Plagiarizing blog posts is stupid
RexyStudios, who ripped off my blog posts on User Interface Design Principles for Web Applications (ripped off copy here) and Best Practices for client-side validation in Flex 2 (ripped off copy here) are, according to their Founder and CEO, Anthony G. Persaud on their About Us page, a "new type of design/development type of group". This must be a new type of design/development that doesn't respect the intellectual effort of others enough to give them credit for their work when copying it. What a horrible way to market a company that works with IP. Can you trust such a company with your own projects? If they don't spare a thought to ripping off blog posts, what about source code and company secrets? In a line of work where trust and reputation are paramount, I cannot think of a worse way to shoot yourself in the foot.
To add insult to injury, they didn't even do a good job of it. They hotlinked the images from my blog and didn't bother to change the links (so I got the pingback notification.) If there's anything I hate worse than a plagiarizer, it's an incompetent plagiarizer.
Of course, when someone hotlinks an image from your site, there really is only one thing to do. (No, no, not that; I'm not that unkind.) I do hope they like the new images on their blog that have their Founder and CEO admitting to ripping off my blog posts, though.
RexyStudios/Anthony G. Persaud: Remove my blog posts from your blog immediately!
Update: Feel free to digg this
Update: Well, the site's down and there's a message:
Hi Everyone,
I'd like to apologize for the content on this website. This is not a specific company or a design company but a way for me to be able to capture tutorials that I find on the internet using a firefox plugin - but I guess the plugin does not acquire author/post information. I was not running any ads or trying to attract any traffic. All the content has been removed and I apologize.
Thanks and again I apologize sincerely.
That's cool, I accept the apology. I wonder which plugin he's talking about though.
Update: OK, so Anthony's posted yet another message on his blog, along with a few comments here:
Hi Everyone and specifically Aral,
I'd like to apologize for the content on this website. This is not a specific company or a design company but a way for me to be able to capture tutorials that I find on the internet using a firefox plugin - but I guess the plugin does not acquire author/post information. I was not running any ads or trying to attract any traffic.All the content has been removed and I apologize.
See your comments on his post. There is also another apology from me. I would appreciate if you (pretty please) take down that picutre on your blog post- I know it helps in the laughs for my stupidity... but I really feel bad and I am already having already a terrible day (especially after valentines day).
Thanks and again I apologize sincerely.
It sounds likes it was an honest mistake -- don't worry about it, I've taken the image down!
The Plagiarizing blog posts is stupid article by Aral Balkan, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England License.
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Ken Simpson
Gabriela Portilla
Clark Wilkins
Bob
Erik Hansen
Thom Shannon
Brilliant!! Friend of mine noticed some myspace user leeching a graphic of his site for their profile background and replaced it with “I AM A LOSER”, I’d have gone much further myself
February 15th, 2007 at 1:04 pmFrances Berriman
The new images are fantastic. Good job Aral!
February 15th, 2007 at 1:17 pmTink
LOL classic!
February 15th, 2007 at 1:18 pmaSH
A portuguese enterprise has been plagiarizing my blog and forum!
February 15th, 2007 at 1:24 pmaSH
woops, sorry for the long link
February 15th, 2007 at 1:40 pmaral
Np, aSH — I just edited it for you to make it shorter
February 15th, 2007 at 1:46 pmSavvas
Oups!
February 15th, 2007 at 2:02 pmAdz
Looks like you’re not the only one he plaigarized. Some of “his other articles” contain images hotlinked to http://weblogs.macromedia.com/xd/ and also http://www.seomoz.org/
What an idiot! Good job on the images!
February 15th, 2007 at 2:07 pmDaniel Todd
Feel free to digg deep people
February 15th, 2007 at 2:08 pmhttp://www.digg.com/tech_news/Plagiarizing_blog_posts_is_stupid
PeteG
Haha, Priceless! What a moron!
February 15th, 2007 at 2:20 pmJuice
That’s just too funny. Wonder how long the posts stay up before he notices
February 15th, 2007 at 2:36 pmGerald Guido
I don’t know about you but if it was me I would break out some Goatse man pics and some good old fashion japscat. Now THAT would be funny. It would bring a whole new meaning to ROI.
February 15th, 2007 at 2:51 pmKris
Dugg
February 15th, 2007 at 3:10 pmKeith Peters
that is awesome. I have to admit, I’d be tempted to go with goatse, but this is probably much more effective.
February 15th, 2007 at 3:19 pmIsofarro
Classy retort! Nice one, Aral!
February 15th, 2007 at 3:28 pmrachel
haha, well done aral. i think thats absolutely brilliant. massive kudos to you there
February 15th, 2007 at 3:46 pmktec
Thats such wonderful goatse and it looks like he hasnt even noticed!!! haha, what a dick!
February 15th, 2007 at 4:00 pmAnja Merret
What’s even funnier is that he has a Copyright 2007 - RexyStudios, on the bottom of his blog page. He seems to think he can copyright your material.
February 15th, 2007 at 4:06 pmTom Lee
Y’know, I recognize his header from someone else’s blog - can’t recall offhand whose it is, but it would seem that he ripped that too.
February 15th, 2007 at 4:17 pmPhillip Kerman
That’s funny… it’s sad that now I have to start paying attention to what I read. When I first saw the link to his site I thought HE had put that voice-bubble thing! It was on his site afterall. Mainly I hadn’t woken up yet… Still, it’s amusing. Not that he ripped you off.
February 15th, 2007 at 4:32 pmPete
Dugg!
I agree with keith though: GOATSE!!!!
February 15th, 2007 at 4:37 pmEm Rusev
So funny
February 15th, 2007 at 4:45 pmI love the way you use the same photo for both of the ripped posts but with the text below on the first photo and above on the second so it looks like two different subsequent scenes of the life of this guy.
Ralf Bokelberg
Only the best get copied!
rexystudios.com seems to be down though.
Cheers
February 15th, 2007 at 4:59 pmRalf.
John
It makes you wonder if anything on his site is his own. I’m pretty sure every single blog post is pulled from someone else’s blog. I wonder if his personal site is also a big farce.
February 15th, 2007 at 5:38 pmMike Cane
As of 12:06 EST on Thursday 2/15, his modified image is still up on their site.
This is soooo funny.
Thanks for the laugh!
Thieves are so stupid. That’s why they’re thieves.
February 15th, 2007 at 6:07 pm[NikO]
Sorry for comments spam Aral
Could i IM with you ?
February 15th, 2007 at 6:33 pmNate Beckingham
Hmmm, it never occured to me to plagarizie blog posts…
Interesting possibillities, thanks for bringing it up!
February 15th, 2007 at 6:38 pmAnthony
Hi, this is me from that site. I do apologize DEEPLY for what I did. That site was not a real design company (it was just a fake) and a place for me to store some great tutorials and information I found useful on the internet using a firefox plugin. I should have known better and should have taken time to make sure the author/original post information was on the page.
Again, I VERY much apologize for doing this (and I know you will probably keep insulting me) but just wanted to let you know that I am truly sorry and it won’t happen again.
Thanks.
(Sorry I had put the comment in the wrong spot). As you can see, don’t know much.
February 15th, 2007 at 7:19 pmAnthony
Also, I sent Aral two messages with apologies too (to the mercury email address). There was no ill-intent on what I was doing. I should have first thought before acting and I hope he can at least remove the image of me from this post. Not sure what else I can to make things better and stay in good terms. I am a fan of this site and of his work.
February 15th, 2007 at 7:31 pmaral
Anthony, I updated the post with the new information you provided when I saw your message on your web site. Apology accepted. I don’t edit blog posts, however.
February 15th, 2007 at 7:33 pmAnthony
Any way to remove the image? Or at least blur my face a little? Thanks.
February 15th, 2007 at 7:36 pmCharlie
Definately genius and original on your response to the problem! Mad kudos to you.
February 15th, 2007 at 7:38 pmAnthony
Just trying to show you there were no ill intentions on what I was trying to do. The reason for that stupid site was that it was just easier to store the articles on a wordpress blog and then search that blog than having to figure out which delicious bookmark I needed. There were no ads or anything running on that site.
February 15th, 2007 at 7:39 pmManish Jethani
Looks like he’s from the Department of Redundancy Department looks like.
February 15th, 2007 at 7:41 pmaral
Btw, the Mercury people are the ones who wrote the SEO article - another of the articles that was on the site. I don’t have an email address with them
February 15th, 2007 at 7:42 pmJohn Dowdell
I can’t check the site anymore (content changed, and no info in Google’s cache), but the “plugin” may be the one from Elliott Back:
http://elliottback.com/
Here’s some of the prior debate:
http://www.google.com/search?q=“elliott back” scoble
From my superficial reading, it seems Elliott was on the up-and-up, and wanted to personally aggregate favorite posts on his own weblog, but his automation tool for doing so has definitely been abused by sploggers.
Most of these sites share advertising revenue with Google, and their echo effect has polluted the blogosphere… the repetition makes it much harder to search our real content than it was a year ago.
http://www.google.com/search?q=“google must shape up”
(Let’s give Anthony a break, if we could…?)
tx, jd
February 15th, 2007 at 8:45 pmaral
Thanks for the info, John. Also, just want to echo John’s request that we give Anthony a break (in case the updates on my blog weren’t clear, he’s sorry, I’ve accepted his apology and it looks like it was an honest mistake.)
February 15th, 2007 at 9:25 pmaral
John, it looks like the plugin is the one that you mention. It’s called AutoBlog.
Basically, it converts XML to Wordpress posts. It does have an option to give credit but apparently this isn’t the first time it’s been used to clone/scrape blogs and recreate the content elsewhere. It’s apparently also a favorite tool of spam bloggers.
February 15th, 2007 at 9:33 pmsascha/hdrs
There’s a great plugin for FireFox called ScrapBook. It’s very good to capture websites and store them locally.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:48 amJames Governor
Hello Aral. I met you last year at Adobe Live, when i was on the panel. I wondered whether you would be interested in joining the Bedale Group, an unassociation for the UK Adobe software and services community http://bedalegroup.wordpress.com/2007/02/16/what-is-the-bedale-group/
February 16th, 2007 at 12:52 pmRick Vassar
I had a guy named Greg Mcclain steal an article from my blog, adn I wrote about it. He just changed a few words and claimed it as his own.
The funny thing is, he has a link on http://www.aim.org. AIM is “Accuracy In Media”.
I contacted him to give a credit, but he ignored it, so I published this post. If you guys can spread it around, it will help Mr. Mclcain achieve his accuracy in media goals…
October 16th, 2007 at 2:16 pmhttp://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/10/11/135911.php
The Wild Wild West: Blogging Gone Bad
Johnny
Oooh that’s gnarly! If the guy in question wants to make a site with tutorials, all he has to do is write IN HIS OWN WORDS a description of the tutorial informing who wrote it and where it came from with a link to it so people can go and read the original source. That way the author gets a credit and a positive ping-back with visitors to his/her site.
I do a little article every month called “Look What My RSS Dragged In” and basically I write a couple of sub articles in my own words about feeds I am linking to. This way I can generate interest in some cool stuff I find in my RSS feeds without the need to copy/paste stuff from the original article I am talking about. And as for images - it’s easy to make your own! Be Creative!
February 15th, 2008 at 11:26 amIt’s also nice to get positive comments and e-mails from the original authors thanking you for posting about their articles. That way, no-one gets hurt.