I’m not really sure this can even be real.
For years I’ve been reading the newsletter of jl scott, the Director of iCop. iCop is a members organization that promotes – make that demands – honest dealings in online business. If you join and follow their guidelines and rules, you can display the iCop seal on your site. This helps your site visitors feel more confidant and safe dealing with you.
Her newsletters are almost always interesting and thought provoking. She goes on a rant from time to time. I agree with her feelings about the need for integrity in any business, especially online business.
After years of following her, I think she’s a pretty good person and a straight shooter – but if we ever got into a discussion about politics – it could probably get ugly pretty quick.
jl has been pretty consistant down through the years in ranting about people stealing other’s intellectual property. She says it happens all the time. It seems a lot of people will lift a picture, or even some copy from another website, then post it as their own work. The real low-lifes just link to your pictures so they use your bandwidth to display them on their site.
So she’s just written a book about the problem, and how to protect yourself and how to deal with it if it happens.
Here’s the Unbelievable Part
jl just sent out an email. It seems she has become a victim of web piracy. And not just a picture was lifted. Not just a hot link to that picture so they’re using her server resources. They took the whole iCop site.
What kind of jackass would do that?
She gives these links to her site:
http://www.i-cop.org/index2.htm
http://www.i-cop.org/guidelines.htm
And then this one:
Now give them credit – they did change the header and add a background image (sarcasm intended). But they took her content word-for-word.
And this is supposed to be a church organization. Holy crap Batman!
So let’s get this straight… jl scott comes out with a book about protecting yourself from web piracy, and during the introductory period for the book some bozo steals her entire website?
Who has timing like that?
That’s just too good to be true isn’t it?
Shouldn’t that be making your scam alert radar start blasting, “Whoop! Whoop! Danger Will Robinson! Danger!”
Most of the time it would. But I don’t think so this time. I think this is just one of those Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction moments.
This Is Really Sweet
One of the best parts of all this.
This is really on there.
Down at the bottom of the page, in the footer, you’ll find this graphic about copyright infringement. It links to a kind of cheesy Internet Law site warning about the evils of using other’s web property.
I’m not making this up.
I pretty much ignored jl’s book and her warnings, but maybe I’ll have to rethink that decision.
http://www.i-cop.org/thieves.htm
It’s a crazy world.
P.S. Note to the FCC, FTC, FDA, USDA and friends: There are no affiliate links in this post. Thank you for asking though.
{ 1 trackback }