Page Pirates

Page piracy is a crime, do not accept it. If you see a stolen webpage then write to the webmaster and demand a genuine website.

I’m sure everyone has seen the start of the videos with the introduction about video piracy, and how it is illegal. Page piracy is the same, just as annoying, albeit not as punishable.

A page pirate is a lazy, bone-idle, dim-witted individual who feels the need to steal content from other sites as they are incapable of ever attempting to do anything themselves. They are a disease, which is starting to become contagious among others, and must be stopped before it gets out of hand.

Imagine that you put a lot of hard work and effort into maintaining or at least creating an exceptional site, with detailed information, well-written reviews, and anything else that you might have. Then imagine that you are surfing the Internet one-day, and are unfortunate to stumble across a familiar looking site, which you know you’ve seen before. Upon closer examination you can deduce that it is significantly similar because you are the one who created it. Imagine the frustration that would be felt at all your hard work being stole and someone else getting the credit for it. Very annoying.

There are three types of page pirates, each condemning themselves to hatred in the DBZ web community, and each too stupid to come up with some ideas of their own. The first type is fairly rare, but has been spotted on many occasions. It may be elusive to some, but I myself have seen a site run by one. It is called the stupidus-idiotus, where the webmaster steals everything from someone else’s site, including layout, information, and pictures; everything is exactly the same. I came across a certain site, which luckily for them I have forgotten the name and URL, that had stolen some of my pages. They had the same layout, and even the same hyperlinks that would take you to my site. How stupid did they think I am when they denied it? I pursued the matter and threatened to get their site deleted before they finally took if off.

Type number 2 is the common page pirate known as stealius-contentius, seen in all parts of the world. It is as disgustingly lazy as the other kinds, but this one is hard to spot. They take information and multimedia from pages by copy and pasting, or uploading to their own server. It is in their own format, and so they assume it is rightfully theirs. How untrue, what sad, poor, pathetic fools, as anything that wasn’t created by them doesn’t actually belong to them. It is relatively simple, although not to these cretins. I have encountered one of these too whilst working on a DBZ site, as they’d stolen my entire ‘Things DBZ Characters Never Say’ section, which contained around 200 lines. When I demanded they removed the stolen content, they said someone else said they could have it, and as they converted it into their own format, it’s only fair that they should have it. That’s like me going on Planet Namek, stealing all of their information pages, converting it to my own format, then trying to pass it off as my own work by saying that my friend said I could have it. It just isn’t honest, but rather totally immoral and pointless.

The final category of page pirate is known as the obnoxious-leacheius. They link to files on other sites using up valuable bandwidth. These are the most despicable as all, because not only do they steal the files, passing them off as their own, but they don’t even bother to put them on their own server. This shows an amazing amount of laziness to me, and they should be sued for it, as it drains money from the superior sites such as Namek. Ginga Giri Giri have recently been forced into putting up some anti-leach software in an attempt to stop this happening on their site, as they literally can’t afford for such events to take place. Once again, this is another type I’ve encountered. Their excuse for it was "Everyone does it". I tried to convince them otherwise, and gave them reasons why they shouldn’t do it, but they refused to listen. Fortunately it wasn’t my site they were linking to the files on, but rather another. I reported it, and I’m not sure what was done after that I’m afraid.

There is but one thing I find acceptable to take, and that is images. Not everyone has the equipment to create them, and most sites will happily distribute a few for use on your own, but make sure you ask their permission first, and give full credit including a link to their site. Movies can also fall into this category, although there aren’t many sites willing to allow others to use their movie clips which they spent so long creating, and rightfully so. Once again ask before you take, and give full credit if you’re allowed them.

If you ever see a page pirate, then immediately write to the site that is being violated, and if they’re anything like me, then they’ll get the immoral pirate deleted from the web. The site would probably spread the pirate’s name and e-mail address round so that they are exposed, and won’t be able to do anything like that again.

A warning to all of you who are page pirates: Stop now or pay the consequences. There is no point in getting your site deleted due to stupidity and laziness on your behalf. Make it yourself, there is much more pleasure to be gained to putting up your own work and having people complimenting you for it than there is to have people writing in and complaining about stolen content. It’s not too late to change, so if you have stolen content on your site, remove it now before you get in trouble, and earn a bad reputation as well as facing the possibility of charges for stealing copyrighted material.

I hope this editorial have influenced some page pirates to quit their pointless and tiresome theft, and to make people more aware of the people at fault. Remember that page piracy is a crime, if you see it, report it.