Over the past few months, I’ve received numerous emails, inquiring about my “clients” who are being accused of blog scraping/plagiarism/copyright infringement/etc. And this is where the misunderstanding begins.
On February 20, 2007, I released Cleaker, my first WordPress theme, into public domain. I was super excited about it and really tried to get the word out as much as possible. It seems to be one of those things where it was the right theme for the right time. As of today, there have been close to 15,000 downloads of Cleaker from my site, and while it was still on the WordPress Themes directory, it was probably downloaded 15-20,000 times from there as well. Needless to say, Cleaker is in fairly high use.
Cleaker is available for download by anyone. And I have no say about who downloads it, or what they use it for once they download it. This is the same for all WordPress Theme designers. So my question is what happens when people start contacting you because they think you’re involved? As I mentioned above, I’ve been contacted about this somewhat frequently; most recently I received a phone call from someone in a marketing department for fairly large company. Someone using Cleaker was copy-and-pasting their blog posts, word for word. And since I left an attribution link in the footer with my name, and I also left a badge for Cleave Design in one of the sidebars, this person called and was certain that this content scraper was my client and was very angry with me.
When I receive an email, it often goes something like this:
Your client or yourself who is at [insert website URL] is using duplicate content from my website without my permission and will be reported to Google if the content is not removed a.s.a.p. and I am informed of the fact.
I understand their frustration. I’ve seen some of my posts copied word for word before on other sites, and it is incredibly frustrating. Especially if you are a company and pay people good money to produce the content that is being scraped.
I suppose my question is for the WordPress Theme designers: what do you do to protect yourself against any legal action? In every single one of these situations, I have done nothing wrong. I have had absolutely no contact with the person who is scraping the content and putting it up on the site which is using the Cleaker WordPress theme. But the people who find their stolen content don’t know that – and if they don’t trust me – what is to stop them from pursuing legal options?
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t think there is anything you need to do. There would be no case against you esp. since there is a history that traces back to the creation of the design by yourself – these are people who clearly don’t understand what those little footers are. Short of creating a disclaimer stating that you are responsible for the design ONLY (which could be removed by anyone using the theme – as you know), there’s really nothing you can do but there’s also nothing you need to do I wouldn’t imagine.
You asked “if they don’t trust me – what is to stop them from pursuing legal options?”
I would suggest that the cost of fruitless litigation ought to stop them from pursuing legal options against you. Steps you could take to help them recognize you are not the appropriate target might include sending a reply email that (1) states that you don’t own or control the infringing website, (2) expresses your own disapproval of theft of content, (3) explains your relationship to the Cleaker theme, and (4) shows a link to the page where anyone can download Cleaker.
Because the theme was released to public domain and you don’t own the website or have any affiliation with said website, I really don’t think you’d have any problem if any legal action were to even take place. Any good copyright lawyer would know that you are not to blame for that.
When people threaten legal action against me, I just ask them to contact my lawyer:
Harry Christopher Carabina
1060 W Addison St
Chicago, IL 60613
Of course, Harry Caray died in 1998… but no one is really going to sue you anyway!
Adam
You know, I’ve run into this kind of thing before as well. From what I’ve been told, there’s nothing that you need to do, except for maybe a standard “I’m not responsible for the content of any sites using said template, blah blah…”
Then, just keep a kind email on hand, something like, “Please accept our deepest concerns, as we understand how upsetting plagiarism can be. I regret to inform you that the template has been released to the public, and we have no way to control any of the content of this website, nor are we affiliated in any way with the authors of said site.” If necessary, point them to the first statement somewhere online in closing, and wish them a nice day.
This, of course, is mostly to reassure you and help them go in the right direction. Unless you ripped the content yourself, there’s not a thing they could do about it.
Best wishes,
Shawn
be proud.
NINAL, but from a legal standpoint you’re probably just fine, as has been pointed out… meaning you have no liability. This of course does not prevent a frivolous lawsuit, for which you would want liability insurance — not to so much pay the claim, but to cover the defense costs.
From a practical standpoint, it would be good to do what you can to try and make the nuisance go away up front, which is what I think you’re getting at here. Perhaps rewording the footer credit could help — e.g., “Theme design by Cleave Design // content posted by <?php bloginfo(‘name’); ?>” or something to that effect.
You could even put something like “Contact <?php bloginfo(‘admin_email’); ?>” in the footer. Most users wouldn’t want their email in the footer, so provide instructions on removing it… since splogs are automated they probably won’t bother.
You could also link to a landing page for the Cleaker theme rather than to your site home, and include a paragraph there for “What to do if…” that addresses the practice of content-scraping and that you only did the design, not the content.
hth.