As wonderful as RSS feeds are in the distribution of information, they also have the potential to be a dangerous threat to your original content. In this post I will describe what happened to me recently and the very valuable lesson I learned on protecting your copyrighted material. 

What Happened 

I had a post on my entertainment blog, Buzz Pirates, go somewhat viral recently. I was giddy about all the traffic flying in and by the fact that my cheap WordPress hosting account was holding up. I was even more excited by all the new incoming links I saw in my blog statistics. Out of sheer curiosity, I clicked on some of the referring links to see what they were saying about my article. I was shocked and appalled to see my exact content republished on another website without even a word of credit to Buzz Pirates. But wait, it gets worse! I just so happened to come across the same content later that day on TheInsider.com. Yes...THE Insider, as in the popular entertainment television show. There I was, staring at MY original content on the Insider website, with a link to the thief that copied my article credited as the original source! My jaw dropped as my poor laptop almost became way too familiar with my stone patio. Needless to say, I was furious. Someone else was getting credit for my work and probably thousands of referral visitors from one of the most popular entertainment magazines. 

How It Was Resolved

I immediate fired off two emails, one to the thief directly (who will never get a link from me), and one to TheInsider.com. The thief was quick to respond and luckily, was willing to update his blog with a correction. But he was pretty smug about it. His response was "Well, I guess I can mention your blog since I got the list from you." The nerve of him! He guesses? Well I guess, I might just put my foot up his ass if I ever meet him.

It took a little while, but I eventually heard from The Insider as well. Unfortunately, the damage was already done. Their news aggregator got the content from his feed and automatically published the story. They couldn't change the text. They were super understanding about the whole thing and really sympathetic. While they were not able to correct the one article, they did end up adding a permanent link to Buzz Pirates on their "Friends" page! They are also now digesting my feed directly so in the future they will receive content directly from me.

In the end, it worked out well for me, but I learned a valuable lesson.

How To Keep This From Happening

Lucky for me, my original article contained a link to my own site. Otherwise, I never would have known about this fiasco. From now on, whenever I am writing a post, I will always end it with the following line:

You can't add this line to your theme template. You have to physically add this line in the text editor as you are writing the post. Otherwise, it won't become part of the feed's content and that is what you want.

If it does happen to you, be sure to stand up for yourself. Reach out and ask the website/blog owner to correct their story. While many of them may not be law abiding in the first place, most of them will be willing to make a correction if you ask them. No one wants to get sued. You are the legal owner of that copyrighted material. Contrary to what most people think, copyrights are automatic - you do not need to apply or register for them. When you publish your article you own the copyright and the content is legally yours.

I hope everyone finds this post and my lesson helpful. If you are ever in the same situation, I hope you are as fortunate as me and walk away with a permanent link from a popular website!

Jeff

This post was originally published by BuzzMyBlog.com