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There is a question on Super User that seems to be copied at earthwithsun.com/questions/13942/paint-net-equivalent-for-linux

If you scroll down to the bottom of earthwithsun.com you'll see another striking likeness; 7903 of them.

"earthwithsun.com" is obviously mirroring superuser.com. They must have some script for copying the questions, comments and answers. I do not see any links back to Super User, or any other notifications of where the content is taken from.

Is this a concern? Is there anything that can be done about it, and should we care?

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    Known offender: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/131846/… Usually you'd report as described here, but I doubt this is necessary for this site: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/200177/…
    – Daniel Beck Mod
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 9:44
  • Nice, did not know about that system, but as you said, that site is already reported there. Thanks! Would you like to make an answer so I can accept it, or do you think I should just delete the question?
    – Ludwik
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 12:34
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    Lots of sites also mirror AskUbuntu.com (questions, answers, and usernames).
    – Robin Hood
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 18:43
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    @Ludwik : That's easy : the databases of all stack exchange sites can be downloaded for free at data.SE (weekly updates). That's said, they are provided for statistical purpose, so I don't know if mirroring is OK.
    – user2284570
    Commented Sep 20, 2014 at 23:55
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    Since everything posted is under a creative commons license, I believe it's allowed with some restrictions. This site doesn't give any sort of attribution though
    – Connor
    Commented Sep 21, 2014 at 2:16
  • See also: xiabox.com goodstuffer.net
    – SeinopSys
    Commented Sep 21, 2014 at 15:30
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    These people have no shame, do they?
    – Camilo Martin
    Commented Sep 22, 2014 at 1:59
  • It's so nice to give us (and Google) proper links to help them going up to the top page of all search engines. :) And for that, stack (which already ranks great) will give extra credit to them.
    – user183734
    Commented Sep 23, 2014 at 13:19
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    It's worth noting, at least on xiabox, that they include a copyright on the bottom of their page. Since it's a copyright in clear violation of SE's CC license, SE can press criminal charges for copyright violation and file a civil suit as well. Not that that's likely to happen.... but the legal rights are there.
    – Thomas
    Commented Sep 26, 2014 at 15:33
  • IDK if this is new, but the site you linked to in the question (earthwithsun.com) has links on the side, proclaiming Server questions and answers and Wordpress questions and answers.....haven't checked, but these sound like the same thing for Server Fault and Wordpress.SE
    – Shokhet
    Commented Oct 2, 2014 at 4:16

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Those sites are scraping content from Super User, as they are allowed to, so long as they follow the rules of attribution:

  1. Visually indicate that the content is from Stack Overflow or the Stack Exchange network in some way. It doesn’t have to be obnoxious; a discreet text blurb is fine.
  2. Hyperlink directly to the original question on the source site (e.g., https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12345)
  3. Show the author names for every question and answer
  4. Hyperlink each author name directly back to their user profile page on the source site (e.g., https://stackoverflow.com/users/12345/username)

If you find a site that is copying, but fails to follow the above four minor steps, please report that site to Stack Exchange and they will take it from there.

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