Getting real sick of escort directories stealing my ads.....

[Jenesis 294]

So there are a lot of online directories that try to get into the adult advertising game by scouting out ads on popular sites like LeoList, copying the ad, stealing the pics and content, and placing them on their site. It is a way to make the site look full and busy and hopefully bring in traffic to start making it profitable. 

 

Well, I have had 4 “sites” steal my content now. 2 of them have actually edited my pics and taken out my watermark. I ask politely to remove my stolen content and one company actually said no. So I went above their head to their hosting company and got them shut down. Don’t steal my shit and I won’t fuck up you site!

 

Now I have an escort all pissed off with me saying it is my fault that thousands of women may be out of an advertising source because I got the site shut down. How is it my fault? The site was unprofessional and stolen my content. Content creation is a huge business. I take a lot of time and care, {as you can see by my site} into my ads, my pics, and my content. I work hard at making my content. I watermark my stuff for a reason. I don’t want to have to start having my watermark bold and covering my body to ensure it is not stolen. That is not fair to guys viewing the pics. 

 

Am I wrong for going to the hosting company? I know it is not my fault they got shut down. They stole my content. They refused to remove it, what else am I suppose to do? Lyla members are little more leveled headed so I need to double check. I am not wrong here, right? It is not my fault that other escorts, some survival escorts, loose a possible advertising source?

 

I know I am privileged in that I am white, have another income source, can work independently and I have put my foot in my mouth before when comparing different aspects of this industry and have been insensitive to other survival sex workers, so I just want to double check. 

[Steampunk 143]

Naively asking: except for the principle of stealing/using your property.  How did the situation harm you?  (Don’t blast me. Genuinely wondering)

[NotchJohnson 214123]

No blasting @Steampunk, as a consumer of the services of these ladies I would hate to see one ad with fake pics (they are fake if it's not the person opening the door and offering the service).  So assume I travel for business and see the same pics in another city and assume they are fake again but this time they are from the original poster and not fake?  She would automatically lose a client.  I've been in business for a long time and I can tell you it takes a lot of time to earn trust from clients and your name can be ruined in no time at all.

 

Just saying...

[OldandNerdy 1303]

This has been a problem for some time and not just within thr sex work industry.

 

There are a plethora of little scammy aggregation websites popping up, scraping content from various other sites, and presenting that info as their own.

 

I have a small side business and my website got scraped by one of these sites, and the only way to get my business removed from it is to "claim" the business on their aggregation site, and then pay to remove it.

 

It's very frustrating, but the nature of the web makes content easily available to download.  Thats the whole underlying basis of how the WWW was designed from the start, so there's really no permanent way to keep it from happening.  

 

In my case at least it's not really impacting the business, and the only reason I found out about it was I had a customer contact me via the third party aggregate site and ask a question. 

 

But for someone like you @Jenesis, who is marketing yourself as the "product" (sorry - that sounds way worse than I'd like it to, but I hope you know what I mean) I'm sure it's a much bigger impact as you lose control over your brand and also that modicum of control over who you're marketing to, so no, you're not wrong about taking care of it the way you did.  You gotta protect yourself, your business and your brand.

[Kilt Boy 29353]

It has nothing to do with the business you're in. If someone steals from you, you do what you can to lessen the impact.

I don't see that you've done anything wrong. You didn't attack the providers. You retaliated against the company that had wronged you. What happens after that has nothing to do with you.

The only way to take down your content was to take down the site. That's on them for being recalcitrant.

[Phaedrus 209521]

Jenesis, you did exactly the right thing. These sites rely on the fact that most people they steal content from won't notice, and most of those won't care enough to do anything about it. It's kinda like killing mosquitoes in that getting one really doesn't put a dent in the overall population, but... it feels good, no? :) The fact that the fight is probably unwinnable doesn't mean it's not worth fighting.

 

3 hours ago, Steampunk said:

Naively asking: except for the principle of stealing/using your property.  How did the situation harm you?  (Don’t blast me. Genuinely wondering)

I see this as being very similar to the arguments about downloading music for free (by which I mean ripped MP3s or similar, not ad-funded "free" services). Or movies, or any other copyrighted content. If everyone does it, artists and producers won't get paid, and they'll simply stop doing it. And then we all lose.

In the case of stolen pics, think about what might happen if it became the norm, and everyone did it. Providers would stop posting their own pics - after all, why go to the expense and hassle of a photoshoot? Why post pics of yourself at all, and accept the risk of someone figuring out who you are in real life? Isn't it much easier to just find some pics somewhere that look more or less like you (or more or less how you want to advertise yourself)? The reason providers post their own pics and put time and effort into doing so is because it pays off: those pics make them stand out from the crowd. But if the crowd just steals and uses your pics, what's the point?

I'm not sure how much that would really hurt the providers. But I'm pretty sure that we consumers would *really* notice the difference. You'd have to book someone without really having a clue what they looked like, which would be a problem if you had any preferences at all (let's face it, we all do) and would be a really serious problem if anything related to appearance was a deal-breaker for you. The research that clients do would also become far harder; if everyone's using fake pics, it's now much more difficult to spot the scammers And even if they're genuine, there's no good way to find out whether a given provider is really what your looking for or not.

 

[Steampunk 143]

3 hours ago, NotchJohnson said:

No blasting @Steampunk, as a consumer of the services of these ladies I would hate to see one ad with fake pics (they are fake if it's not the person opening the door and offering the service).  

I understood they stole and republished the whole thing, including the real contact.. to boost their numbers as an ad site.  Mayhe @Jenesis can clarify

[Steampunk 143]

@Phaedrus same assumption: i thought they stole and reproduced everything  including real contact.

[Jenesis 294]

4 hours ago, Steampunk said:

Naively asking: except for the principle of stealing/using your property.  How did the situation harm you?  (Don’t blast me. Genuinely wondering)

It was my real content they stole. They did remove my watermark which makes it easier for others to steal if they were deterred by watermarks before hand.

I tour and the ads posted were in norther city locations for a tour I did 2 weeks ago that I won't do again for another 2 months. I pride myself on accurate info. This leads guys to thinking I am available in their location when I am not. Attempts at booking that I then have to decline. The extra admin work that comes with that is a pain. I delete my own LL ads after I visit a location for strictly this reason.

And one site, while I was continuing to search today, had an old ad from my old name that I have been scrubbing from the net. Thankfully that site took both ads down this afternoon. 

 

There is no physical harm, but as stated, I am a brand and that take managing, creative content creation, and lots of time. I don't need that fucked with causing me extra work,  possible image issues and needless annoyances. 

 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Steampunk said:

Naively asking: except for the principle of stealing/using your property.  How did the situation harm you?  (Don’t blast me. Genuinely wondering)

  It harm her and others in the same situation as they can't delete or edit those ads.

  Also, most of those sites won't indicate when ads were posted, meaning some can be months or years old with outdated contact and availability information.

  It severely hurt their credibility and reputations for something that was posted without their knowledge and consent.

[Jenesis 294]

Just an update, my ads are removed on all sites as of now. 
 

Hopefully it stays that way. 
 

Thanks for the support guys. I appreciate it. Sometimes I get in my head and it is helpful to balance out things when I get other opinions or showing of support. 

[StephanieMystique 1891]

High Five @Jenesis for taking the next step for getting that shut down. 

 

As an SW we pride ourselves on Integrity and being able to give our clients a sense of trust. Stealing our content doesn't help the battle we face for 'proving' ourselves. After all, all we have is our reputation.  As Notch said... 

19 hours ago, NotchJohnson said:

So assume I travel for business and see the same pics in another city and assume they are fake again but this time they are from the original poster and not fake?  She would automatically lose a client.  I've been in business for a long time and I can tell you it takes a lot of time to earn trust from clients and your name can be ruined in no time at all.

... It doesn't take long for names to be slandered with the wrong postings and content. 

 

I have had ads site completely butcher and makes claims about services I provide, that I don't. 

 

If we stop caring about our content being true to ones self, then I would stop paying for photo shoots and go use stock based photos.  There is a lot of work, time and effort, that goes into making ads and paying for them. Why would I spend time in creating for things to be stolen and loose credibility? 

 

It's not just our buisness that this happens in. It's across the board in all industries. It's why tech security is one of the fastest growing industries we currently have. 

 

Overall, I think, you did the right thing. We need more sites of integrity that both sides of the buisness can trust and go to. 

[Jenesis 294]

Thank you @StephanieMystique  I really appreciate it. Having support from another sex worker is important. I know I am privileged in my style of work and I don’t want to harm other sex workers but I can’t take on this responsibility for a site that is stealing content. That’s not even getting into all the other content the probably stole and may have refused to remove as well. 
 

 

Anyways; thanks again for the reaffirmation and validation of my opinions and feelings on the matter. 

[Guest]

    Kind of reminds me when in the 90's some sex shops would sell booklets of escorts ads. Would charge nearly $20 claiming those were independent providers (quite rare in the time) and obviously it was a scam. Ads were copied from newspapers and adult magazines and most numbers were already disconnected. When actually reached someone, it was either an agency or someone unrelated to the actual ad.

    Same gimmick, different media.

[Kitten 1281]

A few things that were not mentioned that I feel deserve a little attention

1) this is your likeness. You have every right to dictate what is and isn't done with it.

2) you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned content creation. It is a service just as well that needs to be paid for.

Content creation is not cheap.

 

If I was the owner of the site I would be questioning the professional I hired and their ability to do the job I have paid them for.

I am proud to read that you have successfully got them to take it down and if anyone is upset with you about it they need to check their shame.

They should be throwing it at the person (not professional) who decided to tailor the site in such a horrible manner rather than the person trying to defend their likeness. Had they not attacked you for that I would likely suggest inviting them here or offer some alternatives that are safer for them to consider.

 

There is nothing wrong with what you did in fact I find it to be one hundred percent badass!

 

I appreciate the guys for jumping in with their perspective as they are right with a diminishing the quality of the service and that is something you do not deserve.

Having content good enough to steal should be flattering but I would say it feels a little better to be paid for it instead.

Not with credit or exposure.

[Jenesis 294]

Thank you @kitten. I could not agree more with everything you said. 
 

Especially including the part of me being bad ass! LOL 🤪

[Kitten 1281]

@Jenesis 💋💋💋

[EmilyRushton 253372]

You had every right to do what you did and I admit when I see my content used anywhere, I don't even ask them to remove it anymore. I DMCA the host and get the site taken down.

Anyone who steals or borrows another's content deserves punishment.  A few ladies on this site in the past have either coped my ads or been dumb enough to steal my entire site with active links, and then play stupid when I called them out for it.

While I'm all for supporting others, anyone who steals my intellectual property will deal with the aftermath that they caused.  It's not on me or you it is on them for being lazy and a thief.  Plus if someone steals your content what else are they up to?

Fake ads do not belong in this business, its hard enough to screen as it is and when I asked if my photos are real it makes me want to snap.

Many have us have worked very hard to brand ourselves and get where we are, it is not on me to provide you my hard work to make a dollar.    All these free sites that copy content should be shut down as 99% or full of scams.  Plus if you can afford to pay for your travel, cellphone, hotel, booking agent, manager or other expenses you can afford to pay for an ad online.  Anyone blaming you for taking away their income needs their head examined.