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Business 2.0 writer Om Malik and a bunch of other bloggers discovered a site was cheerfully snagging and reposting their content, alongside plenty of Google AdSense blocks.

It wasn't a Merry Christmas for A-list bloggers like Malik and others. A now-suspended website that purported to be part of a magazine network had been picking up content from several blogs, according to the post:

Apparently, these people are not just ripping my content, but also the content of other bloggers. The design seems to be inspired by "Weblogs Inc" and clearly, this site is created to make money off other-people's work.
The site had been taking content, including posts, comments, and images, and posting them. Also on display were advertisements served up by Google's AdSense program; the site essentially had a free revenue source and free content, with only the cost of hosting and bandwidth to pay.

Several people who added comments to Malik's post on the problem offered assistance and information about the website in question. One commentor noted how the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) would help in requests to have the offending content taken down.

Apparently the efforts worked, and the site went offline the next day and is still down at press time.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.