It’s your blog
Use other people’s content.
Don’t give credit.
Pretend you’re something you’re not.
Just keep in mind that everything you do online affects your brand, and gives others a strong opinion about who you are. If you want to be known as a content thief, as someone who never gives credit, or for having a hidden agenda, then go right ahead.
But if you want to be known for your original content, for offering praise when it’s deserved, and for being honest, do something about it today. Express your thoughts. Talk about designers you admire. Expect nothing in return.
It’s your blog. Your brand. You choose how we see you.
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49 appreciated comments on “It’s your blog”
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Amen…
I’m so sick of people trying to pass off my content (or others) as their own. If you know what you’re talking about it shouldn’t be that difficult to write your own blog posts.
Same goes for theming.
Wise words, Yoda Airey.
Your blog is a window into who you are, so you are absolutely right – it needs to be an accurate reflection of who you are.
Totally agree. Ripping off others hard work is never acceptable.
Ooh I’m going to copy and paste this to my blog right now…
Totally agree, notice more and more copycats of my articles being re-published as theirs. If they would only call/email me upfront I would be happy to cooperate.
// a bit off topic, but about “it’s your blog” //
@David did you notice an increase or decrease in business requests now that your portfolio and blog are visual alike? Might be to soon to tell, but I’m interested in if potential clients see the difference.
Short and sweet. It’s like a mini inspirational speech. I have a friend who’s blog (the entire blog) got copied. Even the tabs, images, and posts (word for word) straight copied/pasted. I guess I just don’t understand what the purpose is for doing that, maybe they enjoy it.
I’m curious, what made you write this post? Have you recently (ever) been copied?
Because of the amount of people ripping off peoples’ work, this is the reason why I watermark all my images. In some posts I try to refer to the images in the copy text, so that the text is sometimes useless by itself.
Very true.
I am also tired of visiting a site and seeing it link me to another. Most of these posts don’t add any thoughts or comments; they just have a page that says “view original story here”. Is this done just for site traffic? Where is all the original content?
I was working up an article on a similar topic. I wanted to find out how people filter through all the garbage out there and find something valuable. In the piece, I was going to share a few artist and publications that I thought were good to follow, people that just don’t pull from other sites.
Hopefully your post here causes people to comment and share some good places to find information that is actually significant.
Not sure if you saw my rant against a content thief on twitter yesterday or not. It’s one thing if it’s someone new to web design/blog field grabs entire rss feed from other designers’ sites, but the person in question was “senior web designer since 1999.” This just baffles me.
The good thing is that these days, words spread fast. The design community tends to keep an eye on thefts and inform each other. Good post, short and concise.
Dear David,
Copy of other content is too bad but taking the idea after reading is not bad. I have read your content and I have idea to write in my area because it is sure everyone online is following other
Sander, during the past week or two I actually transferred my portfolio from the .co.uk here to the .com (although the .co.uk is still live). I’m fairly sure that 95%+ of my clients arrive at the .com, so I thought it made sense.
Andy, my content is copied all the time, mainly by spam blogs hoping for a few extra AdSense pennies. It was a chat earlier today with a friend that prompted this post. We were talking about how some companies use poor tactics to rank for design-related search engine terms — how these companies never credit the designers responsible for the logos they show (amongst other bad form).
Andrew, do you find it helps (watermarking your images)? I imagine the time that takes fairly adds up.
Jin, I didn’t, but I just had a quick look at your Twitter page. It baffles me, too. And to preach 11 years in the field? I once read you should be wary when told someone has 20 years experience, because it could actually mean one year’s experience, repeated 20 times.
It’s about time someone said something – but there are always going to be content thieves out there. I’ve actually found articles that I submitted to ezinearticles on other people’s blogs without the resource links attached and no credit at all given. At first I was pretty upset and emailed the companies using the material, but nothing ever came from it. The content is still there.
I had content “borrowed” this week. The article title was different, but the “author” took content from another article I referenced, retooled it, then pasted in all the graphics from a post of mine. They did reference the article directly, but my article content visuals made up 90% of the content of his article. I spent hours and hours on those visuals, too. Why bother? What do they get for doing that? AdSense? Pu-lease.
@David → Not really. I process all my images in PS anyway. I have template PSD’s with different heights for varied uses, all of which just have my watermark on the top layer. The only extra time taken is adjusting the layer opacity on certain images :)
I love this post, short and sweet. I couldn’t have said it any better. I don’t know what kind of person does this thing, or how it makes them feel after wards. But I know it would make me feel guilty and unsatisfied. Part of creating a blog post from scratch is making it entirely your own and branding yourself.
Has not happened to me yet, but I know it is inevitable.
It is unfortunate that there are those out there that are always trying to take the easy route.
Like you said, its your brand. If you want to be known as thief, go ahead. You will pay for it eventually though.
Thanks David for this reminder. Personally, I find it rather timely as I’m in the process of starting my own design/business blog. I’ve been frantically jotting topics and notes into a journal as I want to offer fresh and original content. There’s so much great stuff out there, it’d be simple to just regurgitate it and/or relink, but what would that say about my business and more importantly, my character?
Thanks again for offering this platform and for the challenge to be original.
Carson
You’re right Duane, it is inevitable. You could actually count it as a sign you are successful when you’re copied.
I kind of liken it to my now being a full-fledged tutor now at my faculty job because I have been cussed out by a student and yelled at by another faculty member. Once you have had your content/art/etc. stolen you know you’ve hit the big time.
I would imagine a lot of the copying David has experienced would be due to his very high ranking. I do not joke when I tell people how to find his site (“Search Google for ‘Graphic Designer’ and he is the 3rd result”) because that is exactly how I found him. I would think that they see his success with his website and want a similar level so they think that by taking his stuff Google will somehow reward them.
Google probably sees it because our sitemaps will tell it when stuff was published and their crawlers can see David posted at Noon and a copycat post was published three hours later. They just want shortcuts and the sad part is the “shortcut” is doing exactly what David has done… patiently putting thoughtful and original content in the blog. Sure the topics might match on different sites (i.e. every designer and their dog has a post on spec work but no two designers have identical posts on it even if their feelings on it are 100% identical) but each is in the voice of the individual designer.
And that is what I think will hurt these content thieves even more. Not a reputation for being a thief, but rather for not having their own voice.
Unfortunately those who are innovative and involved in design, are always going to find their work being stolen, fortunately it is usually blatantly obvious who the originators of good design/content are, and those who imitate and pilfer. By the way I really like Andrew Kesalls site footer, I will resist the temptation to steal it, or even make something similar.
I sometimes get stuff ripped off, but it’s hard to stop and sometimes it’s not clear whether they’re ripping an off idea or are simply arriving at the same thought independently (I studied law and spent a lot of time looking at intellectual property, so I try to keep an open mind).
That being said, I agree – I think you should express your own opinions and post content that reflects who you are. (By the way, David, I was contacted by a few people who mentioned your recent post on pro bono work and asked to share my thoughts on it. I hope you don’t think I was copying – and I did link to you and say the idea was yours. I feel bad now… But pro bono work for good causes is one of the major parts of my business.)
David,
I’m a bit behind on web-development but once I catch up to current standards then I plan on opening a hybrid service/blog website such as yours.
I just want to say thank you for all the things you share with us, i’ve been a visitor to your blog for about a year now, and this is my first comment.
Theres a long way to go but one day I hope to be recognized as your competition.
Keep your posts coming sir,
your page is a constant inspiration.
Thanks again.
So true David. I think this subject opens up to a much bigger problem all of us designers face, which is the direct copying or stealing of the work, whatever it may be – blogs, designs, ideas etc.. There’s a fine line between getting inspired by another & copying another. Yet do you think there’s any way we could stop or fix this dilemma? It’s so wide, anonymous & overspread, where it becomes difficult to conclude.
It wouldn’t surprise me if it was all for a few AdSense pennies, Doug, but I think more often than not the main reason is search engine rankings. Ridiculous, really.
That’s good, Andrew. Wouldn’t want to think your time was being wasted.
Jon, how’s the tutor position working out? Congrats. I don’t think I was aware of that. You mentioned how no-one names names when it comes to content thieves. A couple of us are planning such a blog post in the near future. It’s about time, too, I say.
Richard, no need to feel bad at all. Yours isn’t a case I was referring to.
Sean, it’s no problem at all. Thanks for reading this past year, and it’s nice to receive your first comment, too.
Lara, as I mentioned to Jon earlier in the comment, calling people out is one way to get somewhere (or at least make sure people know what’s really going on with supposed “design” blogs).
The tutoring is working out good. I do open tutoring during lab hours for mainly Photoshop and Lightroom but I end up doing a bit of Illustrator and Dreamweaver too. The joke now is that if the course code is ARTS or PHOT I end up tutoring it for the most part. I am hoping to expand it into some supplemental instruction as well and maybe even teach when they need adjunct faculty. But it is definitely the first job I ever had where I like what I am doing (even on the bad days), I like my management, and I like my co-workers.
And I cannot wait to see the naming names post because it is overdue. I’ll definitely have to stop by the gourmet popcorn store the day that post goes live.
I’m beginning to wonder if Google can’t do more about ‘spamsense’ blogs (blogs that exist only to produce an income from adsense). Ultimately, *google* get paid though. The only person who really loses out, is the advertiser, and the person who’s content is getting ripped off. Google makes money off the advertiser, and the other portion goes to the person who is using the ripped off content for having displayed the ads.
It’s just wrong.
you are absolutely right!
sometimes I use other people’s content to be the ‘main idea’ for what I’ll write but of course I make a link to the source or at least ask permission before.
I really like your blog. Especially the photo in this entry… it looks awesome. The overall design of everything looks really good.
I would love nothing more than to express how I feel on my blog, but I feel like I have to restrain because someone may take it the wrong way, it might have a negative effect on some business, or someone will just steal all my thoughts. I don’t know really. I am passionate about what I do, so I will let that guide me. You won’t see me not giving credit though, that’s for sure.
Great reminder about branding, it’s twice has hard to “fix” brand damage as it is to just maintain a strong brand.
Paul: Depends on how much money you can spend on an image consultant. Xe anyone? :D
Well said. It’s the best argument for putting your best foot forward online. Sometimes it’s easy to forget since we’re not personally around when other people are experiencing our sites online. But now, what to do about parts of your online persona about which you have less control, such as facebook, etc?
Very sweet! short but a very powerful statement David. Like it!
Preach on brother… I hear you. It sucks having people rip down content, pictures, or what ever. I try to be thankful to those who help me and give them props when they do help. When I think about your blog I think of original content or at least a source for accurate information.
Thanks
Dan
I think most beginners online start getting into really scammy stuff first. Lots of affiliate networks offer rebills and other questionable offers.
After time you realise that you can’t build a longterm business this way and stop.
Alex, on April 4th, 2010 // said:
“I think most beginners online start getting into really scammy stuff first. Lots of affiliate networks offer rebills and other questionable offers.
After time you realise that you can’t build a longterm business this way and stop.”
————————
You are so right. That’s exactly what I started out doing. But when I wanted to start talking about stuff I wanted to talk about, my site lost popularity lol. I’m just happy writing about what I love now.
Always give credit where credit is do! Great post David, and very wise words, as usual :-)
There are three categories of people out there like this:
1) The blatant non-apologetic thief
2) The fairly harmless wannabe web-guru cultivating “their” traffic
3) The unintentional newbie trying to leap-frog a development phase in their career
Love the blog. Loving Scotland.
Cheers!
I agree with this this post, but to be fair most of the internet is duplicate content. If people give credit to the original source then its all good.
Jon, the fact that you like your job, even on the bad days, is fantastic. I think you’ve found your calling.
Vanessa, I wonder how motivated Google actually are, because as you say, they get the advertising revenue. In the past I’ve spent time reporting spam blogs via the webmaster tools, but as far as I can tell it’s had no effect (that involves numerous reports about the same blog, and I know I’m not the only person doing the reporting).
Jamie, it’s great that you’re happy writing about what you love. There are far too many blogs started by people for the wrong reasons, and once they discover there’s no passion for what’s being published, another blog bites the dust.
Martin, glad you’re loving Scotland so far. Long may it continue.
I do enjoy it and I do hope to one day have a faculty position but I will have to wait and see. I do not want to give up design though. Was even thinking about doing an international internship in Ireland (ROI) through the local university next summer.
Your blog and what you write on it says a lot about you, its nice to have dedicated bloggers like this one here with original content that’s actually useful, short and precise. keep up the good work.
It happened to me a few months ago when I client I had worked with forwarded me an email from a guy who was offering his design services to them. In the email, he had my logo and the logos of few other designers I personally know and he was showing them off as samples of his work. Some of those logos were also on his portfolio website. My client recognized my stuff instantly and alerted me. When I emailed this “thief”, he actually replied back saying “It was only used to show off as a sample as I didn’t have enough work of my own and I thought those logos looked good. You should actually be flattered!” .. Needless to say I was appalled by the gall of this guy …..
Have you been to Ireland before, Jon? If you go for it, all the very best. I’d not swap my internship in the US for anything. Great learning experience.
Sneh, what an absolute joker. It’s ridiculous what some people think will fly.
Never been out of the US except for Canada.
Yep you are very right. I’ve started a blog recently and it’s hard not to think “What do people want to see?”, “What do people want to hear?”, “This video is funny, I should put it on my blog!”… Really, people want to hear the bloggers stories, thoughts, opinions. But at the same time, a site to promote the person’s work shouldn’t get too personal.
David:
On a related note, you tweeted a few weeks aback about editing or purging your archives, but there wasn’t any elaboration.
Have you gotten rid of what you came to consider “off topic” articles from your archives at any point to both increase the overall site density for SEO reasons? Of course there is the parallel branding aspect of removing off topic articles, but I wonder what your thoughts are on that.
Doug, over the past few years I’ve removed a few posts I thought weren’t right, but with that note on Twitter you saw, I was referring to the language used, and the thoughts expressed. For instance, when I look at some of my earliest blog posts, I see that I no longer talk in exactly the same way (and it’s important to write as if you’re talking). Does that make sense?
David: thx for the reply. What you said makes complete sense. When you progress as a writer, you want to keep less-progressed work out of the current mix of what you are presenting to your audience. Older work may not adequately reflect current understanding, style, or any number of attributes that don’t line up with where you are now as a writer and designer. I have some pruning to do…
My pleasure, Doug. I find the same differences in many of the comments I’ve left on my posts, and, on occasion, have edited those, too. I need to tell myself, “Enough,” however, given the thousands of comments on show.