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“Internet Fair Use” Why I Hate Infowars & Internet Plagiarism

If it were not for the internet, so many would be left in the dark as to what is happening in this nation and the world.  We owe a great deal to the internet, alternative news agencies & bloggers that make this information available to us.  If you truly support bloggers who are trying to make you aware and prepared, this is a must read!

Since running this blog from June 2014, I’ve had  a fair share of articles make their way to larger alternative news websites like Infowars, Natural News, PrepperWebsite, SurvivalBlog.com and more.

It was during October 2014 that I had my first popular article.  I contacted Mac Slavo @ SHTFPlan.com and he was excited to repost my article.  He was very courteous and asked if he could repost the article text “in full”, or whether I wanted him to only republish 1/3 of the article with a “read more” tag.  Excited with the opportunity, I told him that he could republish my article in full text and all was good in the world.

After only a day of being up on his site, bigger fish like Infowars republished the story in full text, but did not ask for my permission.  Additionally, they sited SHTFPlan.com as the source, rather than On Point Preparedness as the original author.  Luckily, Mac had my website embedded multiple times throughout the document, so some traffic went my way although I was presented essentially as a third tier source of information.

When this article was reposted by Infowars, I was ecstatic!  I couldn’t believe how quickly my writing was disseminated over the net, and that excitement overwhelmed the fact that Infowars and other sites had essentially plagiarized my writings without my permission.  However, now that I’ve been doing this for about a year, I’ve gotten quite upset at how several websites within the preparedness community are essentially stealing my and other people’s work in order to keep their websites full of exciting content.

The reposting of full text articles is so rampant and stealing so much traffic that I felt I needed to write about it on behalf of all the small bloggers who are not being given applicable props.  It is getting to the point of where a blogger does not even want to write anymore.

Innocent Mistakes?

Taking Infowars as the sacrificial lamb, I want to expose their terrible theft of articles…

If you read an Infowars or PrisonPlanet repost from a bigger website like RT.com or Dailymail.UK, or NationalJournal, you’ll notice that they only copy and paste a couple of paragraphs from their website and cut the article short with a “Read More” link.

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However, if you look at their reposts from smaller websites like Alt-market.com, my website, Gateway Pundit, or others, they repost every single character of the article.  The only reference back to the original author is a small one liner at the bottom of the article (which no one clicks on).

So, yes…they know exactly what they are doing.  They only repost part of bigger fish articles because they know they may get into legal trouble.  However, repost a smaller fish’s content….they say “who cares?”  Infowars and other sites are taking the entire content so that readers stay on their pages longer, which in turn increases their google analytics and Alexa.com metrics.  Good ratings = more traffic (for them).  The one small link they have to the original author only provides that person a couple hundred views from what should be thousands or tens of thousands of views.

Another incident that happened to me yesterday is when I found a “recommended for you video” on Youtube with 275,000 views.  Turns out, it was a complete downloaded copy of my Interview with ex NASA Scientist John L. Casey.  I filed copyright infringement with Youtube, and they took the replicate down…however, that is 275,000 views and earnings that I have completely lost for an interview I worked very hard to create.

What does it matter?

First of all, it is out of principle.  It takes considerable time for a blogger to put together information for the net.  If it is an article that includes research, factor in 10X or more time.  However, outside of the principle of theft, bloggers do in fact make earnings from their blogs via sponsors, advertisements, Youtube commissions and other.  When websites steal content, it is essentially stealing another person’s money!

Personally, I have a full time job and this website is an avenue to help get people more aware and prepared.  The meager earnings I make go towards my own preparations.  However, I know several bloggers who’s sole income earnings are based off of their blog and associated revenue streams.  Stealing content from them hurts them in an unimaginable way.

 The Good Eggs & What You Should do

I also wanted to ensure people are aware of those bloggers like PrepperWebsite.com, InvestmentWatchBlog.com, SurvivalBlog.com, SteveQuayle.com who have superb etiquette in how they republish.  These folks either publish headlines of smaller blog articles with direct links back to their website, or ask the author for permission for full text reposting.  It is a vast understatement to say “I appreciate them.”

What you can do: If you see any website that reposts an article in full text from an original source, take the extra time to click the link and read the article from the original website.  If you share, share the original source rather than the reposter.  If you want to support us even more, make your voice heard and email websites like Infowars on their bad practices.

Since I’m so fired up about this, this article can’t be complete without me ranting in person about it….

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