Comments on: United We Stand Against Yahoo! Plagiarism

By: shanthalapraveen

shanthalapraveen — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 16:42:36 +0000

Hi shailaja
i go thru your site whenever you add new recipe and i have tried and saved lot of your recipes. some how i did not comment before. now as you talk about plagiarism i could not resist to write few words. it is surprising to see the big giants like yahoo can also do this. i saw your pic of soya chunks pulao in sify.food.com. but i thought they have done it with your permission. how can they steal somebody’s hardwork. shame on them

By: pelicano

pelicano — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:31:12 +0000

Greetings to you Sailu!
This is my first visit to your blogsite; I actually found it when looking for something new to do with potatoes and spinach and found your recipe for “potatoes in spinach gravy”. It looks great and I’ll be trying this later today.
I am sorry to hear of your troubles with plagiarism too. I am thinking that these people were not raised with good manners at all, because, as you said, it would not take very long to write and ask permission, and then give correct attribution to sources. You and others who have done so much work to create something so beautiful should not have it “lifted and dropped” to look like someone else’s work. Shilpa’s watermark idea sounds like a good one, and it doesn’t detract at all from the great food she writes about!

Thanks for dropping by, Pelicano. Hope you enjoy your potatoes in spinach gravy..:)

By: Paz

Paz — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 23:53:38 +0000

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I hope the offenders grow a conscience.

Paz

How I hope so too, Paz.

By: shilpa

shilpa — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 15:36:51 +0000

Wee, forgot to mention….I think people keep copying from your blog becos yours is the best blog ever .

Your very sweet and kind, Shilpa..:). I just hope this whole thing stops and people respect the work and enjoy the recipes and images. After all its all about enjoying one’s cooking and sharing it with all those who enjoy food.

By: shilpa

shilpa — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 15:35:55 +0000

Sailu, there are few watermarking softwares which can watermark in bunch. I used that to watermark all, though it increases the size considerably, it is a 10min job (especially since you have your own server). I am also thinking to write such watermarking software, with min necessary options, which does not increase the size. Please use any of such software to save your pics. You have few of the most beautiful pictures that can be hardly found in any other blogs. It saves a lot of headache.

About the blogs which copy your content, I hope you have already informed google about it. Google takes action most of the time. Its very sad to know it keeps happening with your blog.

Shilpa, as it is I have a problem with loading of my page and am working on it. I will have a look at the available watermarking softwares. I really hope the watermarking software your working on helps you in overcoming the size factor.

I did inform google since they are blogspot and right now the blog is not accessible.

By: Padmaja

Padmaja — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 11:19:17 +0000

Hi sailu!!
I totally agree with you!! nice write up and its appalling to see big gaints like yahoo doing this.

Its very sad and unfortunate, Padmaja.

By: Abhishek

Abhishek — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 16:27:32 +0000

Sailu,

I am an avid reader of your blog. I agree with your concerns about these big media houses using your content without your permission.

Well the thing to note here is that they are simply using the drawback of the web in this case to do that. They are doing this because they simply can.

Frankly my recommendation to you will be to prevent this going further. You should watermark all your images with your brand. It could be a URL or your icon. You can do this using photoshop or you can also use a cheap method. Just place a card or paper (containing your brand) next to the food your are taking the picture of.

This will simply tag all your media and any of these big media houses will be reluctant to use them. Even if they do, you have a case.

Just my 2 cents.

Abhishek

Yes, Abhishek, watermarking is the best method but all this takes time. I guess we have no choice but to go with it to prevent our images being lifted. Thanks for your inputs, Abhishek, appreciate it.