I started to write a response to a post over on MissChievous' blog about Luuux and some of their content providers...namely, the copyright thieves. My response started to get a little long, and I passed the point where I was commenting. I was getting a bit ranty. So I thought...maybe I should take the longer, rantier portion of this over to my sandbox, and not make a great big mess over in hers.

MissChievous' post outlines the situation fairly well, and includes links to some of the other bloggers who have dealt with Luuux and some of their content generators; but here are the high points:

1. Luuux has people sign up and post content. The posts all have affiliate links. The person who posted the content gets "points" for the revenue generated from those links, and those points can be redeemed for various items (iPods and Coach purses have been mentioned.)
2. Luuux does not currently police the content, and their TOS puts all obligation on the content's originality square on the poster. Legally, they've covered their own backsides from copyright-violation suits. Web hosting companies, and sites like YouTube, routinely use similar wording. It essentially says, if you see copyright violations, report them to us; but we won't police the content beforehand.
3. A segment of the content generators went to various web sites and copied photos and entire posts to Luuux.
4. The original bloggers found out about the practice. Understandably, they got quite annoyed (to put it mildly.)
5. One particular content generator, Kelly Brennan, had been reusing photos, videos, and entire posts from several prominent beauty bloggers. Kelly Brennan did not remove the posts when contacted. Her boyfriend allegdly left abusive comments on these bloggers' YouTube channels, sites, and Twitter streams. Luuux finally removed all of Kelly Brennan's post, and has assured one blogger that Kelly Brennan will not be receiving any compensation from Luuux.

Sites similar (from a user perspective) to Luuuux have sprung up before. Some have succeeded, some have failed. They've also had copyright issues, and dealt with them in various ways...the first being to legally absolve themselves of the responsibility of policing all content posted to the site, because otherwise they'd have to spend any money they made fighting court battles against copyright holders.

It would be nice if site contributors who had enough complaints lodged against them, and validated, would be banned from Luuux and lose any points or compensation they'd earned to date. It would be even nicer if any "points" they'd earned would be somehow given to the wronged parties. That would give credit -=and compensation=- where it was due, and would make the Luuux content generators think twice about just copying and pasting. ("But someone else would be profiting from my work!!" they would cry. And how does that feel? I would respond.) It would be a bit of a tangle to set up and continue to administer, for Luuux; but it would mean that they'd be active in weeding out bad apples, and they'd be showing all parties that they were as serious as a subpoena about their content generators creating original content. In other words, they'd be recruiting and paying actual bloggers instead of simple "content generators".

Another alternative, since people presumably have to provide their SSN to get paid and that's connected to their actual identity, would be for Luuux to publicly list those (former) content generators who had multiple verified complaints of content re-use and copyright theft filed against them and had their content removed as a result of that. That would hurt the plagarists in the job market, hurt them at school, and again, make them think twice about trying to get something for nothing. (We bloggers can actually have the power to wield the name-and-shame stick ourselves; and I suggest that we do so. Several of us have made a start.)

Luuux seems to recognize that having a site full of plagarized content is not good for business. One of their latest changes to their content policy calls for their content generators to prominently attribute any photos or other content in their posts on Luuux. While Luuux is trying to make a step in the right direction, I don't think that mere attribution is sufficient if a post is stolen word for word, or if someone simply embeds someone else's YouTube video and only says "This is one of my favorite YT beauty gurus!!" That's not fair use, and that meets the definition of attribution without satisfying the spirit of attribution: giving credit to people and works who inspired you to create something new, rather than just re-sharing existing content as-is. Those types of articles should not earn Luuux any income, they should not earn the contributor any income.

I realize that Luuux is a fairly new site, and is always improving. Even older sites will always be improving. But until Luuux either changes their business model, starts rigorously screening all of its content, or outright disallows re-use of any material on its site, I suggest that everyone regularly delete any Luuux cookies from your browser cache, to avoid giving them any information about your browsing habits, or even any residual income at all. Every browser allows you to delete cookies, and some even allow you to delete cookies selectively. You'll have to read your browser's Help files, or search for directions on how to delete cookies from your particular browser.

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