Reblogging and TOS allows deceptive content
-
The TOS reads:
“You also give other WordPress.com users permission to share your Content on other WordPress.com websites and add their own Content to it (aka to “reblog” your Content), so long as they use only a portion of your post and they give you credit as the original author by linking back to your website, which the reblogging function on WordPress.com does automatically.”
This definition allows a blogger to create a site comprised entirely of reblogs, each formatted sufficiently to meet the requirements of the TOS, but which deceptively appear to be original content. Most visitors to the reblog site will never realize that they are viewing a reblog.
For example, this “travel photography pioneer” site has “reblogged” a post of mine here:
The original post is here:
The “reblogged” post meets the essential criteria of the TOS: It provides the featured image but only a portion of the text, and it does provide a link to the original post.
However, the text for that link only repeats the title of the post as it appears at the top of the page. There is no citation or acknowledgement that the post is reblogged, or that the full post originates on another blog and its content created by another blogger. Additionally, since the reblogger refers to their blog as a “photography blog”, visitors will be primarily interested in the photograph, which is provided in full.
This blogger’s site is, so far as I can tell, completely comprised of reblogs like this one, with no original content of its own. Moreover, the blog is structured so that visitors are lead to a “Home” page which functions as a landing page for an ETSY store, with no links to *any* post content on the site.
The whole thing looks structured to generate visits from wordpress tags and categories, along with whatever search engine hits it can garnish, by deceptively reblogging the content of other sites to look like original content.
That is, Sanders Story Photography is run by an “Outdoor Photography Pioneer” who reblogs other photographers’ photographs, without clear attribution while misleading visitors to believe the content is original, in order to feed an ETSY store landing page.
This activity, while meeting the technical TOS requirements for reblogging, is absolutely *not* in the intended spirit of reblogging.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
-
Hi there,
We are not able to help with this here in our public forums, but you can report this site to out Trust and Safety team by following the steps here, thanks! https://wordpress.com/support/report-blogs/
-
Thanks.
I tried that.
There is no option under “report blogs” for “site excessively reblogs without real acknowledgement”. The closest is “site infringes my copyright”. That requires submitting a DMCA, which I already did. This was denied because, as I wrote above, the site meets the *technical* requirement of a reblog.
IMHO, that definition is too vague and allows abuses like this one.
If you have another suggestion, I’m willing to try it.
Cheers,
Patrick.
-
Hi Patrick,
I recommend following up on our Terms of Service team regarding this. As staff-totoro mentioned, we cannot do anything else here on this forum.
-
Hi all, hope you don’t mind me adding some suggestions here for the OP.
Patrick, right at the start let me say that I’m a forum volunteer and my reply won’t address your concerns about the ToS. Also, you might not consider these suggestions viable, but I hope it will give you something to work with going forward.
My first suggestion would be to remove the Reblog button from your sharing settings on posts https://wordpress.com/support/sharing/#customizing-sharing-settings Currently that will only remove that button from being displayed on your site, but there is a feature request in the works (no timeline specified) https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/issues/57068 to respect that setting in the WordPress.com Reader as well and disallow Reader sharing. It seems the Reader sharing button is where that blogger is currently adding posts to their site.
Secondly, only visitors to your site see your copyright notice at the bottom of your sidebar. You might consider adding a very short copyright sentence at the beginning (or end) of your posts, like “Copyright © My Name 2022, All Rights Reserved”. If you create it as a reusable block https://wordpress.com/support/wordpress-editor/blocks/reusable-block/ you can then easily add it to all your posts and depending on where you add it, it will appear on your site’s front page, in the Reader, in emails to your subscribers and appear in your search engine results and possibly other of your site pages depending on theme. No guarantee it will be a deterrent, of course.
If you update existing posts with the copyright sentence, it will update the post in the Reader. Unfortunately, as far as my tests show, it doesn’t appear to carry over to posts that have already been shared by others. Additionally, the reblogger can edit the auto-generated shared excerpt and link to remove it. (In this case, something I wish would act more like Reblog [sic].)
Regarding images, if you are the copyright owner of the images you are posting as a featured image, another option is watermarking your image https://wordpress.com/support/prevent-content-theft/ since it is what is being displayed in the other site’s post when using the Reader Sharing button. Image metadata doesn’t appear and others may not know how to look for it (or care).
And while extreme, only Public sites visible to search engines appear in the Reader. If you change your site visibility settings to Public, and discourage search engines, AFAIK your posts will not appear in the Reader and so can’t be shared from there. People can still find you and follow you. However, if you are participating in the WordAds program, it requires your site to be public and allow search engines. https://wordpress.com/support/wordads-and-earn/
And, lastly, perhaps consider contacting other WordPress.com bloggers whose content has been shared on that site and let them know their content is being used there so they can also take steps to protect their content from content theft. It’s a thought.
- The topic ‘Reblogging and TOS allows deceptive content’ is closed to new replies.
WordPress.com Forums 