Reblogging is part and parcel of being a member of the blogging universe. If you write well on a given subject, sooner or later your work will be reblogged. It’s simply something that has to be accepted. That doesn’t mean we can’t have a good bitching session about the asshole rebloggers.
But first let’s speak a little about the legitimate ones. These are the people who read your blog. And then think, “Wow, that’s brilliantly written, and matches my views so well I really must share it with the world. But I better ask the author first!” See the last part of that? The bit about asking first? Yeah that’s what marks out a polite reblogger from an asshole reblogger. They actually have the manners to ask if you would mind first.
Sometimes that’s not possible, and instead they will add a short explanation to their reblogging of your work. “This work belongs to…their main site can be found at…you should REALLY go there, ’cause they’re awesome!” That’s pretty polite too.
There might even be other types of nice, legit rebloggers out there. But I haven’t met any of them yet.
I have on the other hand met two particularly assholish types of rebloggers. One type is just outright so, and the other probably thinks of themselves as polite, and legit…but aren’t. Oh which to speak about first, hmmm.
You wake up one morning, and log on to your admin page. You know just to see if anyone commented while you were asleep. Because apparently the rest of the world doesn’t stop while you sleep…but anyway you log on. And there in your comment box is a pingback report. The funny thing is that you don’t remember writing anything that linked back to an earlier post the previous night. But you follow the pingback to its origin, and find that it’s linked to a website you’ve never heard of.
That’s cool, after all I’ve probably only visited .01% of the internet at this stage, and most of those were BDSM websites, or guides to playing an Orc Huntress better. So you look around, and discover that the site your on exists for one purpose only. To “borrow” other people’s work, link back to them, and make sure that visitors are infinitely more likely to see the dozens of Adsense buttons they have littering 75% of the page.
Yes that’s right they’re using your work to generate revenue. And someone said there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
The funny thing is this person probably thinks there were polite. After all, they did only post an excerpt from your work, and then added a nice bright blue link back to your homepage. How nice of them. But they’re still making money off of your work, and they still didn’t FUCKING ASK FIRST! *coughs*
To make matters worse, if they even have a way for you to contact them, it’s probably broken. That way they can feel like they’re open and approachable, while actually being even more of a shower of assholes.
So that’s one type, what about the other?
Oh they’re just outright thieves. Let me tell you a story. It’s a story of glory, of theft, of battle, of assholes!
A year ago I wrote a piece on alternatives to oil. It wasn’t very well received, but hey them’s the breaks. It was however outright stolen. Some little prick from Turkey decided that it was so good, he just had to have it. A little “Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V”, and as far as he was concerned he owned it. He was so happy with “his” work that he then posted it on his own website. A site that had NO way to contact him. But also had no advertising or anything else on it. Nope, in fact all it had was a by-line where he announced to the world that he had written that piece.
Wasn’t that nice for him?
It was until I start pelting his blog provider with complaints, logs, and a link proving that my piece had been posted almost a month before “his”. It was wonderful how quickly his site vanished forever, or at least as close to forever as exists on the internet, as I’m sure Google have an archive of it somewhere on their system, right there alongside the deeds to my soul, and the remains of Lindbergh baby. (If you don’t recognise the reference you should ask your grandparents.)
It’s hard for me to decide which of these are worse. The ones who make money off of your work, but at least give you credit for actually being the author. Or the ones who just outright steal your creativity, and then pass it off as their own. Maybe you know an even worse type, do you?
But regardless of which ultimately proves to be worse, they’re all assholes, and they should be beaten slowly to death by a rampaging horde of two-year olds, armed with socks filled with snookerballs.
My Random Ruminations. 