@tangor and @Kendo, you are right. I withdraw the question. And the hope.

I withdraw the question. And the hope.

’Tis the season to be hopeless. Sigh.

Don't be glum, chums!

All you have to do is change your business model, be better at protecting what you own, and learn a different method of selling what you have without having to rely on third parties for crumbs. Easy peasy!

But that is a DIFFERENT topic and well beyond the realm of "Do you get tired of others copying your content?"

I never miss Veritasium videos (That's Derek Muller Youtube Channel about science, math and related stuff), and recently posted about the future of his YT channel and probably retiring.

Several things said on that video reminded me of this thread, and that's why I decided to share it here: [youtube.com...]

Creating content (great quality at least) takes hard work, effort, time, and this leads to some sacrifices... you may know it on your way up, or you may not know what's ahead until you hit it. If things go well, something fun will multiply your work (and difficulties), those topics are quite real and heavy.

While that video is not about the damage you experience when people keep stealing your content, it does cover the hard work, the weight of a hobby that grows into something that receives a lot of visits, and later becomes (depending your case), an steady source of income. That, until people begin copying your content. The solid points here are: hard work, time, resources, family, vacations, etc., creating content it's not easy, and so, I think the video makes some posts on this thread more relevant.

In this case, Veritasium received donations and then steady funding, someone decided to invest there. With this comes not only money, but also a helping hand that could make the hardships of creating content a bit easier.

Hope you enjoy it, or at least some of it.

Friends of a Friends of a Friends Wife buys something of Garage sale in US. Sticks an image into Grok, that goes from a Picture on a table into an AI video of an AI Generated teen wearing it in, 20 seconds.

Me here with a 1200$ Cannon lens taking a picture to sell a...., since 10 years ago....

It does affect motivation. About 12 years ago, I was publishing Web Usage statistics (how webstes are used by categories) for the new gTLDs and some of the legacy gTLDs. Two operations tried to copy this without actually understanding usage analysis or much about web sites. The first gave up after a while. It was classifying redirects as being "Parked" pages. It was claiming that some many of the new gTLDs had the same usage as .COM and this was clearly wrong. In some of these new gTLDs, over 90% of the domain names were gone from the zone in a year. They were junk. The company was trying to do something that it hadn't the ability or expertise to do. It didn't really bother me apart from the risk that some people who didn't know any better would believe these results. The second was more insidious.

The second was an industry organisation. From the transcripts of some of their meetings it was evident that they clearly did not understand the complexity of the Web and the different kinds of usage play in a TLD and how that translates into renewal rates for domain names and the perception of TLD. As this group was "looking" for members, I asked if I could join. I was told that it was only open to registries and registrars. I was then asked if I could give a "presentation" to this group about how to measure Web Usage. The first company had already given a presentation. Naturally, I declined the invitation. Off they went playing at being Web Usage analysts and getting some awful crawler solution to do their analysis. It ticked all the boxes for people who think that they know about the Web because they have it on their smartphone.

It was classifying Chinese adult content landers as being highly developed websites. Most of those sites were one year wonders in heavily discounted gTLDs. Gambling affiliate landers with a similar lifespan were also classified as highly developed content. Then there was the rubbish about TLDs that are used for brand protection and to redirect users to the domain name owner's ccTLD or .COM website having lots of content. It got back to the redirects problem. Their analysis couldn't distinguish an in-TLD website from a website in another TLD that was using a redirect. I also wrote an article on an industry website about running a "Signs of Life" survey on one of the new gTLDs. A "Signs of Life" survey is the first survey on a newly launched TLD to see how it is being used. And thise industry group started to refer to its crawler and "surveys" as being Signs of Life survey because they simply didn't understand Web Usage. The cluelessness was offensive. Was it demotivating, partially. At least these people, however clueless, made some effort but it was pure Cargo-Cult! Google is far worse.

One of the problems with running a large site is scraper botnets. Scrapers try to steal content. In some cases, the entire traffic from various countries is simply scrapers. Google with its "GoogleOther" is just as bad. There are times when I wonder if it would be better to go to a subscription-only model.

Regards...jmcc

[edited by: not2easy at 10:13 pm (utc) on Apr 14, 2026]
[edit reason] typo [/edit]

From the transcripts of some of their meetings it was evident

Inquiring minds want to know ...

Oh, n/m. If you told me you’d have to kill me.

Google's effort to be an "answer" engine rather than a search engine is perhaps the most demotivating thing. tt is almost cutting the content creators out of the loop with its AI responses.

At least with Google as a search engine, there was a kind of social contract that creators would provide Google with their content and, in return, Google would provide the creators with traffic to their websites. With Google's AI answers, that social contract seems to have been broken. With much of the browsing being done on smartphones, the AI responses generally are top of the results. Perhaps the best thing is to build a site that is not dependent on search engine traffic and gives the user what they want. (There's a good book on Amazon about this ("Hooked") is wort reading in terms of designing sites that people want to keep using.

Regards...jmcc

Just on the Web Usage issue, one of the things that cropped up in the surveys was the use of software that could automate the generation of websites and churn out thousands a hour. It was essentially taking SERPS, Social Media posts and scraping website content to generate websites (for affiliate advertising and SEO). Unless you knew the characteristics of these sites, they would appear as "genuine" websites. Recent advances in AI have taken that to a new level and it is probably possible to get AI to generate a website. It is taking scraping and content spinning to a new level.

Regards...jmcc

It is taking scraping and content spinning to a new level.

Given the most recent developments in AI, soon they won't even need us to create the content.

The problem with AI is that it has no error checking. It is only as smart as its inputs and that leaves it open to Garbage In, Garbage Out. I was trying to find out the registrar for domain names on a DIY website builder site. For a human, it isn't really a difficult question (check the WHOIS/RDAP). Because Google's AI was relying on fragmentary and often dubious web pages, it got it completely wrong. At least with human content creators, there is an element of error checking (especially when it comes to Journalism and news sites). I think that the NY Times took a legal action against some of the AI companies over mining its website archives and content. A lot of sites may already be banning or blocking AI scrapers.

At the moment, it is a kind of happy time for AI scraping and websites are only beginning to block the AI companies. What they are doing goes well beyond the legal doctrine of fair use and it may get into some very tricky legal territory as it may involve plagiarism. I have noticed that Google's AI results now have a website icon graphic (it is small but visible) where it takes the ansewr from a website. It is a small image and I don't think that it is linked to the original site. Citing a source like that may be a genuine kind of fair use. Any legal actions may force a kind of attribution by the more "ethical" AI companies.

Regards...jmcc

jmccormac: Google's effort to be an "answer" engine rather than a search engine is perhaps the most demotivating thing. tt is almost cutting the content creators out of the loop with its AI responses.

It's also quite demotivating to see there are no real options to disable the AI answers... nope, it's always forced, at the top, first thing appearing on web results. Same goes to the repetitive "try this AI thing, try that AI thing". On some smartphones it's also difficult to remove or disable (at OS level), because there is always a button that when pushed says "I'm here, ask me anything". Same goes to constant offerings or tools to summarize messages.

There are 2 things that make me loose hope in humanity.

#1. Many years ago we went on a trip with some friends, 2 of them were X religion (supposedly similar to ours) and out of the blue tried to turn the trip into forced preaching. The worst thing was having them saying "the prophet said 2+2=6, and vast are the peas" <- to them these were sacred words, the ultimate truths. Yet, we know a bit about history, religion, etc. so we corrected them: 2+2 = 4, not 6... and vast are the SEAS, not the peas. They didn't even blink, they didn't mind, it was literally a "ah, whatever, anyway, my religion says...", and I'm seeing the same on students and "professionals", being informed on how what they got from the web is wrong, and they are like "oh, ok, I will search and COPY PASTE again".

#2. On other forums (in english, and this is people from the US, absolutely confirmed), I'm seeing them using AI to deal with messages and solving doubts, literally they will take a multi page thread like this and ask some AI "summarize in 2 paragraphs". Same goes to some of them explaining how they had the most amazing multi hour conversations with some AI, even saying "it's my friend". And locally, my wife (who works at one big university) is telling cases of multiple young girls and women (not just students... workers too) anxious about something the guy they like said, and to deal with that they constantly tell some AI "the guy I like send me this, what should I reply? what does it mean?". On some cases my wife has told them how wrong this is, but they are only focused on the interpretation of the messages, and when she explains "he clearly says he had fun last weekend", they react frustrated because they want to hear "he likes you", and so, they go again to the AI changing the text and questions in order to bias the AI into telling them what THEY want to hear.

no real options to disable the AI answers.

yes, it is force fed, but one can scroll down - when the search results are actually displayed - after the AI bit settles

I can really understand your frustration. When you’ve spent years creating original content, traveling, collecting material, and then see it reused or altered without proper credit, it feels discouraging.

Unfortunately, content copying has always existed online, but what has changed is the scale and ease of it. That makes it feel more personal, especially when even watermarks or credits are removed.

That said, your experience and archive still hold real value. Even if the web environment feels less respectful than before, your work is not “lost” — it has already created impact and awareness in ways you may not always see directly.

About moving toward a book, that’s actually a natural shift many long-term creators consider. Books offer:

* stronger ownership perception
* better structured storytelling
* more control over distribution
* and often clearer monetization paths

Of course, copying can still happen anywhere, but the intent and audience engagement are different in publishing formats compared to open web content. <snip>

Maybe the middle ground could also be worth exploring — selective publishing, gated content, or community-based sharing where your work feels more protected and valued.

Either way, your experience still matters, and it’s understandable to feel drained after such a long journey.

[edited by: not2easy at 8:33 pm (utc) on Apr 23, 2026]
[edit reason] Please see TOS [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

From the point of view of trying to frustrate (attack?) AI agents who visit your website to borrow or steal your content, I got a good chuckle from reading this summary, "Google Studies Prompt Injection Attacks Against AI Agents Browsing the Web" [it.slashdot.org ], of a less amusing Google Blog [security.googleblog.com ]. The "attacks" that I laughed at were the 'harmless pranks', as defined by the three Google bloggers. Food for thought, I suppose, depending on one's inclination.