Just came across this on my Twitter feed: https://blasty.co/invitation/c8ke4A8u It only takes one click to copy and republish a creator's original content without their permission. We believe it should also take one click to make things right. That's why we created Blasty. As has been pointed out many times of the forums, most of the the danger of plagiarism comes after a book has been published, not during the WIP stage. This looks pretty legit, and it's in Beta testing right now. Curious to see what others think about it.
Huh. I'm intrigued, but I wonder how many people consuming pirated/plagiarised content are using Google to find it? That is, this would apparently remove the content from the Google search page (which would be great) but it doesn't seem to remove it from the original site? I don't pirate, but I imagine those who do have their favourite sites they go to and then use the site search engine? Hopefully nobody else here pirates, either, so maybe nobody here knows how it's usually done...
I think it is a good idea, seeing as I don't have any in person Betas or readers in general. Though I don't have anything worth stealing. I think it will do a service for those of you who are more renowned with your work. Though I don't know how to pirate books anyway, and I rather like giving up some coinage to someone I find to be worth investing in their hard work and time spent creating it. Theft of intellectual property is wrong to me at least.
From the sounds of it, what it does is automate DMCA takedowns, which - assuming the host follows the letter of the law (which most do, to be fair) - will lead to the content being taken down entirely. It goes back up if the person you've targeted decides to contest the DMCA claim, at which point lawyers tend to get involved.
If it made automated DMCAs that'd be great, but with headings like "Introducing the fastest way to eliminate illegal copies of your content from Google" (italics mine) I think it's less thorough. Was there something that suggested DMCAs to you? It seems strange that they wouldn't use the actual term, if that's what they're actually doing...
I'm basing it on this page: https://blasty.co/about Specifically: I also don't really see any other way they could be doing it. As far as I know, you only get to take things out of the Google search results by being Google.
Intriguing! I sent them an e-mail asking for clarification. Note: I don't know details, but Google will apparently remove some material from their indexing system on request. So that's what I thought this site was doing, but if not, I'm even more interested. I am concerned about how they'd distinguish between a legitimate and illegitimate host, if I were to use the "Full Power" version which apparently "blasts" sites without any input from me... so I asked them about that, too. I'll report back if I get a response.
I got a reply e-mail, saying: So, I like the DMCA-with-the-click-of-a-button feature, for sure! But I'm a bit concerned about the internal algorithm bit. It'd really suck to start auto-sending DMCA notices to small vendors, bloggers who posted bits of my story in reviews, or other benevolent sites... The free beta spots are already taken for the level I'd want to try, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this! Wonder how much it's going to cost...