Tuesday, May 3, 2022

VIOLATED!



Dear readers,

It was brought to my attention that another website has been copying several of my complete blogposts and reproducing it in its entirety on their site. By the time I was alerted, I had a trip planned and have not able to address the situation until now.

First of all, I would like to personally thank the author of I-Luv-Dolls for bringing this whole sordid incident to my attention and keeping me informed over the past month. I would also like to thank the author of Black Doll Collecting for her efforts and information on combating this problem. 

Since January of this year, myself and other bloggers, have been victims of "bot scraping" by a website that professes to report doll news from around the world. Bot Scraping or Web Scraping is the practice of using programmed software (bots) to extract large amount of data or content to post on another site without crediting the source. And while all of my identifying tags were left intact, if someone were not familiar with my blog, it would be easy to surmise that Fashion Doll Stylist is produced by some sort of publishing group WHICH IS NOT THE CASE!!!!! Moreover, by publishing my blog on another site, I am robbed of visitors to this page.

As all of you are well aware, my blog which is in its 10th year, (on the Blogspot platform) is completely produced, written, photographed and published by one person....ME!!! I do not receive any money for my hard work or the materials I use in producing my doll fashions. My blog is a labor of love. I do not mind sharing my knowledge, my love for dolls, all my experiences with others. I only ask that before reproducing anything, I am informed prior and that credit is given to me. That's all.  And for the most part, whether it has a photo or a tutorial, most of the time others have complied and I thank you for that.

But in this case, I am particularly upset because the people behind this website never requested my permission or that of any of the other blog authors from whom it has STOLEN content. Moreover, it REFUSES to take down content when requested!

With that, I urge anyone else whose work is susceptible to be impacted, to read the April 6 post of Debbie Garrett's Black Doll Collecting for a detailed idea of the problem and what she tried to do to regain control of her work.

If you have a blog on Blogspot, you might want to go to the offending website to see if your posts have published without your consent. Then return to Debbie's April 10 post "Updated Settings"  for a few updated ideas as to how you might stop this from happening to you.  w

I will be publishing this first before changing my settings so that should this website decide to "scrape" this post, they will alert their own readers as who really produces Fashion Doll Stylist and how I feel about their practices. And then I will adjust my settings in hopes that it will put an end to future work being taken.

We'll return with our usual type of fashion related posts shortly.

April



16 comments:

  1. This is terrible what you write about. I'm scared. I hope you will solve this problem.. My soul and felelings are with you now and I also thank you for the information, because it is important to other creators.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aya, This is indeed a terrible situation. Let us all hope we can find a solution.

      Delete
  2. One of my posts has been copied too. It's so dumb, because it's my anniversary post, that has nothing to do with toy news. I've changed some settings, but now I can't reply to comments. Anyway, I'm going to try to to take down their post, but they won't because they're probably some sort of content farm.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Monstercrafts, they went through the last six months or so and took a variety of my posts. At first I was thinking "well at least they left the identifying tags on," but then I realize that if people go to them instead of my site, I will have lower viewer numbers while they build up their "followers." This in itself is so very unfair. So yes, I will be following any and all tips I can. At least I can put up a good fight. It would be truly sad to see what's left of the dolly blogs disappear because of these thieves.
      P.S. Thank you so much for your help regarding the settings. As you can see, I am able to reply to the comments again.l

      Delete
  3. Hello April, I'm shocked to hear what happened to you. It's just amazing. I was on the site and indeed I saw the entirety of several of your posts with all your photos. It's shocking. I took the opportunity to check if my blog had been stolen as well. For the moment my posts have not been stolen, I think because it's in French and because I'm not known like you. But I do know that many of the photos I shared on the 80s and 90s Barbie mini albums, all of the photos I shared were taken from my blog and released around the world. I know that I did not create these images, but at least to give the source of all these images that I have kept for years.
    As you write, we do all this work with passion and we have no financial gain with what we do. And the fact that they steal the posts, effectively it deprives us of the number of views. It's really sad, and yet we've been here for years, 10 years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shasarignis, this is indeed quite sad. What is even worse is the fact that we live in a society where people are not respecting the hard work of others and feel that they can simply take whatever they want. It is very discouraging and if left unchecked could kill the remaining doll blogs that are still functioning. Let's hope that we can find a way to protect ourselves.

      Delete
  4. This is just outrageous... I have no words.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kamelia, those of us who have been plagiarized are beyond angry!

      Delete
  5. Thank you for alerting your readers about what Toynewz.com has done and continues to do to several bloggers. I hope the site will be permanently taken down by the domain host.

    Anyone who had had posts bot scraped by this site, please write the domain host and inform them of the issue. Include URLs to at least two of your posts that have been copied by the site and the URLs of the same posts at the Toynewz.com website. This will provide proof that your content has been copied.

    Send the email to both of the following email addresses.
    Abuse@heg.com and Abuse@hegus.com

    dbg

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DGB--Thank you for your efforts in trying to fight off these jerks and thank you for all of your helpful tips. I'm in the process of composing my letter and will be sending it off tonight!

      Delete
  6. I'm sorry this happened to you all- I hope something can be done but that horrible site is still up, still taking credit. WHY do they do it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes this is bad. What makes it even worse is the fact that this isn't some small time blog that is doing this to us. It is a domain owned by one of the biggest internet site hosts! I suppose they do this to gain "influencer" status at everyone else's expense. Otherwise, there isn't any money to be made!

      Delete
  7. We all need to keep each other informed and to be on guard! With sites that allow you to pin information now some might think that the rules are no longer applicable! Far from the truth! Ask permission and give credit!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes we should. I wish there was a way we could launch a class action suit against these clowns.

      Delete
    2. Can we do that? We should be able to do more!

      Delete
  8. Thank you Linda for the idea. I shut off my RSS feed which stopped the site from scraping me, but unfortunately I lost readers in the meantime. So I've put things back and put that first line in my text! Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

We love hearing from you. Your comment will be published shortly. Please note: SPAM IS NOT TOLERATED. It will be deleted immediately!!