blog piracy? [Jaws music]

Wholesale blog post repurposing? The noive!

http://blogs.city.com/brooklyn/brokelyn-discount-at-bk-heights-cinema/

[UPDATE: 4:05 pm: looks like they’ve taken down the Brokleyn content, but stuff from the other blogs still remains. They’ve hit some stuff in other cities too, such as SF’s Streetsbloghttp://blogs.city.com/sanfrancisco/candlelight-vigil-pays-tribute-to-bicyclist-killed-by-drunken-driver-in-sf/ and QueensCrap http://blogs.city.com/queens/photographing-helen/]

I mean, c’mon — the entire post? Not cool, brah. We weren’t alone of course:

Brownstoner: http://blogs.city.com/brooklyn/building-of-the-day-539-eastern-parkway/

Brooklyn Based: http://blogs.city.com/brooklyn/bookends-sponsored-post/

Greenpointers: http://blogs.city.com/brooklyn/quickie-calexico-coming-to-greenpoint/

and the others too.

The site seems to contain no original content, and has no “About” page.  So is this a ravenous site posing as an aggregator, with robotic levels of anonymity? Don’t think we can’t find you.

From their April launch release:

City.com Media, is a New York City based LLC that connects consumers with local businesses. The company earns revenues through search and display advertising, and will offer premium commercial services directly to businesses. City.com’s direct competitors include IAC’s CitySearch, Yelp, and Zagat.

From their terms agreement:

You hereby grant City and its affiliates a worldwide, non-exclusive, fully paid-up, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, fully sub licensable, and fully transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works of, incorporate into other works, display, perform, and otherwise exploit Your Content for any purpose, including without limitation promoting and redistributing part or all of the Site (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels now known or later developed (“Downstream Distributions”).

Stay tuned kids. This could get fun.

Michael Bahlitzanakis, or something, at left

UPDATE 12:19 am: The site is owned by this guy — the one on the left — Michael Bahlitzanakis, a “serial entrepreneur, domainer and now developer,” according to (no joke):  DomainNameNews.com.

He’s the owner of BPHG Media, which has more than 4,000 “premium generics,” including weblog.com, city.com, prices.com and cellphones.com.

In the release, Bahlitzanakis says: “Our strategy has never wavered since our inception. We believe long-term value appreciation has always been expressed in the development of individual domain-independent businesses.”

MORE: Content is king, and everyone wants the crown

5 responses to “blog piracy? [Jaws music]

  1. email mike@city.com to tell him to cease and desist. we just did and he promised to have it all down by the end of the day. we shall see.

  2. Thanks! We just emailed him too. let’s see what happens.

  3. Pingback: Content is king, and everyone wants the crown | Inverted Soapbox

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