Are they allowed to do this?
 

I found a copy of a thread I just posted on LQ here: http://www.freethepenguin.com/2008/1...-in-slack-110/

The page seems to indicate that I posted it on *their* site which of course is not true.

looks like they have form

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ically-692515/
http://www.freethepenguin.com/2008/1...automatically/

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...e-10.3-692525/
http://www.freethepenguin.com/2008/1...-opensuse-103/

They don't even bother to credit where it came from........I fire off an email to them or call Angela Jackson at 615-354-4579, per there contact page.

Maybe Jeremy needs to be aware of this?

EDIT: I just reported it, a MOD should pass it along to Jeremy.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...to-smb-692577/
http://www.freethepenguin.com/2008/1...log-in-to-smb/

And so on. The easiest way to check is to take the user name as posted on freethepenguin and then search for that name here.

Since there's no clear copyright message, they may feel they are free to take what they want. orryingly, they are also copy/pasting our LXer feeds too - http://www.freethepenguin.com/2008/1...ption-decoded/

This one may be a big giveaway: http://www.freethepenguin.com/2008/1...but-new-to-lq/ - a member intro thread!!

Reading through, they don't appear to have grabbed every post, just the ones with the question and perceived correct answer.

Oh, and I should have said, the report filed will go to Jeremy's inbox so he will be aware of this thread.

If they're gonna copy questions posted here, at least they should copy our follow up replies. ;)

Thanks for the heads up. I'll be contacting the site owner ASAP.

--jeremy

http://www.freethepenguin.com/contact-us/
service@freethepenguin.com
615-354-4579

Just for grins I called them, from the number at the top of the page. The whole site magnifies so poorly in Konqueror 3.5.8 that I never noticed the e-address at the bottom. Tried to voice a polite general complaint about copying w/o credit -- I couldn't find any of my posts there w/ a Google site search. The lady who answered listened politely. She said she does not maintain the website.

This is odd: the majority of the threads that I just looked at have the question posted but not an answer, even though the thread here on LinuxQuestions has an answer. I'm guessing that as these are recent threads, they may just be rather tardy in getting the answers onto their site, but they may be using questions from here to 'seed' their site and give it the illusion of an active community (albeit one that doesn't actually answer the questions).

I also spotted http://www.freethepenguin.com/2008/1...th-openlayers/ which looks as if it comes from http://www.linux.com/feature/154814 but without the author attribution and the stuff that makes it useful (links, quite a lot of the material).

I just don't see why anybody would do this. Seems bizarre and counterproductive, but I am starting to include the words LinuxQuestions in my answers, just to see whether that causes them any difficulty.

Good idea, but I have seen member intro threads they have ripped off - where the new member says "happy to be joining LQ"! There are a few question posts where there is an answer post, but it's inconsistent. In their links list (to the left of the page) there is a link to LQ, so they may feel that they have done their bit.

Regardless, they should be at least attributing LQ (and linking to the original threads) and they should also have cleared this with Jeremy first.

In my opiniont someone simply wants to look bigger than he is. I.e. site is talking about "Opensource solutions", but it might be run by one person. It looks like site is 3 months old. And stealing content might bring more hits. So it all seems to be pretty logical.

The domain name owner also advertises his "business" as "Open Source Solutions": Clay Wilson, 635 Greene Drive, Lebanon, TN, 615-310-1601. At the same address is also another business located called "Wilson Motorsports" whose telephone number is also used by another business called "IT Solutions" of Hermitage, TN. The fun part is that while free.*guin claims to be in the computer repair business some ^a.*jackson$, registered with an email address at that same domain, has recently been asking rather simple questions in some fora that shouldn't quite match a reputable, knowledgable computer repair person, heh.

Same person?

The author of a post on this or any other board retains copyright to that post although granting a usage license to the board on which it is posted.

That being the case, I would think that a DMCA takedown notice to the ISP hosting the site by a post's author would have to be honored.

http://www.freethepenguin.com/my-philosophy/

Our philosophy at Open Source Solutions is based on integrity, empowerment and community.

Buwahahahahahahahahaha