Being a 349th tier blogger has its advantages. I’m sitting on the sidelines for the big blogger beatdown of cut-and-paste thieves. I’m basically ignorant of the profit-making aspects of websites, banner ads, affiliates, and all those other interwebby thingies, so my interest is purely voyeuristic. Well, some of it is educational… Like I said, I’m still learning how clicking on someone’s banner ad earns them $.000001 or how click-thrus work. Anyway, to show how 20th century I am, I only recently started using SharpReader as a blog aggregator (is that what it’s called?), mainly so I can read blogs at work without having splashy artwork plastered on my “work” computer whenever my boss might decide to visit my cubicle.

I get pissed off at work when I finish a project and someone else takes credit for the idea and effort without giving me some credit. So I know I’d be irritated if someone was profiting from my words and thoughts without my permission. But are they actually profiting? I mean, it’ll take a shitload of clicks before they make their first dollar for their effort, won’t it? And don’t most bloggers/readers use aggregators, or at worst, follow someone else’s blogroll? I can’t imagine that pokerplagiarists.com (or whatever they’re called) gets a significant amount of random traffic or even search engine traffic… Is it the principle or the money? Or both?

I guess poker bloggers are beyond the stage where “any attention is good attention”. Now, poker bloggers (I hesitate to say “we”, lest I include myself in a much bigger phenomenon) are a big enough target to start attracting the parasites who like to profit from the latest greatest crazes and fads. These content-thieves probably also squat on domains, sell Amway and phone cards to foreigners, and have scrapbooking parties; anything to make a buck, quickly and with minimal labor. They are the high-tech equivalent to the Antiques Roadshow garage sale scrounges, trying to find someone’s else junk, buy it for nothing, and sell it for a profit. And they don’t even have to leave their mom’s basement to do it.