Stolen Content Alert

If you’re getting a message saying “Article stolen from OutsideTheBeltway.com” whilst reading our site’s content legitimately, we apologize.  It’s being corrected.

Short version:  It’s an attempt to thwart “scraper” sites which steal the content from various blogs via our syndication feeds, posting them as their own.  The coding wasn’t supposed to show on OTB itself, obviously, and it doesn’t on most browsers.  But it’s also showing up for those reading the content in Google Reader and other sources.

FILED UNDER: OTB History,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Jim says:

    Being a web designer, I knew immediately what was going on when I saw that in my feed. I have always handled this in a little more intrusive way for those of us reading on RSS readers – something along the lines of:

    “Article Title” is a post from “Website Link”

    This would still get you the credit for the article if/when it is scraped, but not blast those of us reading via RSS with this huge message in the header and footer of the article.

  2. Gustopher says:

    I kind of like it. It makes me feel like a dangerous outlaw!

  3. John Burgess says:

    Are you using a plug-in or a hand-rolled piece of software? I’d be interested in learning how to use it myself.

  4. James Joyner says:

    John: There are plugins out there which put a URL into the feed but Ed hand-coded this into the site theme.

  5. KipEsquire says:

    It’s in the Twitter feed too.

  6. James Joyner says:

    Twitter feed is generated from RSS, so no surprise. Although I thought I’d fixed it so that it was just title and link without summary.

  7. Brett says:

    I don’t mind it. It’s rather amusing to look at when I’m reading your feed.

  8. Greg says:

    James and gang,
    Thanks for the fix.
    Much better now 😉