Wednesday 21 May 2014

A rant about stealing content (contains rude words)

Over on TMP, the monstrous bellend that is Tango01 has taken some of the words and pictures from this blog and dropped them into a post.

The massive cocknocker didn't even have the good manners to ask if I minded before simply stealing my words and pictures and using them to massage his ego by spaffing them unwonted onto TMP.
As it happens if he had asked I'd have told him to go and shove a rusty tin can up his miserable worthless rear-end, but that's beside the point.
He didn't even ask.
He just took.
All la-de-da, like it's perfectly natural to pop around to someone's house and help yourself to their property.

I have no idea what motivates the humungous ballsack of a shitpuffin that is "Amicalement Armand" but frankly he should get himself a life and stop sucking the energy and goodness from everyone else in pursuit of whatever it is that will give meaning to his shallow and vapid existence. The parasitic leech.

But Tom, I hear you ask, it's only a few words and pictures, what does it matter?

It matters because they're MY words and pictures. Things that I made. Me. They might not be very good words, or particularly interesting pictures, but they're mine, they belong to me, not some self-congratulatory ego-masturbator from Argentina. Or anyone else for that matter*.

Anyone who knows anything about the internet will tell you that content is king. Anyone who generates content will also tell you that despite it being very valuable, almost everyone tries to screw great content out of the people that generate it for as little money as possible.
Stories are legion of writers being asked to work for nothing on web sites, journalists at newspapers are expected to share their work online for free, people are being ripped off and told to think about the publicity and "what it can do for their career" rather than the money they are due.
Fortunes are being made on the back of content creation but not, for the most part, by the people who create it.

In the real, non-toy soldier part of my existence I work with online content. I know how hard it is to make it good and I know (and I'm sure many of you who've read my posts will agree) that it's easier, but still hard work, to make bad or mediocre content. In either case it's work, someone had to give of their time and energy to create it - it doesn't just appear because the Magic Content Fairies wave their wands (although that appears to be what most accountants imagine is the case). I write and share things on here for my own pleasure and hope that some of you get enjoyment out of reading it. I'm not doing it to make money, or as a career. But that doesn't make it any less valuable. Or any less mine.

The internet has bought a great many benefits and is a genuinely astonishing tool for the communication of ideas and for bringing people together. However the downside of that is the increasing growth in people expecting everything online to be free, and freely available for them to do with as they please. But remember everything out there has been created by someone. A person or persons have given some of their time to create that content for you to appreciate. That doesn't make it yours. It belongs to them, and you need to ask them if you want to use it, pay them if they ask you to, and not use it if they tell you you can't.

Post script: Bill at TMP responded immediately to my complaint by removing the content. Thanks to him for such a swift and appropriate response.
Wonder how long 'll be waiting for an apology from the Argentinian Weasel?

*I expect that as part of my agreement with Blogger they claim some or total ownership of everything posted here. But that's not really the point, is it?

11 comments:

  1. Well said, if a little flowery!

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  2. A fully justified rant. Theft is theft, doesn't matter what has been stolen. Did he think he would get away with it? Good on you for naming and shaming.

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  3. Nice rant - the little bas**** steals content all the time. What did he steal from you?

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  4. Good post, I agree fully with your comments regarding this individual, he really should just get a life.

    Cheeky so and so....

    Steve

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  5. Thanks All,
    Bill at TMP responded immediately I alerted him by removing the content, so credit to him for doing that.
    Tango clearly has lots of time on his hands. If he spent more of that doing something creative of his own instead re-purposing the work of others...

    Tom

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  6. Sorry to hear this happened. By and large I find his constant posting of links fairly irritating. Didn't know he went as far as this though (however I do recall people getting confused about who owned the material he posted in the past). Pleased you got it sorted out with Bill's help.

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  7. Well done Tom
    Tango01 sucks the life out of TMP with his futile spamming often to irrelevant fora.

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  8. I have also called this guy on his behaviour, after seeing my hit count go through the roof one day, with people coming from TMP (I hadMt even heard of the site before then). In fact, I joined up just to put in a formal complaint against him. He didn't even see what he had done wrong. He didn't ask, and posted pictures of my work. He didn't take any of the text, but still.

    Hates him!

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  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  10. Although I ignore him and have him stifled, he posts pics from my blog to TMP quite often these days......

    Life is to short to get upset about it, the guy seems to be a bit of a loser.

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  11. Great Post. I'll just hit the share button supplied here...

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