Do Not Repost My Content Without My Consent

I’m saddened and annoyed that I even have to make this post but I guess I have to.

WordPress notifies you whenever someone links to content from your website and asks whether it is approved or not. It’s a handy feature that I only really see when I link to my own posts within my blog, when referencing another related build post or the like. It is very rare for me to get a ping from an outside source linking to my website.

Well this morning I received two notifications that my website had been linked. When I went to the source, I found a website (who I will not name) that had completely taken my Kena build post verbatim—words, pictures, and links—and posted it as their own. There was no intro stating that I was the author. No changes made to change it from first person to third. Nothing. Just a complete copy and paste of my content into their site. No context either, which was hilarious given they chose to post the second part of a build post. Any readers of theirs hoping to read Part I would be disappointed to see they don’t have it.

I have contacted the site to remove the page and that they do not have my permission to do this for any of my content. I can only hope they take it down swiftly. (I have taken screenshots of course.) I don’t know what recourse or actions I can take should they not comply.

All that to say: I am formally stating that I do not give anyone anywhere permission to take my content and repost it.

You may link to it, but you may not copy and paste my content to pass it off as your own. Even if you did credit me before posting my entire blog post, I would not give consent for this type of reblogging.

I work hard on my website and the content for it, especially with my build posts. Making the blog entry is more than just writing words: it includes the countless hours, money, and effort spent making the actual cosplay; documenting the process with photos; and explaining it in an easy to digest way. It’s not easy and it’s why websites like this one this morning try to just steal content so they don’t have to do the actual work themselves.

I started this blog because I wanted a space for my thoughts. It then turned into a cosplay journal. Then, it turned into a resource for any cosplayers who wanted to cosplay the same characters as me. I do not make money off this site (in fact, I lose it to maintain the domain and website subscription). I do this because I actually want to help other cosplayers. This website who stole my content doesn’t actually want to help cosplayers. If they did, they would see that I am a cosplayer and by reposting my content, they are taking away my page views and thus messing with my SEO. And by doing that, they aren’t helping a cosplayer; they’re actively hurting one.

So don’t be like this website. I don’t care if it’s about cosplay, gaming, or whatever subject matter. You don’t just lift entire articles or posts without permission and without crediting.

It makes me glad that I have a tendency of always referring to other posts on my site. If I hadn’t done that in my post, I never would’ve been notified that it had been stolen. Which is why I added a few such links to this post, too. (Why anyone would want to steal this post is beyond me, but I wasn’t expecting anyone to steal a second part of a series so who knows how other people’s brains works.)

Thanks for reading and sorry for the rant. I cannot abide post aggregators. I’ve added a Terms of Use link to my footer so that this hopefully doesn’t happen again.