Copying!

My work has been copied by another site. They have just cut and pasted my directory of links. I just searched for something in Google and found out about this. This site is in German and previously had referred visitors to my site. I cannot believe this. The site is also a listed in the open directory. Is there anything that could be done about this?

Contact your lawyer.

That is always an option. But, I have read the posts on this board and believe that it's against Open Directory policy. This site used to list my site in it's directory. I actually have an email (March of this year) from them that says that my site is listed there.

Anyway, would the editors of the German Open Directory able to contact them about this. I have saved the backup files and could prove that it's my work. Besides, it's very obvious. They are a German site and the links are all in English!

I would appreciate your input.

Regards

We have no control over what other sites do, no matter what language.

To further elaborate about the copied content issue...

ODP editors are neither lawyers nor the "internet police", and we do not contact site owners discussing whether they have copied content from other sites and to what extent. We just review sites, and IF we find and have evidence that site B is made up mainly with content copied from site A, we may decide not to list site B.

That is, if you can prove that a site is made up mainly by content copied from your site and you can prove that you are the original owner of said content, you may contact a meta-editor and send him/her the evidence you have.

OTOH, notice that if it's just a copyright issue (that is, a site copied some content from your site, but still has enough of its own content to guarantee a listing in the ODP), sure we are not the ones to contact and we can't do anything but leaving both sites listed in the appropriate categories. We can enforce ODP Guidelines and policies, not copyright policies...

Hope this helps.

Remember that we can often recognize copying; we can't usually tell which way the copying went. So we stay out of that business.

Thanks for the explanation. I have contacted an editor of the ODP about the issue and explained the problem. I actually checked out where the other site is located in the dmoz and wrote a letter to him (CC staff) I wonder if I will get a reply from him.
In this case the copying is real obvious. Their content is all in German and they have totally copied my directory of English sites. At any rate, I understand your policy but it's very hard to detect copying before a site is listed. I discovered this through a google search. I also plan to contact them. Since I have worked very hard for my site, it's natural to pursue this.

Regards,

But removing them from a directory doesn't solve the problem of them supposedly copying your "stuff". Without some kind of legal intervention, the site will live on.

If they only copied your directory links, there isn't much you can do about it. If they copied your descriptions word for word, then you might have a case for copyright infringement in the courts, not on the ODP.

I contacted them directly and the issue is resolved now.

Regards

That's good to hear. (Just because we aren't homicide investigators doesn't mean we like murderers.)

I'm glad to hear that your problem is solved and I'm sorry that I didn't find the time before to send you an answer.

The other editors explained how to handle such a case. I just wanted to add that the site has much other interesting content (I hope that they didn't copy this stuff too). Therefor, it was worth listing it. There's so much information on that site that "your" links didn't even have been mentioned in the description.

You write: "it's very hard to detect copying before a site is listed" - I hope you understand that for an editor, it's much more difficult to detect copying - particularly when the content is translated from other languages.

Please understand that we are collecting links and describing sites. As ettore said: We do not contact site owners to tell them what they have to do.

I'm sorry, but that response is very difficult to accept.

I've posted elsewhere on this forum tonight to explain my difficulty with a particular site that purports to be an 'official' site for a rock band, but in fact isn't. I believe dmoz has a responsibility to make sure that what it lists (and what it continues to list) is above board, since at best the appearances in the search engines of these dodgy sites cause problems for the genuine sites (and by extension the end users), and at worst means that you may be effectively condoning illegal activity, in some cases.

The total lack of feedback hitherto from the organisation has also been difficult to take, when I've merely been reporting a genuine issue.

If the activity is illegal report it to the authorities. If it is truly illegal the authorities should be able to handle it. We are not the web police.

Your [scormie] problem has already been resolved in: http://www.resource-zone.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=general&Number=7037 , and was not a refusal to change the details, simply the fact that no-one had looked into that category for several months so your change note was still waiting to be actioned. It has been sorted now.

I haven't listed any new sites today. I have been going through doing quality control, moving back into unreviewed all those sites that are now unavailable. The automatic checker has flagged up thousands of sites as '404' today, so those have also got to be sorted out, along with all the other ongoing jobs.

>I believe dmoz has a responsibility to make sure that what it lists (and what it continues to list) is above board.

You are wrong. DMOZ is not the cops. DMOZ is not the inquisition. It cannot and will not be. The editor's guidelines say "not to list obviously illegal sites (based on California law)," and "an editor does not need to list sites which are illegal in his own jurisdiction.

In the case of a not-obviously-illegal but otherwise listable site, the editor's _job_ is to list. And since we're all volunteers, ther are NO positive responsibilities associated with editing. Whatever an editor does that doesn't violate the editing guidelines, and does improve the directory, is acceptable.

Again, editors are especially NOT allowed to take the word of an angry e-mailer about the legality of a site. That's right, FORBIDDEN.

Again, what are the responsibilities DMOZ has toward submitters? There is one only. Submitted sites will be reviewed. Not necessarily listed, not necessarily acted on, espectially not acted on in any particular time, most especially not responded to.

Staff does not have a responsibility to answer e-mail, especially e-mail from angry people who obviously have taken so little trouble to understand who they are writing to, and what they do; and who make, um, unconsidered legal charges without providing the legal documentation.

... and whose association with veracity is rather remote. How, the skeptic asks, could someone have "refused" to do something ... without responding?

>>since at best the appearances in the search engines of these dodgy sites cause problems for the genuine sites

Sorry, this is the DIRECTORY department. We don't do search engines here.

>>and at worst means that you may be effectively condoning illegal activity, in some cases.

Sorry, we don't do condoning here. we just list websites. One of the quickest ways of becoming an ex-editor is to delete sites you don't condone.

I can understand how frustrated you'd be with DMOZ if you were expecting all that. But the ODP is not the harbinger of the millenium, or even the Enforcement Agency of the New World Order. It's just a website directory.

Again, editors are especially NOT allowed to take the word of an angry e-mailer about the legality of a site. That's right, FORBIDDEN.

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I accept that. However, an independent cursory glance of the website I'd complained about, followed by a independent cursory glance of the website that I'd claimed had replaced it, would have verified my position.

Staff does not have a responsibility to answer e-mail, especially e-mail from angry people who obviously have taken so little trouble to understand who they are writing to, and what they do; and who make, um, unconsidered legal charges without providing the legal documentation.

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No literal responsibility, that's true. But don't you think that even a single sentence back in response to just one of my messages might have been helpful? Just as a purely practical measure, no matter how reluctant the organisation was to communicate with me?

Sorry, this is the DIRECTORY department. We don't do search engines here.

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You know what I mean -- the site in question was appearing in some search engines as a direct result of it being listed in the ODP directory.

Sorry, we don't do condoning here. we just list websites.

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Well, that's pretty obvious now. But consider this reality: ODP has had listed (until yesterday) a particular website as the "official" site for a particular rock band -- when it hasn't held that distinction for at least nine months. Small beer, perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, but I find it hard to believe that it's an isolated incident. No doubt you'll disagree, but this apparent lack of attention to detail doesn't do the ODP's credibility out in the wide world much good at all.

With 3 point 8 million web sites listed, there are bound to be more than 3 point 8 mistakes in the directory. In this case, when the problem was pointed out, an editor looked at both sites and the 5 updates queued in the category and made the changes within minutes. Problem solved. Let's make space for the next person with a question, now, shall we?