Wordpress writer stealing hubs

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   TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years ago

   https://rvbodyrepairsanjose.wordpress.com has stolen two of my articles.  He generally writes about auto repairs, but somehow decided that two of my RV articles would look good on his site.  If you write about auto repairs, you may want to check to see if he has taken one of yours.
   
   In my case, he was brazen enough to copy TWO articles word for word including photos and claim them as his.  Report has been set.  Wordpress.com is the host.   Good Luck.

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      calculus-geometryposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I would not be surprised if Almaden RV Service and Repair hired some cheap "SEO consultant" who made that freebie wordpress.com blog and just scraped RV articles from around the web, without the RV repair business even knowing what was going on.  The blog does not have ads, which makes me think its existence is solely for the sake of SEO for the RV repair company.
      
      Perhaps you can try contacting the business directly through their real website and ask them to take down your stolen content. hxxp://almadenrv.com/contact-us/
      
      Good luck.

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         calculus-geometryposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         You could also contact the business through FB https://www.facebook.com/RVBodyRepairSanJose
         I'm 99% sure these guys hired out some SEO work and have no idea what's going on.  I have seen it dozens of times with small businesses.

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         TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

         You were exactly right.  I followed your advice, spoke to the owner and the posts are now gone.  Thank you very much.  I never thought of looking for them on FB!  Great idea!

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            calculus-geometryposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Glad it worked out for you.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            You might've missed an opportunity there, TT2.  I've had a couple of situations like that, where the "thief" was a real business.
            
            In both cases I contacted them explaining that my articles were copyright and they didn't have permission to reproduce it, so they could either pay me for the article or take it down.
            
            Both times I got a nice reply apologising and explaining somebody else had put the site together for them - and how much would it cost to keep the article.
            
            I replied my normal rate was $100 (pants on fire), but since it wasn't their fault, I'd settle for $50.  They both paid up!     And I didn't remove the article from HubPages either.

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               TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

               No doubt your correct, but I like to keep total control of my articles.  This particular company obviously wanted them to be online, which would mean that they would own the article and also, I could be faced with duplicate content and have a problem online.  Not worth it to me.  I could have easily offered my services to him, but I didn't want the problems that would come with doing so.  Don't need the money that bad!

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                  WryLiltposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  Why does everyone stress so much about duplicate content? As long as you're not in direct competition with yourself, it can be extremely useful. Even Matt Cutts says it's fine.

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                     TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     Matt Cutts says a lot of things, but you can never trust him not to change his mind and can never know when he will.  Most people think it's better to be safe than sorry, and I'm one of them.

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                        WryLiltposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                        Good to hear there are still some people willing to write original content sometimes Far too lazy, myself!

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      theraggededgeposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Send them a bill It works sometimes.

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2. 88

   lobobrandonposted 7 years ago

   Not that it's going to matter much, but you forgot the basic rule of not posting links to plagiarists The space between the .com and the rest hehe. Good luck getting it taken down.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

      wordpress.com is the host.  I followed their guidelines about contacting the writer first to work things out, and what I received was a thank you for becoming a follower!   I also sent a DMCA to Wordpress and expect they will dump those articles.  If not, I'll file a complaint with Google, and that will do it.
      Thanks for all of the info, though.  I have a real aversion to liars, cheat and thieves, so when someone does something like this, I get really upset.  I have never NOT had a plagiarizing site removed in the almost 5 years I've been here, and I expect to see this one go, also.  Wordpress is a reputable company, and I feel they will do what is right.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Frankly, I wasn't thinking about that, but you are so right!

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   Marisa Wrightposted 7 years ago

   Wordpress is very vigilant about plagiarists so I'm sure you'll get a positive outcome.

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   thranaxposted 7 years ago

   Seo companies use articles from hubpages and other article sites all the time without permission. They essentially make software that searches the web and presents it to them as its found. Normally when requested the articles will be taken down and other times they won't. While copyright infringement is a crime, if they aren't profiting off your work (selling it directly or ads) then theres very little you can do to force them take it down.
   
   Hope they do the right thing!
   
   -thranax

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      Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Wordpress.com will do the right thing for them - they're pretty good like that.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks to some of the info you guys provided, I was able to contact the owner of the RV repair company that had hired this writer.  I don't know whether Wordpress.com removed both articles or he did, but they are gone.  The owner told me he would be firing the writer, and was shocked to hear about this.  However, I see that the writer's site is still up on Wordpress and still has the other articles there he wrote for the owner, but that may change.
      
      As I was checking, I noticed that another site called multirake.com, a site writing for Wordpress but not Wordpress.com, which is a different entity, also stole the title of one of those two articles as well as the AxleAddict name.
      
      Namecheap is the host, but I found no way of contacting them to file a DMCA.  They are very user unfriendly.  I took a chance and emailed them at "abuse@namecheap.com", and the email, I think, went through. 
      
      If I do not hear from them, I'll file a complaint with Google.  It's only the title, but it is still plagiarism.  What a day THIS  has been!

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         WryLiltposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         I use Namecheap. They have a live chat

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            TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

            I finally got a reply from them after taking a chance and sending a DMCA complaint to abuse@namecheap.com.  They said they'd investigate!

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               Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               For the future, if you ever need to file a DMCA with a host - just Google DMCA and the name, e.g. "DMCA Namecheap" or "DMCA GoDaddy". Usually the page with their claim form will come up in the results.

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                  TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks.  Good tip!
                  
                  I tried it for Namecheap and all I got was directions for filing a DMCA...no address or email info.  Didn't work.

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   Glenis Rixposted 7 years ago

   How did you discover that your work had been plagiarised?

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

      The HP team places a little red c in a circle next to an article that may have been copied.  When you pull the article up in edit mode and read the top area, you'll see who stole your work and can then go after them with a DMCA complaint.  We're lucky the team does this for us because I would never have known about this otherwise.

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   Marisa Wrightposted 7 years ago

   It's your choice of course - but they wouldn't own the article, any more than HubPages owns your articles.  You would simply be granting them the right to display the article on their site, just like you grant HubPages that right.
   
   Also I'm sure you know, HubPages warns you about duplicate content but doesn't penalise you for it, so that's no issue. 
   
   Finally, yes it's possible their copy of your article could outrank the original on HubPages - but it's only going to do that if they've got a high profile, high ranking site and it's very unlikely that will be the case for a small business site that's not regularly updated.

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      MizBejabbersposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      HP doesn't penalize you? Marissa, they took my hub down and accused me of copying someone else's hub. I had to prove that I had written and compiled the original. I had even done interviews and gotten permission in writing to use the subject's photos. You know that there is a 3 or 4 day period in which the hub gets attention from the daily feeds. By the time I proved it was mine, interest had waned and my efforts were wasted.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         I seem to recall that, MizBejabbers, but that was when you first published the Hub.
         
         I have no clue how the thieves managed to steal your piece when you'd only just published it, but that's not what I'm talking about.   I'm talking about TT2's experience, where she's got an existing Hub that has already been published for some time, and someone has copied it.  There is absolutely zero chance that HubPages will penalise you for that.

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            TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Actually, one of the two hubs was written just four days before it was stolen!

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7. 57

   Stevensenposted 7 years ago

   Why didn't you tell him to pay you for the 2 articles? What if more people copy articles from HP?

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

      First of all, you can't make a person pay for articles.  Second, even if he did, there would be no guarantee that he would not steal again.  Third, the owner of the business was not the one doing the stealing.  Fourth, filing a DMCA report puts him on notice that you will take legal action if he doesn't remove the articles.  Fifth, I did not want my articles appearing anywhere else online because doing so could detract from my page views as well as my income.  Enough?

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         Stevensenposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         yeah, I totally agree with you

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      Barbara Kayposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Stevensen, Tons of people already have copied articles from Hubpages. It is a never ending problems.

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         WryLiltposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         ^ This. Some of my more popular hubs have been (I estimate) copied hundreds of times, not always maliciously. I gave up doing DMCAs a long time ago - only would in the even they outranked mine.

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   Marisa Wrightposted 7 years ago

   I tried it and I got the same article, I think, but it had a link to "How and where to file abuse complaints", which then had a link to submitting a DMCA ticket. 
   
   They do often make it a bit hard to find because they want you to chase the website owner first, something I no longer do!

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I didn't see that, but if you say it's there, it's there.   I found them particularly user unfriendly and only was able to reach them by taking a chance and sending an email to "abuse @...........).  I had reported them to Google before hearing from them 2 days later, so one way or the other, this will get taken care of.

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         TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

         A big thank you to all who responded to this post.  This morning I received notice from Namecheap.com that they had not only removed the offending post, they suspended the account of the writer!  Also, just so you'll know, their email address is abuse@namecheaphosting.com. I found that nowhere on their site, so you may want to take note of it.  I addressed my email to abuse@namecheap.com as a guess, and somehow they got it.
         
         However, it could well be that I reported them to Google when they did not respond at first, but either way, the write and his stolen hubs are gone!

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            Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Namecheap would not be aware that you reported them to Google.   
            
            When you report to Google, all that happens is that Google blocks the article so it won't show up in their search results. They don't contact the owner of the site. 
            
            The only time reporting to Google gets articles removed, is if the article is on a Blogger blog.

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               TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Well, that solves THAT mystery! Thanks.

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