Hi there webmasters, I would like to hear your comments and how you deal with this. I'm growing tired of it (insert sad face).

The good thing: I have a network of sites, all original content, all original pictures, all my own research. Some are authority references, good traffic, etc. This is the result of a lot of work over several years.

Another good thing: The content is paying some bills, stable income, etc. All pure white hat optimizations yada yada.

The BAD thing: Constant mails asking for my content, others want to make money with my content and pay their bills. I'm not greedy, I share but a lot of people cross the line. I've been receiving questions asking my permission to use my content on other websites including commercial ones, also to build "guides" on pdf and specially to create mobile apps.

I know people can take and steal content. I don't ask money for mine but all that work just to have some guy with an "idea" and take stuff? I mean, not even offering some exchange or mutual benefit?. My sites were born as hobby sites, yes it is free, but this "new web culture" behaves almost ias if the content belongs to everybody. I've been answering those questions explaining why I don't give such permissions, including the lines of "we make DMCA and go after any non authorized use".

I don't like how that sounds but the web kinda sucks nowadays. Now we have extra work unsubscribing from a lot of garbage we never subscribed to in the first place and also answering a lot of unsolicited mails from people trying to take content. And I know some will just take it or modify it. I hate having my pictures with watermarks now... SOMETIMES I think selling X website is not what I want but that would get rid of such extra work.

Opinions?