Three hubs stolen in as many days!

1. 81

   sallybeaposted 10 years ago

   I find this all so depressing. Can anyone tell me how long after filing a DMCA complaint does it take to resolve these issues  - or is it as long as a piece of string?
   How does earth does one motivate oneself to write more hubs when this continues to happen.

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   1. 79

      SpaceShantyposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      The last one I filled (site hosted by Hostgator), they replied withing 24 hours and said they would give the page owner 48 hours to take it down in good faith.  I checked after 48 hours and it was gone, in fact the entire site was down.  I checked back a few days later, the site was back up but no sign of my stolen content.   I hope this helps. 
      
      I just used the DMCA email template supplied by Hubpages.  It took a while as it was my 'first time', I think next time I could file one in 10 mins.  Do it, move on, don't let it get you down.

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      1. 81

         sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         I had another one stolen today, placed on two sites this time.  There is no easy way of contacting this guy except to say I found him on his google + eventually and I asked him publicly to remove my stolen content from his site but not sure that this will work.  Will have to wait and see.  I imagine all the stuff on his google + is stolen content too by the looks of it.
         
         It is easy to do submit a DMCA via the HubPages Account page link as you say.  Without that help, I would be lost as I really don't understand all this stuff anyway.
         
         Move on as you say, much harder to get motivated though when you see how easy it is for people to nick you work.
         
         Thanks for responding SpaceShanty

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         1. 79

            SpaceShantyposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            If it is obvious they know it is wrong to steal content I wouldn't bother contacting them first.  Just file the DMCA.
            
            Look at it in a positive way, if people are stealing your content, you are writing good content!

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            1. 81

               sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               In this case there was no way to file the DMCA as no email address could be found by HubPages. 
               I appreciate your positive way of looking at things.
               Kind regards,
               Sally

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               1. 79

                  SpaceShantyposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                  No email?  I am a little confused, you need to file the DMCA with the website hosting company, they should have a contact address.  Unless the site is hosted on a 'home' server.  (A computer in someones house running as a website server)
                  
                  Can you post a link to the site with your stolent content or send me a private message?
                  
                  I would like a little more practise as I have another little c by one of my Hubs.

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   2. 91

      Cardisaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Sally, I am so sorry that you have to go through this as well. I have been battling thieves for weeks now.
      
      I find that if the Notice of Infringement is filed with the proper sources they tend to act pretty quickly. From experience the speed is as follows with the fastest response at number one::
      
      1. Facebook
      2. Wordpress
      3. Weebly
      4. Instagram
      5. Independent websites
      6. Google search
      7. Blogger
      
      As you can see Google is the slowest of the bunch. Facebook and Wordpress removes content within minutes. I suppose Google has a lot more infringement to deal with.
      
      It's hard to find the proper channel for the independently hosted websites but Relache gave me the link to a tool that works well: whoishostingthis.com. If you have difficulty finding the host of a website, us that tool. I don;t bother contacting the thieves, that's useless. I just go to the host.

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   3. 65

      cfinposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      
      
      Just imagine these modern day pirates sitting on their barrels plotting (while tapping into their neighbors wifi and IP address and destroying peoples livelihood!! The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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2. 76

   Barbara Kayposted 10 years ago

   I am having this same thing going on. The sites from other countries are where they are coming from and I'm spending about as much time tracking it down and sending out DMCA notices as it would take to write a hub. Frustrating is the word.

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   1. 81

      sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Barbara Kay - yes it is frustrating and time consuming.  Worse still the offenders don't even have the decency to make their copy look as good as the original and they probably earn more money from publishing than we do.  One of the offenders on googlle+ has hundreds of links to pages which I am quite sure he has never written himself.  Thanks for taking an interest in this discussion.
      
      Sally

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3. 60

   Tyler Brackenposted 10 years ago

   What sites are you using to check for this?

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4. 72

   Elizabeth Bowersposted 10 years ago

   Yes, how do you know if something has been stolen?

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   1. 81

      sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Hubpages in this case posted a line on the accounts page.  You can search for stolen hubs using a phrase or sentence from a hub of yours, and paste it into google and see if it has been stolen,

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      1. 91

         Cardisaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         The phrase has to be in "quotes" to work. I also search Bing and Yahoo engines along with Google search to make sure I catch everything.

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         1. 81

            sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks Cardisa, I forgot that.  I appreciate your input thank you very much.
            Sally

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5. 83

   SANJAY LAKHANPALposted 10 years ago

   The hub pages should add a feature to stop the copy paste option.

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   1. 81

      sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      My thought exactly Sanjay Lakhanpal, especially now that HubPages have employed an engineer, I am sure we can look forward to much needed changed - this one included:)

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6. 92

   Dolores Monetposted 10 years ago

   I have so many copied hubs it would take forever to file all those DMCA's. Oddly enough though, when I check them, they are not the whole article (some are). Many of them are the first sentence of my hub, then the rest of the article is about something totally unrelated. Can I still file a DMCA for that one sentence? It must effect the search.

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   1. 81

      sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Dolores Monet,
      Sorry, I will have to bow to those more learned in these processes.  I wish I did not have to go down this avenue at all.  We need to find a way to make it more difficult for people to take even one sentence, never mind our own images.  That makes me even more annoyed than the writing sometimes.

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      1. 79

         SpaceShantyposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         I forgot to mention that one of the sites you can use to see the hosting company of your stolent content is http://whois.domaintools.com/

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         1. 81

            sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Thank you Space Shanty, you have been most helpful.  I very much appreciate your assistance.
            Kind regards,
            Sallly

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7. 84

   Rock_njposted 10 years ago

   Sorry you are dealing with stolen Hubs. HubPages could design this site so that it is much harder to copy and paste Hubs.  Less would be stolen if it wasn't so easy to just hightlight, copy, and paste.

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   1. 81

      sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Agreed, perhaps we should ask HubPages staff to take a more serious look at  these issue, especially now that they have a computer engineer on board.

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8. 56

   FourChanposted 10 years ago

   About how unique does content have to be to not qualify as 'stolen'... This is something I've wondered about. (by Google, the law, etc)

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9. 79

   KawikaChannposted 10 years ago

   I've had three post stolen -verbatim... no shame, just copy and paste!  Filed with the usual, one of them no contact... slackasses.

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   1. 84

      Rock_njposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I've been to sites that make it impossible to highlight and copy content.  I know it takes some programming, and would perhaps mean some major changes in HubPages back-end infrastructure to implement, but it would go a long way to thwart those who copy our Hubs.  Then a content stealer would have to key in the whole Hub by hand rather than just copying and pasting it.  How many of them would bother doing it all by hand?  Perhaps we should start petitioning HubPages for this change to make our Hubs harder to copy?

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      1. 79

         KawikaChannposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         omg sign me up!

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      2. 76

         Barbara Kayposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Me too.

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         1. 87

            Jean Bakulaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Sallybea,
            Try to choose a phrase or sentence that sounds uniquely "you" and like your writing style. Put it in quotes, and in the search bar. But you will be upset when you find your stolen piece. I have filed DMCA's, but like you, feel HP can do more about it, and have lost my love of writing, so many of my best pieces have been stolen. It is really a motivation killer. I used to spend about 10 hours a day writing, and now barely check my sites.
            
            When the whole HP site, same colors and layout, was stolen in Russia, I don't think HP did anything either. I understand they can't do all the work. But the site was a complete ripoff of this one. You had to have the pieces translated until you had a few of your stolen ones. They don't even bother to change the pictures you used. I also advertise my blog on every hub, so they add that too (which could be a good thing.)

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            1. 76

               101Ways2Lifeposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               Great point Jean, about adding your website or blog URL in the article. At least you get some mileage from the thieves.
               One of my hubs was stolen, and lo behold, the links to my other websites were removed. Clever thief. His entire website is stolen.
               I am still waiting for Google to pull down that site. It's been 7 days since filing DMCA.

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               1. 84

                  Rock_njposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                  I don't think that's a good idea because the scammer's websites are not going to have good Google rankings and could hurt the ranking of your website or blog, if their site links to them.

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            2. 79

               KawikaChannposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               Great point Sallybea, I guess like putting in a quote somewhere on all your pieces that would stand out so that if you googled, you could easily identify which ones you wrote, and which ones were just stolen... I am more upset with the copy/paste people because it's just blatant.  I don't think you could ever find those that trim the clippings of your work, but the blatant offenders, that's the ones that need to be shut down asap. 
               So, a quote of your own within the body of your text that could be easily identified by google... I think I'll incorporate that soon.  Peace.  Kawi.

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10. 92

    Dolores Monetposted 10 years ago

    When looking up almost anything informational on Google, especially new items, the first several sites that are offered are often "carbon copies" of one another, word for word, all the same.

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    1. 81

       sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Sorry for the lack of response but my computer has been on the blink.  I now have a total of five stolen hubs and no response whatsoever from any of the culprits.
       This is singularly depressing but looking on the good side, it seems that even the Chinese Nation are able to read them in English, even if they are thieves are using my name in vain.
       Perhaps those selling their wares on the forum pages should expect an instant ban from these pages too.
       I think it time to get tough with offenders.  I think a simple request to HubPages for a way to prevent people from stealing content should be put in place as soon as possible.

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       1. 84

          Rock_njposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          I think changing HubPages to a file serving system that does not allow copy and pasting is a big undertaking, since there are so many files (Hubs) on this site.  This change has been suggested before.  It would be nice if someone at HubPages would weigh in on this request to make it harder to copy our Hubs.  Perhaps it should be posted in the forums?

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          1. 91

             wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

             The topic HAS been posted in the forums, hundreds of times.  The conclusion has always been that if you can see the information, you can copy it.  Nothing HP or anyone else can do will ever stop the thieving.

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             1. 84

                Rock_njposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                Not true at all.  There are ways to disable the ability to highlight content on a webpage, so it can't be highlighted and copied.  Yes, a thief could key in an article they see online, but how many are going to take the time to key in a whole article?  It is the ease of highlighting, copying, and pasting into another webpage that makes stealing our Hubs so easy, but it does not have to be that way.  HubPages is obviously reluctant to change to a format that doesn't allow copying and pasting, because it would be a big and expensive undertaking.

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                1. 91

                   wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                   Specifics would be nice - software names perhaps, or an example of a site using your proposed scheme.
                   
                   But the casual thief that copies a paragraph and posts it on FB isn't the problem; the wholesale stealing of an entire hub, or more likely hundreds of entire hubs, is.  And your solution will do absolutely nothing to even slow them down.

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                   1. 84

                      Rock_njposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                      Sure it would slow them down in a big way.  The scammers would have to key in hundreds of Hubs to copy them onto their websites if the ability to copy and paste Hubs was taken away.  A huge time consuming effort that few would pursue.  Instead, they would turn to low hanging fruit on other sites  that is easy to copy. 
                      
                      I am not worried about copying of snippets for social media.  I am talking about the wholesale copying and pasting of Hubs.  It is a big problem for writers here, and one of the reasons may have left HubPages.  It can be addressed, but is not being addressed.

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                      1. 91

                         wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                         Example of a site that has done it?

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                         1. 81

                            sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                            wilderness, my personal webpage, link on my profile page has this facility, you cannot for instance right click a picture, you will be warned that it is copyright to me.

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                               wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                               "Nature and the things within it, play an important part in my life and in my photography. I try to bring out some of the character of the creatures by capturing them 'in action'. This sometimes produces some unexpected results and more often than not brings a smile to my face. "
                               
                               From http://sallybea.com/, via copy/paste.  No warnings, no trouble.
                               
                               I also copied a photo of a ladybug, and pasted it into Microsoft Picture It! Express 7.0 - the most common photo editor I use.  Again, no trouble and no warnings at all, although I don't want to paste it here of course.

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                               1. 81

                                  sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                                  I knew you could copy the print but I received a warning when i clicked on the image - now that is interesting.  Thank you wilderness, something else to consider.

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                                  1. 91

                                     wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                                     Don't know if it might make a difference, but I'm using Chrome, version 35.  Other browsers might react differently.

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                                     1. 81

                                        sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                                        I am using Google Chrome but i am not sure which version it is.

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                2. 67

                   Maffew Jamesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                   It's a nice idea, but unfortunately there are easy ways around it. If you open the source code of the page you can just about always find the text content, image URLs, and other data directly. Thieves could just as easily steal it that way, so it's not just a matter of blocking the ability to copy and paste.
                   
                   It might be possible to not only block copy and paste, but to set it up so that hubs are created browser side through coding that would not allow thieves to copy from the source code either. I'm not well versed in web programming though, so I have no idea whether this is even possible.

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                   1. 76

                      Barbara Kayposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                      There are ways to keep people from copying the source code also. It can be done.

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                      1. 67

                         Maffew Jamesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                         It would be nice to see it implemented. I only have a few hubs thus far, but I have already had to file a couple of DMCA requests.

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                         1. 87

                            Jean Bakulaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                            Wilderness might have a point about Google Chrome. He's usually right about most things online. The last hubs I have written here have been using Chrome, and none of them have been stolen. It's the older ones that I wrote with Internet Explorer.
                            
                            For some reason, as more changes were made to HP, I had trouble posting hubs, and had to move to Chrome in order to post with a minimum of aggravation. If it's harder to copy, that is certainly a plus.
                            
                            Also, even though we all get upset and complain when our work is stolen, HP does try to do what it can. Matthew has explained several times on threads like this what a huge or impossible undertaking it would be to protect so many people with so many articles on a site of this size.

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11. 64

    Jules Hallidayposted 10 years ago

    Let me know if anyone moves forward with trying to get our hubs published so no one can copy them. That would be amazing.
    
    Also, coopkineek posted on one of my posts too about cheap designer goods. Grrr!

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12. 72

    Elizabeth Bowersposted 10 years ago

    Actually, fanfiction.net now has it to where you can't copy and paste any of the stories, not even your own.  It's kind of annoying at times when you're trying to put stories on your Kindle for easy reading, but it's helpful and it would be great if they'd do it here!

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