Femina Potens: what to do if YOUR content gets ganked and exploited (Part 3 of 3)

Part 3: There has been a lot of criticism of how I have chosen to handle myself following the link-gank of my geek-erotica story on 10 October. Some of which has been valid, some of which has been excessive.

In trying to be open and transparent about the experience, I have opened the floodgates further to individuals who have seen my reaction as an opportunity to “cruelly lampoon” me; and, there have been still other individuals who have not understood that the things the “cruel lampooners” said about me were untrue.

For me, that’s sucked quite a bit. As I mentioned last week: I did lose two job opportunities due to decision by someone, somewhere to permanently associate my name with the words “child pornography” on a Wiki in an attempt to “cruelly lampoon” me.

To be very clear: that really did happen.

Was it stupid for those real people base their decision to hire me on someone’s Internet fantasy of who Kate Kotler is, as opposed to the reality?

Yes.

Did I bring some of that on myself?

Yup, sure did.

Did the fact that I did so justify the cruel actions of those judging me – both anonymously and in my immediate reality?

Oh, F-to the-No!

As I said in a comment on DollyMix: I truly hope that none of the people who have been so nasty to me ever have to experience their own brand of cruel self-righteousness directed back at them.

In the end of it all my only objective has been to tell the story of what happened to me, much as I’ve told the story of other women and their lives in previous installments of this column, in a manner which readers could learn from.

Sadly because I was way too close to the situation I think the dialog on this topic has been grossly misdirected and I have ended up teaching some lessons not intended.

What I had hoped would be highlighted is that this kind of Internet crime can happen to anyone; how it can make an average person feel; what actual impact it can have on their life. In addition, I’d wanted to provide helpful advice on what readers can do if they ever find themselves in a similar situation.

In among the negativity and the general misdirection this conversation seems to have taken, I have found some really positive responses to my situation. An editor from a publishing house contacted me to look at further samples of my fiction in consideration for publication after reading my story. And, many women who I admire have told me how impressed they were with how I’d used my voice to fight back against what happened.

There have also been random people who found my writing because of *you-know-what; and, they contacted me to tell me that they thought that you-know-what was way off base in their judgment of me and that they really liked my blog/stories/columns.

Not to mention my true friends and family pulled in very close around me; they were determined to prevent me from feeling ill effects of this situation. 2007 has been a rough year for me in my personal life and this situation only added to it. It was nice to be validated in this manner, to know that those who care about me had my back and would jump to my defense over something which one friend said, “Is actually kind of small in context of what you’ve gone through this year, Kate.”

So I cannot feel completely badly on a personal level about all of this: professionally and contextually.

It has now been 24 days since I discovered that “Geek Girls Need Love, Too” – my first foray into the genre of “geek erotica” – had been aggregated to a pr0n splog and re-titled with an offensive/inaccurate title.

Hindsight being 20/20, I have some perspective on the matter. I have come up with a course of action – based on my own experience and the advice which others gave to me – which you can use should you ever have the misfortune of finding yourself where I found myself on 10 October.

This is advice to remedy the theft of your content and how to handle yourself in the aftermath of the experience:

First: at the first sign of trouble, go to Google and search your name (or the name you’re posting under) to see what permeations of your content have been taken. Often there will be more than one website aggregating the same index. Make a hard copy note of all of them.

Second: use the website WhoIs to determine who the owners of the offending sites are. Again, note their email and physical addresses, you will need them. Also note who their hosting company is.

Third: email all permeations of the offending splog a cease and desist letter. The following copy was provided to me by Violet Blue and serves as a good template:

Dear Sir,
It has come to my attention that you are aggregating my RSS feed [or copying my content] and republishing it on your blog [name of blog or website] while listing me as a contributor, all without my permission. I am writing to ask you to stop doing so immediately. As the author of the content, I have a copyright interest in what I write and a trademark interest in the use of my name. While in general the world is welcome to my feeds [or content], I am explicitly stating that you do not have my permission to copy and redistribute the content, both because I own the exclusive rights to distribution of the content (which you are violating under 17 U.S.C. 106(3)) and because by associating my name with your site, you are creating a false affiliation (a violation of 15 U.S.C. 1125).

Sincerely,
[Your name here]

You want to make sure to include a working link of the aggregated feed or stolen content in this email. Violet Blue says, “You will want to also tell them you are sending them a physical, registered mail copy of the notice of action.”

And in the case that the offender is falsely associating your work with something such as child pornography Violet adds, “Also tell them that their false affiliation with your content brings to
your attention their advertisement of pornographic material that is in direct violation of US child pornography Federal laws, and that you are left with no choice but to forward their information to the appropriate entities.”

You can check out Violet’s column from 18 October in the San Francisco Chronicle for a full summary of that information.

Fourth: mail a hard copy of your email to the companies in question. Send it registered mail, with the signature card returned to you.

Fifth: send emails to the hosting company of the offending splog(s) and to the administrators of the website where you originally posted the content. Briefly explain what has happened, provide them with a link to the original source of your copyrighted material (ie: your blog, Flickr or whatever you posted on,) and a link to where the material has been illegally linked/reproduced. Politely ask for their assistance in compelling the offending splog(s) to remove your content.

Additionally, to have the material removed from Google's index, use Google's webpage removal request tool at: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals.

This covers getting the content removed. Next you need to deal with the aftermath of such a theft.

Sixth: if you are at all concerned that someone might stumble across the offensive gank or linkbait, go public. Make a blog post summarizing what happened to you and including the offending splog(s) URL and any public information about that splog available. Tell the world that you have found someone who violated the copyright protection of your creative property and that you do not approve of its use.

As Amber Rhea told me, “Put it out there, make it known that someone is using your work without permission. This is a much more proactive route than trying to scour the internet for all traces of it... which honestly, is probably impossible. […] People have much more of a reason to believe you than to believe some weirdo who's trying to turn your erotic story into child porn.”

This is true: if you are someone who contributes to the greater Internet community with any regularity initially you will have a much more power in this situation than any anonymous ganker or troll will have. On the whole, your version of what happened will be believed as the truth. Though:

Seventh: be prepared for people to criticize you and your choices. Once you go public with what happened to you there is no turning back. You have to know that somewhere on the Internet lurks a nine-year old who doesn’t know better; or, an angry 45 year old who has nothing better to do down in his Mom’s basement who will try to take your situation and exploit it further for their own amusement or gain.

Looking back, my biggest mistake in this whole situation was engaging with individuals in the comment section of Violet Blue’s Chronicle column and on my own blog. While my input there did sway the sympathy of one or two people, overall it just directed more eyes at my situation… and, opened doors for people to respond.

I wish all of them were as nice and rational as “Burt” was when he commented on Adorkable Grrl, “I was highly critical of your emotions and the way you chose to express them. I suggested that it was bad and wrong for you to feel badly about the link jack, and that you might not be fully equipped to tolerate the rugged nature of el Internet.

“After actually reading the story at the center of the drama, I find that my perspective has altered a little bit. I can see that you extended a lot of yourself out into the public domain, and writing such a personal story makes you vulnerable. I’m sure you already knew that the Internet exists to shit all over everything you love and care about; but, it’s still a hard thing to deal with when it happens. Reacting a little too strongly isn’t anything you need to be apologetic about, especially since the whole experience seems to be turning out pretty constructively for you.”

I guess that you can figure out by the mudslinging which has been going on and the general comedy of errors mixed with a scene from West Side Story it didn’t turn out that way for me.

Eighth: realize that when I say “be prepared for people to criticize you and your choices” that at least 90% of those criticisms are going to be coming from people who are insane and who’s only purpose in life is to torture people anonymously via the Internet.

Yes, I’m talking about you-know-what. Yes, I’m also talking about any other miscreant troll who happens to stumble across your situation and thinks it would be amusing to flame you.

Knowing that these people are those who are behind the majority of criticism will empower you to just ignore their comments.

Srsly: JUST IGNORE THEIR COMMENTS.

The funnehiest part of this whole escapade for me is that in a sense the twits at you-know-what were kinda right about one thing: I didn’t follow my own advice. I wrote a whole blog post on the futility of engaging with trolls on my blog this summer; and, what did I do in this situation?

I engaged with trolls.

Of course – to me – my reaction is understandable. I have been under a great deal of duress due to this situation and other personal situations; and, for every one positive thing which has come out of my story being linkjacked, twelve negative things have followed. Of course I was going to freak out further upon realizing that my Mom has seen me called a “filthy fucking deviant [who’s] mind conjured up [a] nasty sexbook” in print. Of course this would angrily motivate me to try to beat ze innerweb pinheads at their own game… of course.

Engaging just made it all worse; and, you won’t have any different an experience than I did if you choose that route. The facts are: the people who want to exploit your sensitive situation have far more time/energy (and, vile hatred in their hearts) to devote to screwing with you than you have time/energy to devote to combating them.

In the end: you have a life and they don’t. So, just ignore them and get on with your life. It’s a sad fact that the only time ze pinheads of the innerwebs feel good about life is when they are making someone else feel bad. No matter how hard you try; or, anyone else tries on your behalf – they will always win as long as there is any response. They want your attention. Your response validates their own legitimacy in their minds. It’s kind of sick actually. The only way they can feel good about themselves – that they are smart, witty, confident and smugly superior – is by anonymously slinging shit at someone else.

They are cowards and are not even brave enough to attach something as simple as a real name to their ideas. Unlike you, who have put yourself out there for the world to judge, which is very brave. If you’re smart (as I was not in this situation) you’ll just walk on by and not even **dignify their mean comments with a response.

People like the trolls at you-know-what operate on the simple level of a schoolyard bully. Their expectation is that the more they poke at/intimidate you, the more likely you are to take a swing back: then a fight starts and that is what they wanted in the first place.

If you don’t respond they will get bored quickly and find someone new to attack.

Then you win, they lose.

Ninth: in regards to eight, I will say from the perspective of being a former public relations professional that there is no such thing as “bad publicity.”

Someone said to me recently, “You know you’re doing something right when the douchebags of the world start paying attention to you.”

So should you draw their trollish little eyes? Fret not, you’ll eventually get something positive out of the situation, even if it is just one comment from some anonymous person in Iowa telling you that they think you rock and that the people who have trashed you are jackasses.

And, in truth, the positives could be more substantial than that.

Lemons, lemonade… Cloud, silver lining… yaddah-yaddah-yaddah.

Tenth: finally, you really need to realize that you have done nothing wrong and have nothing to be ashamed of. If you are struggling with getting the situation resolved to your satisfaction on your own – do not be afraid to ask for help – from either someone who has been there before you or from someone who can put some legal weight behind your efforts.

Says my attorney friend Brittany, “The best thing you can do is to take a step back from the situation, calmly assess who you can contact to take down the offensive material, and present them a clear, concise rundown of the situation.

“If you present a logical, calm image, it is easier to get people to take you seriously. Sometimes, someone other than you is the best person to handle being calm. If that's the case, let that person be in charge of contacting the proper persons.

And if you're lucky enough to be like Kate, and have an awesome friend that happens to be an attorney, count your blessings!"

Well, yeah. I’m totally lucky. Had it not been for calm, legally minded people like Brittany and experienced people like Violet Blue, I’d still be tilting at windmills in trying to get problem A (the linkjack) resolved instead of dealing with problem B (ze pinheads of the innerwebs.)

Legally the use of your copyrighted material without your permission is completely actionable: “A copyright comes into existence the moment and original work of expression is captured in a tangible form. No government approval or filing is required for the work to be protected by copyright. Upon creation of the work, ownership of that copyright in that work is vested in the ‘author’ of a work – the person to whom the work owes its origin.1”

In addition to knowing this material it is helpful to know that copyright exists on such work in an enforceable form for 70 plus years, 95-120 years if the work was one which was commissioned for a corporation.

Which for me is extremely interesting given that my copyrighted work – photos from my blog and massive block quotes from this column (which was commissioned by the Shiny Media Network, a corporation) have been used in excess of anything which could be considered “fair use” on you-know-what – meaning, you-know-what’s zealous attempts to “cruelly lampoon” me will actually give me my most actionable position to legally compel them to remove the content. Despite my general glee over their stupidity in posting photo content and commissioned content on their website without my permission, I will this time follow my own advice and let someone else deal with that situation.

What this means to you is that given the right calm, legal assistance you have a powerful position to compel the individuals who’ve swiped your content to take it down and rectify the situation for you. You further can compel any pinhead who further breaks copyright protection on your material in attempts to “cruelly lampoon you” to stop doing as such. Like with the courts and even making them pay you for use the material and stuff, I think. Though, I’m no calm legally minded person, so I cannot say for sure about the courts and money stuff. That’s just speculation based on 1+1 generally equaling 2, if you know what I mean.

Just remember: you are not the one who’s acted illegally or in bad taste. If you need to, take three deep breaths every time you feel like you’re going to explode (which will undoubtedly happen frequently) and remind yourself that it will be okay, eventually.

And, if it’s not someone else out there who’s been where you are at will have your back and “sick the ninjas” for you.

Because, this is a community and the decent people in it take care of each other during hard times instead of exploiting them.

The End.

16 November: Kate sits down over dirty martinis with the notorious Ms. Beesknees to discuss life, love and the cruel world of contract killing…

[Photos courtesy of Shipton Blog and Blog-Tutorials]
*You-know-what is just like the character Beetlejuice, only not as funny: if you say its name three times ze pinheads behind its nastiness appear. Do not say their name three times: trust me, not worth it.

** This is taking the high-road vs. taking the low-road at work in the social dynamic. Personally I’ve had very conflicting messages about this growing up; as my Mother is very “take the high-road” person, whereas my Pops is one who likes dig in and muck around down on the “low-road.” Granted, my Pops doesn’t cry when someone calls him a “filthy whore” like I do… though he might give the person who called me that name “whatfore” in such a harsh manner that it would cause them to crawl away like the worm they are. In fact, both of my parents excel in cutting people off at the knees with words, skill in a way which I cannot yet match their levels of… though I have my shining moments.

1. 2007 Associated Press Stylebook, “Briefing on Media Law; copyright infringement” – pg 375

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