Updates

1. 1.

   March 24, 4.31pm: My article has been removed. Several other bloggers whose content was used on virtisys.com have contacted me expressing their intent to complain to SoftLayer.

2. 2.

   March 24, 6.42pm: I think we won this battle. The Vertisys site was moments ago replaced with a redirect to a video on YouTube, then shortly thereafter disappeared altogether. Thanks to everyone who emailed, commented, and notified SoftLayer of the copyright infringement. I’m really encouraged by the response I got and happy that we were able to help protect bloggers from having their content stolen.

3. 3.

   April 4, 12.22pm: This article is now the #1 Google result for a search for ‘Virtisys’. Thanks everybody!

Completely by accident today I discovered that a website I’d never heard of – www.virtisys.com (note the spelling; I am not talking about Vertisys, an entirely separate company) – was syndicating my blog content. Quite obviously I don’t mind if people do that, as evidenced by the links to various syndication services beneath each of my posts. It’s part of how blogging works and how people discover each other on the Internet. But this is different. Unlike digg, del.icio.us, and every other syndication service out there, Virtisys aren’t crediting me. They aren’t linking back to my original post. They aren’t even acknowledging that the post is a syndication. There is a different name for what they’re doing and it is stealing.

They might be doing it to you too. It appears their entire content base is made up of articles by blog authors from all over the world. All of them are technology focused, all of them (as far as I can tell) are WordPress users, and none of them are given credit for their work.

Virtisys provides no contact information on their website, or in their domain registration records, so I have sent a notice of copyright infringement to SoftLayer, their hosting services company, asking them to remove the offending content. To the extent that I have time today, I am also notifying other bloggers whose content is being stolen. That isn’t always easy because Google searches don’t always locate the original source, but I’ve already had a great response from one person (Remko at EvilCoder) who intends to file a similar complaint with SoftLayer.

Just in case you’re reading this on Virtisys or anywhere else right now, you can find my original post at j.modjeska.us. And by the way, no-talent ass-clowns over at Virtisys, I’ve discovered a number of really interesting people and blogs through your site. You’d have a really nice service there if you’d just credit the authors and provide links back to the original works instead of blatantly ripping us off.