AboutUs.org Continues Their Annoyance

Date: October 2, 2006
Time: at 10:24 am
Posted in: in aboutus.org, copyright, legal
Comments: Comments (7)

I say annoyance in the subject line. It’s always been more than an annoyance. When someone violates my legally copyrighted content, I don’t consider it anything less than just that: a violation of copyright.

I ended up emailing Ray at his email address ray@aboutus.org over this. The email is below.

While at this point I haven’t felt the need to file a lawsuit against AboutUs.org, I’m going to speak out about it as much as I can. Recently, I discovered that www.pylonhosting.com, a hosting company I at one point maintained (and still own) had made it on to Aboutus.org. When AdamReyher.com made it on there, there was a good amount of content scraped from the front page and copied onto the AboutUs.org page. I was less than happy with this, so I manually removed it. They continued to remove the history and put the site in an “Opt-Out” category, but still encouraged users to continue to update content. What???

But this time, when I discovered PylonHosting.com, not only had they scraped front page info, they copied the entire body of content on the front page. This is way more than “fair use” in my viewpoint. I have no problem with fair use–quoting someone else’s website. But when you deliberately copy that content in large quantities, it’s getting out of hand.

In light of this, I proceeded to, of course, edit out the page with my less-than-satisfied remarks, and then continued on to writing to “Ray” at his email address: ray@aboutus.org (oh noes! he’ll get spammed since I didn’t mask it!) requesting, and yes, demanding that the history for several of my sites be removed. And not only just the history…I wanted any copy of my content removed from existance, including any sitewide backups which had been made.

Hello Ray,

I have expressed deep dissatisfaction with the manner in which AboutUs.org gathers information which, indeed, is legally copyrighted by site owners and how said information is scraped from their sites.

I have removed several of my sites personally. However, that history still remains, containing my copyrighted content on, as far as I’m aware, one of the listed domains in this email’s subject line: PylonHosting.com. In regards to (http://www.aboutus.org/How_can_I_OptOut_of_AboutUs%3F), I am composing this email in order to have this history manually removed.

However, I ask more than that. AboutUs.org certainly maintains backups, quite possibly before said information was removed. In order to fully eliminate duplicates of my copyrighted content, I respectfully request that any and all backups containing information relating to the sites here-in this email be either removed from existence or modified to remove my content. I don’t care if said content is not publicly available. It’s still the COPY part of copyright.

Of course, using all senses of logic, there’s no plausible way for me to verify that said (private) backups no longer contain my content. But out of professional courtesy (which you appear to be operating out of ) I’m asking that you fully comply with my wishes, and yes, demands regarding content which legally belongs to me in any and all forms.

Sincerely,

- Adam Reyher

An extreme request? Definately. Any way for me to prove he’s done it? Absolutely not. A reasonable request? I think so. After all, it’s copyright violation. Raising the stakes? Heck yes.

And that’s what I want; I want to raise the stakes and put so much pressure on AboutUs.org that hopefully lawsuits will be filed in the near future and they will either be shut down, or be forced out of “business” for the sheer inconvenience it has caused them. Period.

You should do the same. Remove your site from AboutUs.org yourself … put on a comment of copyright violation and your dissatisfaction, and write a similar email to Ray (once again, his email address is ray@aboutus.org).

AboutUs.org - They broke my copyright

Date: August 28, 2006
Time: at 8:24 pm
Posted in: in copyright, internet, legal
Comments: Comments (7)

First of all, I want to thank Douglas Bell and Micheal Cottingham for leading me to this website and for informing me about what they’re doing.

AboutUs.org shoots out to be “a fully editable wiki, a type of Web site, that has been prepopulated with information about several million websites.” (source). Sounds harmless, right? But what they don’t tell you is they are harvesting WHOIS domain information about each and every website they catalog. Not only that, but they are using the address in that WHOIS information to put up a map pinpointing that location. So any old schmo can get to your house.

Think that’s not so good? It get’s worse. Not only are they redistributing WHOIS information, but they are reposting copyrighted material from the website in question. In my paticular case, their “bot” had gathered a portion of a blog post I wrote a little while back. Keywords: I wrote. That means I own full copyrights to said work and have full control of when and how and if it is used.

But what about the WHOIS information. Honestly, you can get that information by doing a simple lookup yourself. Anyone can. But here’s the catch: Virtually any domain name registrar (whether it be ENOM, GoDaddy, or RegisterFly), explicitly state on the page where you get the WHOIS information taht said information is not to be redistributed in any way, shape, or form. Let’s quote from RegisterFly’s agreement, since that’s who I use:

The data in this whois database is provided to you for information purposes only, that is, to assist you in obtaining information about or related to a domain name registration record. We make this information available as is, and do not guarantee its accuracy. By submitting a whois query, you agree that you will use this data only for lawful purposes and that, under no circumstances will you use this data to: (1) enable high volume, automated, electronic processes that stress or load this whois database system providing you this information; or (2) allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission of mass unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations via direct mail, electronic mail, or by telephone. The compilation, repackaging, dissemination or other use of this data is expressly prohibited without prior written consent from us.

Keyphrase in bold. And that’s the point. Period.

Enough is enough. We need to stop AboutUs.org before they take it to the next level. Micheal Cottingham has assembled an excellent post on AboutUs.org, and also a tutorial on how to stop the AboutUs.org robot from archiving your site. On his blog, he details what you should do to your own page if you feel your copyrights have been broken.

Please digg this story by using the links below. This needs to be passed on.