(Headline USA) A copycat site, Fear and Blood, was caught violating Headline USA’s copyrights illegally by using an RSS feed to syndicate content to its own site without seeking permission or complying with the normal terms of reproduction.
The issue came to the attention of Headline USA after a reporter for NewsGuard—a propagandist, pro-censorship site with financial ties to billionaire oligarchs including George Soros—contacted Headline USA via its online webform with a request for comment.
Headline USA editor Ben Sellers declined to respond to that request. However, he did issue the following statement about the copyright infringement:
“We have not given Fear and Blood permission to republish our articles, and it is not complying with the terms that we normally stipulate for sites wishing to do so. Although we appreciate that they are including the original bylines and providing a source link at the bottom, it thus appears to be in willful violation of our copyright, which is noted at the bottom of every page on Headline USA.
“The articles stolen by Fear and Blood had tangible costs associated with them. Some involved payments to freelancers for writing and research. Others involved the use of man-hours for research, reporting and editing. That a copycat site which has never made any attempt to contact us felt that it was their prerogative to willfully and repeatedly steal content from the internet is beyond the pale and legally actionable.”
Some of the articles stolen by Fear and Blood were, in fact, pieces by the Associated Press that were licensed by Headline USA to republish, meaning that the offending site may be in violation of multiple copyrights.
It is unclear how long Fear and Blood has been stealing content, although some articles on the site date as far back as 2017. It appears to be connected with other sites, such as the Patriot Chronicles, which uses a similar template and has common authors, including Jon and Erica, who use the pseudonyms “Simon Daily” and “Daphne Moon,” respectively.
A reverse image search for the picture associated with the “fearadmin” account that has been illegally poaching Headline USA’s content linked it back to a 2013 post on the website for a Savannah, Ga. ghost tour and to several posts on a Wikipedia-style site that lists different angels. Both appeared to use the same web template as Fear and Blood.
The site’s server is located in Beauharnois, Quebec, and a telephone number associated with the Angelicpedia website used a 354 Quebec area code to register.
While the contact information for those involved with the site appears to be intentionally opaque, Headline USA’s legal team will be pursuing the matter to issue takedown notices and follow-up accordingly.
