An item on your website (http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/jul/12/shot-in-ybor-city-97713/) was copied in whole from an entry on my blog (http://mcqueue.blogspot.com/2009/07/shot-in-ybor-city.html).
Brief excerpts are welcome with a link to the rest of the article or essay on my blog. Please edit the item on your site accordingly.
At least this time you couldn't swipe the photo slide show.
This is the second time this has happened (that I know of) and it needs to stop.
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I did send this message, as well as the previous one, to TBO.com staff through the contact page on its website. My website stat counter tells me that someone from Media General (TBO.com's owner, which also owns WFLA-TV and the Tampa Tribune) has seen my original complaint.
Let's see if they act.
Update (7/15/09): TBO.com has removed the posts and promises it is trying to figure out how entire articles were being quoted in its blog roll.
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8 comments:
It looks like they're just pulling in your RSS feed which delivers your articles to them in full: http://mcqueue.blogspot.com/rss.xml
If you yell loud enough, I imagine they'll just stop publishing your blog rather than take the time to find a way to trim down what published from the RSS feed.
Hi Bryan,
Thank you for your thoughts.
If you go to one of the links on TBO.com, at the top it reads, "Opinion TampaBlab." Tampablab.com is a local blog directory here. That appears to be the source. However, TampaBlab merely prints the headline and a sentence or two at most and refers you to my blog for the rest.
I don't understand how a publisher would think it's OK to reprint entire pieces from anyone's blog without permission or payment.
If I started copying-and-pasting whole articles from the Tampa Tribune (tbo.com is the Tribune's website), wouldn't they have a problem with that?
As of 10 p.m, my blog postings have disappeared from TBO.com. I never heard back from anyone at the site either explaining or apologizing for republishing my content.
But at least they took it down.
John,
Reading TampaBlab through an RSS reader displays the entire article. I had the same thing happen and assumed they took directly from the RSS feed. I wouldn't have had a problem, but there was no byline nor anything directing people to my blog to see anything else.
Jordi,
Thanks for the info. I didn't know that. Did you remove your blog from TampaBlab or do something else to solve the problem?
Hi, John. I first heard about this when a co-worker forwarded the link to this blog post.
We've deleted the two posts you identified. We didn't intend to republish the entire entries -- just headlines/links to the content.
I'll send you an e-mail with more detail.
- Loren Omoto, TBO.com
Loren,
Thank you.
And I should make clear that including headlines and links to my blog is more than welcome. It is only when entire posts are republished, giving people no reason to visit my site, that I object.
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