General Category > Blog

Content sharing & misappropriation

(1/3) > >>

kat:
This entry is filed under "things that have to be done against ones better judgement" (read that as "something that has to be done to raise awareness of 'an issue' whilst being reluctant to "name and shame" participants in any way, or be part of the endemic "call-out culture" that's metastasizing across the Internet these days"). So probably not going to "Win friends and influence people" [amazon] on this one, but here goes...
@BlenderHub You should *not* be creating author accounts on behalf of others in the first place. Please remove effective immediately.— KatsBits (@Mrkat) August 9, 2015
--- End quote ---
Although the issue discussed in the tweet above has been resolved for the specific account in question ("KatsBits"), the broader issue remains in that the above mentioned "Author Accounts" are proxies, accounts created by the sites owner(?) on behalf of other individuals without their express knowledge or consent.
It does not go without saying that without exception this should never, ever, be done. It is never, ever, a good idea for Site Owners to create accounts on behalf of others without their express permission or knowledge as doing so is viewed as an attempt to forcibly obligate the invoked Individual(s) or Entity(s) to terms they may not otherwise agree with. An Individuals or Entities self-agency should never be ignored by Site Owners for the sake of convenience unless they're willing to risk fourth-degree burns.

ratty redemption [RIP]:
what site was doing this?

kat:
BlenderHub, their Tweet is embedded in the post (it might not be visible depending on browser/device security settings) and their Terms of Use linked, which specifically states that creating an account means the account holder agrees to the sites terms and (unrevokable) use of content. They're not the only ones, just the most recent of a long line of websites that have had to be dealt with over the years :o|

ratty redemption [RIP]:
understood and i can see the embedded tweet, just wasn't familiar with that site. i see they also have videos by vscorpionc, who i know from youtube. she's had trouble in the past with other yt channels re-uploading her blender tutorials without her permission.

how much effort does it take for these sites to contact the original authors and ask permission? /sarcasm

kat:
In their defense they were at least quick to address the problem (although probably due to the issue being raised publicly on Twitter), something that's not always the case, especially for sites not based in North America or mainland Europe. And yep, that's the problem, if dozens of sites are scraping an authors content it seriously eats into that persons ability to create a community around their own work (who should be the greater beneficiary of such). It would be a surprise if the user you mention even knows, and they might feel themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of asking for content to be removed.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page