Carsqa.com Admits Flagrant Intellectual Property Violations, Commits Some More

by Bertel Schmitt

Published: June 1st, 2013

carsqa com admits flagrant intellectual property violations commits some more

“Carsqa.com is a bunch of rotten thieves – and we admit it,” wrote carsqa.com editor Chuck Kerkarian yesterday. However, this surprising confession did not stop his publication from committing further egregious acts of intellectual property robbery. The written admission of guilt was followed by an article stolen by carsqua’s Alex Johanssen from Murilee Martin at caranddriver.com, and another one purloined from Alex Dykes at TTAC. Even after admitting guilt, Carsqua’s Chuck Kerkarian steals a Chevrolet Impala 2.5 review from Caranddriver, and a 2013 Volkswagen Jetta TDI vs. Hybrid comparo from Mike Solowiow from TTAC. (I wouldn’t steal from an F16 driver, but that’s just me.)

To make the robbery complete, Carsqa asserts copyright for the stolen stories.

The robots that make those auto-auto sites, better known as para-sites, know no shame. An astounding 1880 hits were produced by an EXACT Google search for “Carsqa.com is a bunch of rotten thieves – and we admit it,” the headline of yesterday’s story at TTAC, and soon thereafter the title of an identical story at carsqa and thousands more.

Carsqa has been singled out by us, but it definitely is not alone. I will not be surprised if there will be a new story in carsqa and many others, headlined “Carsqa.com Admits Flagrant Intellectual Property Violations, Commits Some More.”

P.S.: Yesterday, I wrote that there are amazingly few ads on these para-sites. This remains to be true. With a few exceptions. One of them being Amazon.com, apparently an advertiser on the Carsqa para-site. Being one of the world’s largest retailers of books and digital content, Amazon should have a vested interest in the protection of intellectual property, and it may want to review the practice of advertising on para-sites.

Likewise, we encourage all producers of handmade original content to poison the well that feeds the parasites.

#BertelSchmitt #Carsqa.com #Housecleaning #Para-site #Parasite

Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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Conslaw on Jun 02, 2013

Google itself is the biggest intellectual property pirate in the world. The best example is Google's Youtube. At least 90% of the content on Youtube is posted by somebody other than the copyright holder without permission by the owner. Google sells ads on these videos. Google hides behind the DMCA claiming that it abides by takedown notices. That's technically true, but when you have tens of millions of persons uploading to Google, there's no way that the copyright owners can keep up with the pirates. Whereas services like Pandora and SiriusXM pay song royalties per song and have restrictions on playing individual songs on demand, With exceptions, Google does not pay song royalties and you can go to Youtube and play just about any individual song that you can think of.

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- Jimbob457 on Jun 02, 2013
  
  Looks like Pandora and SiriusXM may not be successful business models in the end. I know they piss me off in the way they try to collect their completely insignificant 99 cent per play revenue. It's like dealing with a juke box that insists on knowing your name and address and insists you remember your password. Plus, even 99 cents per play given today's technology seems a little (or maybe a lot) rich. Everyone would love to enjoy the old profit margin while themselves using the new, lower cost technology. Ain't gonna happen. Never has. Never will. Certainly not for the little guy. Copyrights and patents are a monopoly granted by the state and enforced by the state. Their purpose is to encourage innovation and a supply of good music and written stuff. For the rest of us, this is the only thing that matters.
  
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- Mr.harsten on Jun 03, 2013
  
  FYI, if you post, say your homemade video on youtube and you use a copyrighted work as your background music, the systems fingerprint the audio and identify it as such. Depending on their deal with the copyright holder, Google may disable the audio portion (you probably have seen this) but allow the visuals to play back, OR (if the copyright holder is forward-looking) actually pay the copyright holder for the ads that generate revenue on the page. So, in many instances in youtube (at least for music), random people using and uploading your copyrighted content can put cash in your pocket. That's not an answer to the totality of the problem, but I wanted to point out that "hiding behind the DMCA" is not the full extent of their activities.
  
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- Eamiller on Jun 03, 2013
  
  Conslaw, YouTube's ContentID system automatically identifies copyrighted material (audio and video). This is actually far above what is required by the DMCA safe harbor provisions. Also, how the hell is YouTube magically supposed to identify copyright infringement when they didn't create the original copyrighted material? Asking ISPs to be copyright cop is incredibly silly and an impossible task. The fact that Google has created ContentID is pretty amazing from a technological standpoint. However, because copyright law has a fair use provision (rightfully so), even ContentID is far too aggressive in removing legitimate content.
  
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Robert Gordon on Jun 03, 2013

Interesting. Talking of plagiarism, how is the last chapter of the BMW 'M' Series story coming along: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/05/40-years-of-the-m-series-a-pictorial-history-chapter-1/ Glass houses, stones that sort of thing...

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