(Edit: the Facebook app in question has long since vanished.  I thought I should point this out since this post still occasionally gets reblogged with shock and rage or people email me about it.  All gone!  Now we just have to deal with assholes making iphone and android apps for money and pretend they’re doing it to help webcomics out)

Thunt of the webcomic “Goblins” made me, and several other webcomics, aware of a Facebook app someone created that scrapes our sites’ content, reposts it without our permission, and - the part the really pisses me off - encourages people to donate to our comics via a link/Google Checkout account we’ve not approved or are linked with.

See the area in the read circle?  ”Keep the Something Positive app alive.”  We webcartoonists get none of that.  That all goes to the guy who set the app up - apparently someone named Lance Strish.  No link back to the webcomics he’s taken from.  No, “Hey, be sure to support the artists.”  Nothing.

This shit happens all the time in Apple’s “We’re Too Busy Counting Money to Have Quality Control” App Store.  Now webcartoonists get to deal with it on Facebook, too.

If you enjoy a webcomic - or anything - on the web, please don’t give money to the people who make apps that scrape their content without their permission.  Give it to the actual people who make the stuff you like.  If you see an app and aren’t sure if it’s “official” or not, ask the creator, but honestly, if it WAS official, the creator would have plugged it on their site.

Edit: I should point out this guy’s doing the same with 160 other comics in the same app.

Double Edit: Just to make sure some of you who’ve never read my comic know, the App is only called the Something Positive app on the page that scrapes my comic (Something Positive).  If you go to another comic’s page, say Questionable Content, it’s suddenly the Questionable Content app.