. Please inform them
to contact us via our Help Center if they wish to pursue this further:"
http://help.ning.com/?page_id=18
Note:
This is their regular help page. I just scrolled down to "Other" and dropped them a line with a heading about stolen content sometime Friday morning and they got back to me by late that day going into Memorial Day weekend so they’re being very responsive and are easy to reach.
I would love to be kept in the loop for further coverage of this issue. But that’s up to the individuals involved.
I will be keeping a closer eye on ThisIs50.com and similar sites as they emerge since there obviously needs to be some watchdog action. These rappers talk way too much about all the money they get to be giving their sites a free ride off real bloggers hard work.
Update 2:
Apparently Chris "Broadway" Romero’s crew was already developing a reputation for ripping off sites.
isn’t blogging syndication…like the poor man’s ap? isn’t the point to get whatever you’re blogging out there on as many outlets as possible? is he reprinting without crediting the source, if thats the case it may be an oversight, if intentional, check him on it, but me personally, i’m trying to reach the world with my message. anybody can use anything as long as they credit me.
??
Isn’t the essence of blogging jacking stuff from other sources?? I’m not sure there’s an issue here….
Jacking whole posts without permission is bullshit and a lot of the jacking that goes on, I find unacceptable on the fact of it, even with a link back.
Now if you say it’s cool to use your content, then it’s cool.
But Eskay made it clear that he doesn’t want them jacking his whole posts. They aren’t giving credit and they aren’t asking permission.
He even commented on the post telling them to stop.
I think it’s fine that people have different opinions but ripping stuff off sites is a rip off if you don’t have permission.
And I personally think hip hop and pop culture bloggers play too loosely with others content.
Then again, Eskay rips left and right so he may not have much of a moral defense but I don’t like people with money and power trying to rip off independent bloggers.
Or doing it on behalf of their boss.
I provide a partial feed knowing that folks will rerun it and run ads beside it and that’s fine but that’s also why I don’t provide a full feed.
So that’s my stance and I’m sure what they’re doing is violating Ning’s terms of service.
I’m going to do everything I can to see that those and any other ripoff posts come down or that they lose their platform.
If Ning doesn’t enforce it, I’m going after them through my tech contacts and the tech blogosphere, cause they’ll understand.
>>Isn’t the essence of blogging jacking stuff from other sources?? I’m not sure there’s an issue here….
wow, really Ian? So it’s cool for somebody to copy and paste my posts word for word, and jack an image that I have paid to use, with not even a mention of my site or a link back? That’s the essence of blogging?
>>Then again, Eskay rips left and right so he may not have much of a moral defense but I don’t like people with money and power trying to rip off independent bloggers.
Look, I consider myself more of a Hip-Hop news/content aggregator than an opinion blogger in the traditional sense because Nah Right is essentially a filter/repository for content that I feel my readers will find relevant.
So if I take a news item written by the AP and re-report it with very little or no commentary of my own, I feel I’m justified because I’m providing an aggregation and alert service to my audience. A lot of niche blogs do this and I think that as long as that isn’t all you do, it’s a valid practice. That being said, I NEVER copy and paste entire articles without giving credit to the original source and linking back, so I’m not quite sure what you mean when you say I ‘jack left and right.’
That all being said, I appreciate you taking my side in this Clyde.
Eskay, yeah, you know I overstate things sometimes. That’s part of my charm!
By jacking left and right, I mean like ripping videos and so forth but I know a lot of that stuff is leaked to you as well and it’s all part of the publicity game.
Overall I view what you’re doing similarly to your take and you provide a service that’s quite valid.
And, you’re right, you’d never do anything like they did.
On taking your side, it’s important that bloggers work together on that kind of thing or else we’re gonna get steamrolled before all is said and done.
I’ve helped everybody that’s come to me with such a situation as did Hashim Warren back when he was actively blogging.
I may have helped him with something but, between us, we forced AllHipHop to credit a writer whose article they took and ran with someone else’s byline. And that was a direct submission to the site.
But the writer was a blogger, not very visible but part of the community, so we were happy to help.
Once that goes it’s going to be a real free for all, beyond what it is now, and disreputable sites like ThisIs50.com is going to have a field day with our hard work.
I didn’t read the story that close, wasn’t aware that they were jacking entire posts w/o credit. Agree that that’s not cool, but that happens to me too on sites like allurbannews.com (or some such URL) so I don’t stress it too tough. BTW: you PAY for images??
It’s nice to hear this part of blogging being brought to the forefront and discussed.
This is plagiarism, plain and simple. And it’s a bad look for ThisIs50. Esk, you’re doing something right if they’re swiping your whole post. I’m sayin …
“BTW: you PAY for images?”
Ian is that question to me?
Most of my images come from publicists, press release services or from outlets like Amazon (album covers & such) with which I’m an affiliate.
I’ve never paid for an image and have no plans to start anytime soon.
I do occasionally grab something, like those screen shots from Hypebeast for the GTA IV post, when it seems appropriate and I have a mini set of rules that I follow.
For example, anything I’ve run that was on Flickr, I asked permission to use.
I sometimes fail to properly cite some of the sources and that’s just sloppiness on my part but I’ve never had a single complaint about any of it.
Not that the absence of complaints indicates license to use!
However, I’ve generally been operating in line with what seems fair and what seems likely to keep lawyers from contacting me.
It’s our policy to give credit to sources.
We are proud of our fast growth to one of the leaders of the online Hip Hop world with the Entertainment Blog Community concept. As such, the majority of our content is contributed by our user base.
We have plenty of tools in the site for reporting abuse that have not been invoked by anyone that seems to have issues. Nothing about this has hit my inbox, and I get all complaints from our users.
Also, anyone that knows me knows that I am always down to creatively connect and build.
Props to everyone that has love for the culture and for the reporting of it.
-B
Eskay will have to decide for himself if your little note:
“-ARTICLE COURTESY OF http://WWW.NAHRIGHT.COM”
added to the end of the post without a live link, the lowest common denominator of showing responsibility when stealing content and reproducing it in full, is acceptable.
That would be totally unacceptable to me and full of sh*t if you still haven’t gotten permission from Eskay.
You describe these tools, where are they and how do people access them?
I just checked the site.
Wherever these so called “tools” are, they sure aren’t readily visible.
You’re full of it, homie, and Ning won’t be impressed.
It’s going to be up to the bloggers on an individual basis but your response is pathetic, IMHO, and I will continue my own independent actions.
[Note: there turns out to be a link labeled Report an Issue way down at the bottom of the slow loading pages. But gee, uh, hasn't this issue been reported clearly enough yet? Once again, as with Global Grind, a "leadership" figure refuses to step up and act responsibly.]
Aren’t you glad you turned comments back on, Clyde?
It’s certainly pepped things up around here!
question…Wouldn’t the website worldhiphop.com also be a swagger-jacker????? After the DVDs do all the work, they post it??????? People, if you don’t want to do any work, please take your regurgitated azzes to the back of the class!!!!! THISIS 50 & worldstarhiphop are supper corny!!!!!!!!!!
You’re right, there’s parasitical action everywhere. Whether there’s more in hip hop is hard for me to say but, at times, it seems to define certain aspects of hip hop web activity.
I basically take a stand on very specific concerns related to bloggers but there’s a lot going on that I really can’t cosign.