I'm pissed! Da## thieves, spammers, copiers -

1. 87

   Dorsiposted 11 years ago

   After reading one of Paul Edmonsons latest hubs about scraping and the Penguin update, I decided to test out Google search with some snippets from my (used to be) most popular hub (got the idea from Pauls hub)
   
   Turns out all the sentences have been used on other sites in one form or another,word for word,sometimes paragraphs, sometimes the whole hub. And it does not show that my hub was copied at HP, but they were copied - alot!!. So these thieves, spammers with crap websites have been stealing all my content without my knowledge. And most times they rank higher than my hub which had great success over it's 3 year life - until now. ARGGHHHHHH.......
   
   Methinks this is why my content got hit so hard in the Penguin update! My traffic is down 75%. My original content being stolen left and right!!
   
   Spammers!!

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   1. 84

      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Don't get mad, get even.  Filing a DMCA does work in the majority of cases.
      
      If the situation is that bad, then you need to sign up for Copyscape Premium.  You can export your list of Hubs, paste them into Copyscape and it will return all the copied versions from all over the web.  Then it lets you submit DMCA's and keep track of them.
      
      It's not free, but it's only 5c per URL and it will be a whole lot quicker than pasting snippets - plus once the report's done, you can work through it methodically.
      
      Do remember that if someone has published an excerpt from your Hub and included a link to the original, that's a GOOD thing.  You only need to go after people who've quoted without a link, or who have taken the whole Hub.

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2. 75

   Horatio Plotposted 11 years ago

   Hi Dorsi
   I also read Paul's hub the other day and as a result did a paste and copy search of a recent hub of mine that was HOTD on May 4th.
   It's already been copied twice since then. I posted a forum about it here;
   http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/97766
   I’ve only been on HubPages for 3 months so I have nothing like your experience but there is a real problem here that is not being addressed.
   My simple paste and copy research shows that of the 31 HOTD awarded that accolade in the month prior to 4th May, 6 have been stolen and copied. That is 20%.
   My best guess is that high profile hubs like HOTD and older, higher ranking hubs that appear high in Google listings are targeted on a regular and ongoing basis.
   While I understand we are responsible for asserting our own copyright the growth and prevalence of this theft is out of control. I haven’t the time to police this potential threat to my hobby and soul, so I’ve no idea how you could.
   A solution needs to be found that is effective and productive and guards the interests of the members of this community. It is highly disheartening to be given a shrug of the shoulders and the file a DMCA treatment by management: which is what the reaction seems to be at the moment.

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   1. 87

      Dorsiposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I wonder how much theft is causing HP losses for authors? Surely Google views multiple copies of hubs as spam? Could be why some HP authors are getting hit so hard?

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      1. 84

         Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         No, not really.  Google is aware of content theft and tries to work out which is the "authority" article and which are the copies, and ignores the copies.  Unfortunately for some reason, it seems to have a hard time getting that right, and often chooses one of the copies instead of the original.

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3. 67

   tamronposted 11 years ago

   I suggest getting Google alerts.  Although it don't stop the thieves you will know if anyone has copied your content right away you will receive an email.  I put small portions of my articles on Google alert like 3 or 4 different sentences from throughout my article.
   
   So far I have caught the people right away.  Your chances of them removing your content is far better than not knowing for months then a lot of times they no longer keep up their blog so than its impossible to locate them or email them and such.
   
   I think its the best line of defense.

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      Stacie Lposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      How would one use the alerts to monitor your hubs?
      Do I list my username or each hub I have?

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4. 90

   Nell Roseposted 11 years ago

   This is driving me mad too. I wrote an original hub about a family member that was back in History, it was even used in Wiki. When my hubs dropped like stones, I went to check this one out, and would you believe it? I can't even find it! I have to write my name next to it to bring it up. But there are sites that have copied it so often I can't catch them all, in fact there is one site that only has my hubs on it, but when I click on the link it doesn't work, he is just using it to get the adverts! and yes I am complaining now, but its driving me insane!

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5. 0

   donnaMhicksposted 11 years ago

   The most recent incident of plagiarism I had to deal with was one of my first Hubs. It was plagiarized the same day I wrote it! She took app 3/4 of my article, word for word, and I believe she may have used someone else's article for the rest of it and wove the 2 articles together into 1. I filed a DMCA complaint and it was taken down within a couple days. If you missed it the 1st time I posted the link to her, here it is again. It seems she was really on a roll posting frequent articles recently. I thought Examiner would close her acct completely and was surprised when I just clicked on the link I had and she is still active! So please check out her 2 pgs of articles; I really suspect my hub may not be the only one published as her work.
   
   http://www.examiner.com/early-childhood … y-ashdjian

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6. 79

   Uninvited Writerposted 11 years ago

   I agree, if you write for Examiner and are found to plagiarize you should be booted out on your butt.

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