Removing Photo and Post
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An individual previously posted a post on their website using a photo of me, without my knowledge or consent. I kindly requested that they take it down because I did not have any knowledge that my photo was going to be used and did not give consent, and they kindly obliged and took it down. Since, I was shocked to find that another individual stole the content from that site that was taken down and copied and pasted and reproduced in full on a WordPress blog the entire post with photo that was originally removed. I have searched for years for contact information or some way to figure out the owner of the blog and how I can contact them, to no avail. It appears that, for several years (from 2005 to 2012), the person scraped this site’s and many other site’s contents and used them on a WordPress, and the WordPress is now dormant, which is unacceptable. The site is now just sitting there with a bunch of stolen content and there is no way to contact the individual who did this to request that the stolen content be removed. It is unacceptable and unfair that, if the original user of this information and photo agreed to take this content down because they recognize that they did not have my knowledge or consent to use it, that someone random in the world can scrape it and be permitted to permanently keep this stolen content on their blog indefinitely — and, on top of that, because of the nature of how this blog was created (automatic scraping), it looks as if the individual is trying to conceal their identity and/or any way to contact them, so a request cannot be made to have this content removed from their blog. How can this situation be handled? It is very distressing. Thank you.
I don’t have a site with WordPress.com yet
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Hi there,
It sounds like if someone scraped content and created another WordPress.com site which could be potentially against our Terms of Service. I know you may not want to share the URL, but please fill out a report through our online form. Our Terms of Service Team are more than happy to look over your complaint and take appropriate action if deemed necessary.
We’ll definitely get in touch with you regarding what we find and determine.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks!
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Hi, Thank you very much for your reply. Yes, someone has scraped the content of this individual’s website (as well as other websites) and created a WordPress.com website with all of this scraped content.
As you directed, I will go ahead and fill out the online form. I assume that this would constitute a copyright issue. Can you please clarify? The photo is of me and the information is about me, and it was originally used by an individual who created the content on his website; I asked him to remove it since I had not consented to it being used and he was very kind and professional in obliging my request (and I have documentation of this correspondence). But, this other individual who subsequently created the WordPress scraped the content from that individual’s website. So, I am not clear on which option to select in these circumstances; how do I proceed with reporting this and explaining this on the form? Thank you.
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Hi there, in this case, I recommend choosing “This content contains my private information.”
Please let us know if you have any more questions!
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Hi, thank you so much. This has been very helpful. I will go ahead and submit the report. Thank you very much.
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