Content thieves: out them with style

When I read this article, Content thieves: I want to punch you in the face | Internet Marketing Strategy: Conversation Marketing, I had to stand up and cheer:

“But ‘professional marketers’ who brazenly steal content for their own company sites are different. They’re evil. They’re not qualified marketers and they know it. To fool unwitting potential customers, they steal someone else’s copywriting.”

Ian Lurie does a masterful job of outing content thieves.

Unfortunately, content thieves are everywhere. It’s not just tiny little businesses which steal content either: Aaron Wall outed Mahalo for scraping content.

What can you do about content theft?

You can do a lot. Start with the DMCA, and contact Google. With any luck at all, you’ll get the thieves’ sites removed from the search index.

Should you out thieves on your own sites and blogs?

Of course you should — but notify them first. If you get no response, or if you can’t find anyone to contact, out away.