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Website Hijinks
Posted by Marlow Harris under Real Estate
[9] Comments
Rain City Guide rags on PubSub’s list because the Seattle P.I.’s Real Estate blog keeps coming up on top, ahead of them, Grow-a-Brain and the Zillow blog. I dunno….. I kind of like it! As a matter of fact, it’s one of my favorite lists (tee-hee!)
Bloodhound Blog has a nice post about blogs that feed the hungry mind. He mentions yours truly as having a “serious mind. Not dour or joyless, but never frivolous or shallow.” I’m flattered. But obviously, he’s never seen this.
I got a heads up about the Holm Team website. Anytime you use their real estate search, and click on “more details”, it frames the results with my name and photo. Ssshhhh! Don’t tell them! The site has a -0 page rank, but it’s a hoot to think that anytime one of their clients searches for real estate, my name, photo, website address, email and telephone number comes up and it looks like one of my listings. (I’m not sure if they stole the code or they just have a lazy website developer… Let’s not tell them. Let’s just wait and see how long it takes for them to notice.)
That reminds me of a time that an agent took Debbie Ferrari’s rotating MLS Search Image, and drew it directly onto his site from her image URL, of a flipping MLS search.
According to Debbie’s husband, William Koelzer, this agent blatently and obviously took the gif from Debbie’s site, so they loaded up THIS message to that URL:
“THIS agent IS STEALING
MY MLS rotating IMAGE artwork
from DEBBIEFERRARI.COM“
Several days went by. Then they got more aggressive. Gene Carey of View MLS Homes in Northern Illinois, made them an even better gif to replace that one with:
So, any visitor to his site saw that message! It was on their for several days before someone called it to the agent attention. (For a cached view, click HERE.) Sweet.
Arizona Realtor Alice Held of Come2AZ.com has had her cactus-themed Web stolen and her content used almost verbatim without permission more than once, and she added some very scary “legal stuff” to her website, complete with her attorney’s name and contact info, in case you “forget” and lift some of her content.
Your site is typically considered copyrighted by putting the appropriate copyright notice ( © Copyright, year, by your name. All rights reserved) on each page. However, unless you register your content with the Copyright Office, you have no recourse but a “cease and desist†letter when people infringe on your material.
Wonder how you can check and see if anyone’s stealing your stuff? Check out CopyScape.com
Have copyrights for the pictures on your web site? Don’t want visitors to be able to save them? Visit “Right Click Disabler“.
This whole blogging phenomenon is fueled by content on other blogs…. we use them for inspiration and for jumping off points to continue and further the rant. But there’s a difference between being inspired and just stealing content without credit. One would be advised to know the difference!
9 Responses to “ Website Hijinks ”
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[...] Marlow provides a list of entertaining stories about hijacks (along with some good-natured teasing about the high PubSub ranking or her PI blog!)… [...]
Great post Marlow!
We sure had a lot of fun with that stolen image from Debbie’s site! I was sending the URL of the offender to all my friends and family so they could get a laugh out of it too.
Thanks for re-hashing, I laughed out loud again today when I read about it and remembered the whole situation.
BTW, Nice blog too!
Sincerely,
Matt Pellerin
Phoenix Arizona
PhoenixHomes.com
That’s great! Maybe you should put your contact information at the top of the listings too!
Boo Rain City Guide.
Or better yet, it should have said something like, “GET LOST LOSER! Buyers and Sellers suck!”.
Putting a copyright notice on a site serves little in the prevention of thieves stealing content. I know. My site has been copied over and over again, by thieves who love to “blame it on the webmaster.” DUH! In real estate we know about vicarious liability. If you hire a webdesigner and he copies my work (or the work of others), you are responsible. So be safe and investigate the work, if it’s copied don’t use it. Registered work carries with it protection. The statutory damages are huge, more than many REALTORS make in a year.
Copyright infringement is a serious mistake.
Well, what did you do to get them to remove your content from their site? Or is it still there? I’d love to hear your story…
Just a note to say I really like your blog, and you’re doing a great job. I’ve also been using Seeking Alpha’s write ups of the housing market, and thought you might also find them useful.
Worth looking at the housing section of Seeking Alpha, the largest web site providing stock market opinion and analysis from blogs, money managers and investment newsletters. Seeking Alpha covers the homebuilder stocks, but there’s also a lot of commentary on the overall housing market from a Wall Street perspective.
http://usmarket.seekingalpha.com/by/type/housing
Marlow, I remember that happening and reading about it in the AA forums. It was quite commical and what a way to get back at someone for stealing images