Why can't hubs be 'read only' to prevent content from being copied?

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JayeWisdomposted 10 years ago
I've spent hours today tracking down a blogger on WordPress who has numerous blogs and stole one of my best hubs. This impacts my traffic and, thus, my earnings capacity. It happens so frequently (and to so many other hubbers) that it is not only time-consuming and frustrating, but makes me and aother HP members wonder why we bother publishing our original work online for content thieves to steal.

Why can't the content visible on a hub (other than in the edit mode for the owner and HP team to access) be 'read only?' Is this possible/practical, HP Team? If plagiarists had to retype lengthy written work, they might think twice before stealing it. I, for one, am getting fed up with the time-consuming process of trying to track down these hub thieves and sending notices that are often ignored. Also, the Google 'troubleshooting' page to be used for content theft complaints is about as clear (to me) as mud. I can't decide which category to check, and the descriptions don't help.

I've sent DCMAs to WordPress.com, also posted one on the offending site (only to get a form email telling me to click on a link to submit my 'request to follow' the blogger!)

Are a lot of hubbers contending with this issue these days?
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  Stevie Cenkoposted 10 years agoin reply to this
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  Janus Joshuaposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Do you know about wattpad? That site has a protection that wouldn't let anybody copy your hub excep for yourself
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  Rywadsposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I just went on Wattpad and copied an article just now. It's laughably easy. If you think people can't copy your writing over there, you're very wrong.
  
  All you have to do is right click on the page and hit "view page source." If they disable this, you just save the webpage somehow and open it.
  
  From there you just copy the part of the source code in the article and put it into an HTML editor.
  
  From there you just copy the text into MS word, another HTML document, Wordpress, etc. etc.
  
  The copy protection on Wattpad does nothing to hamper the efforts of online thieves. That's just a way for article writers to feel unrealistically safe.
  
  If you're serving HTML with text in it to someone, they can copy it. You can't stop them.
  
  So stop trying to think there is a way to.
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  Janus Joshuaposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Never thought of that, sir. Well, at least they are trying to protect it, right?
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  JayeWisdomposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, Stevie...I get to keep the 'horse' too. The problem is, that I lose revenue because of the traffic diverted from my best-viewed hub due to content thieves.
  
  Today (Saturday), I spent 8 hours--that's like a full workday for most people--from 2:30 p.m. until 10:28 p.m. (seven minutes ago), skipped dinner, took one bathroom break (I know, that's TMI), working, WORKING HARD trying to track down the pertinent information to send DMCA notices to all twelve of the websites (most commercial blogs) using my content for promotional purposes. They're getting customers and making money by stealing money from me because, by siphoning off my traffic from that hub, they're getting traffic to their company websites, company blogs, company facebook pages....arrrgh! It is maddening! Oh, yes....two of them are SELLING pdf downloads. My security software wouldn't let me use the download instrument, so I didn't get to see how much of my material they used.
  
  I've just about decided that I'm going to spend my time from now on pitching my best articles to print magazines, then take them off HP. I'm not willing to spend the equivalent of days at a time trying to find these thieves and stop them from using my writing as their own. Oh, yes...they actually put their bylines and copyright notices on MY work!
  
  I wonder if HP would allow me to write a hub about this one situation and put the URLs, the companies' names and plagiarists' names in the article? It would give me a great deal of satisfaction to do so....but they probably won't let me.
  
  Right now, I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm angry, and I'm going watch a video while eating a bowl of cereal to get my mind off HubPages and no-conscience content thieves. Night! Jaye
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  Pamela N Redposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Even if it's set to read only they can still copy and paste your work. There really isn't a way around it.
  
  I recently saw a blog by an author who gave links to two websites that steal ebooks and sell them illegally. The Internet is like the wild west and difficult to keep everyone in check. If you share your art whether it's in text, image or sound format someone out there will steal it. That's just the way it is.
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  Susana Sposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  The only way I can think of that this could possibly be achieved would be to create each hub as an image, but even then they could easily still be copied. It would also mean that hubs would not rank in the search results, so it would be a totally rubbish solution for individual hubbers and Hubpages as a whole.
  
  It's a hard lesson to learn, but people will steal the stuff you publish online, that is guaranteed. The only way to stop it from happening to you, is to stop publishing online - it's that simple.
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  erinshelbyposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  "The only way I can think of that this could possibly be achieved would be to create each hub as an image, but even then they could easily still be copied."
  
  Exactly, but sometimes on the internet, for instance, on Amazon, if you try to right-click, copy, and paste a book's image, you can't, because that's how they have it set up.
  
  It would be awesome if HubPages would incorporate that protection for Hubbers into the design.
  
  Just a thought to those who might make that happen!
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  Rywadsposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  If they coded something into the page to make it impossible to copy stuff, it would be very inconvenient for people who want to save recipes, visit internet sites, and save snippets of information that they need.
  
  People could just examine the HTML source code and copy from that, so that code that stops people from "copying" would be next to useless, too.
  
  In other words, this is all a very silly idea to begin with.
  
  If you post writing on the internet, expect that it might be copied. Oh well. That's the nature of the internet. If you only write a few hundred words per week, then I suppose you might cry about it. Then again, you weren't making a living on output of that magnitude anyway.
  
  It does suck when people steal, but then again how many images on this website are stolen from other sites?
  
  I bet a lot of the people complaining about "copiers" steal images constantly. So... yeah. Wild Wild West indeed.
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  JayeWisdomposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  It matters to me because it is taking quite a few dollars out of my monthly payment from HubPages. The main hub that's being purloined loses hundreds of views daily to these thieves, and I lose the money those views would earn me.
  
  When I write a non-fiction article and publish it on HP, I get satisfaction from people reading it. I like sharing information. But I'm also trying to increase my monthly HP earnings to supplement my retiree income. The amount I lose because of stolen content (and, therefore, traffic) is significant to ME.
  
  The attitude 'that's just the way it is' is unacceptable. It may be my age saying this, but 'it's the principle of the situation.' If plagiarists are going to steal my writing from HP, I can't do anything to stop them and HP can't (or won't), and it's more important that some reader MAY want to copy a line or two and their reading pleasure may be spoiled if it's not copyable.....then I'll concentrate on print magazines for my non-fiction articles.
  
  Okay...I'm not commenting on this any more tonight. I've wasted enough hours of this afternoon and night. I'm hungry, tired and mad, so I'm going to get a bowl of cereal and watch a video until I've stopped fuming.
  
  Jaye
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  Rywadsposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Did you fill out the Google page that tells Google their page is a copy of yours?
  
  How many of your Hubs have been stolen, and what kinda viewage drops are we talking about? Can you be more specific, maybe?
  
  I understand if you won't disclose this information - but you only have 46 hubs. I'm curious, because the way I see things - instead of griping about it and running around trying to do something about it - isn't it more worthwhile just to make more hubs?
  
  Hubpages really isn't the place to publish content that takes you forever to write, at least in my opinion. You should put that on your own website(s) or something. Just a thought, and just my opinion.
  
  When you really break things down, I think Hubpages is just a place to write passable stuff in order to trade content for links back to your other stuff.
  
  I mean, sure, I like publishing good, quality hubs. I don't want to spend so much time on one hub that I have to cry about it when someone jacks it, though. I came into this fully knowing that that might happen...
  
  And it stinks. But this is just how the internet is. If you sit around crying about it, then you really are wasting valuable time that could be used to create more and more content. That's how I look at things.
  
  Believe me though, I feel your pain.
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  JayeWisdomposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I don't have a lot of hubs left on HP because I removed all of my fiction hubs months ago. I have three completed articles I haven't yet published on HP because I'm deliberating what I want to do with them. I'm seriously considering pitching my best ideas to magazine non-fiction editors rather than publishing them online. The suggestion that I write at a lesser level for HP publication goes against the grain. I set high standards for my writing and am not willing to lower them. Rather than add to online mediocrity, I'd rather focus my efforts elsewhere.
  
  Of my HP non-fiction hubs, several specific hubs have been stolen multiple times. However, the hub that gets the most traffic is the most vulnerable to content theft. (This article is so popular with content thieves that it's been plagiarized internationally and translated into other languages in the past.) This hub had a decrease in traffic of more than 40% over the past couple of months, and my HP monthly earnings dropped about the same percentage along with views to this hub. At one time it got about 1,000 clicks per day. Now, it's a 'good' day when it draws 600-700 views.
  
  When I checked for theft this time, there were twelve sites using either the first part of the article or (in one instance) nearly all of it. I submitted DMCA complaints to the persons/sites/hosts that I could locate (ten of the twelve). There are two chain businesses involved, using my material on their company websites, blogs or Facebook account for multiple locations. I spoke to the answering service for one of them this past weekend and was told the corporate headquarters in Dallas 'produces' the posts for all the branches. I plan to phone their marketing VP about this issue today.
  
  Logistically, it is very time-consuming and work-intensive to pursue copyright infringement complaints against a dozen entities. Even though I'm retired, I have other commitments that require my attention.
  
  I appreciate all the responses to my original post, many of which are illuminating and helpful. Apparently, online plagiarism 'is what it is', and I either accept that fact or pick up my toys and go home.
  
  Jaye
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  JayeWisdomposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks, Audrey, for your enthusiasm about my hubs. I'm not leaving HP, but in future I will be selective about the types of articles or essays published here. Diversification into print (including publication of my collected short stories) seems to be my best avenue for continued effort.
  
  I had positive responses to my DMCAs from two corporate managers today, apologizing that someone used my material without permission and, in one case, already removing it, and in the other, promising to do so immediately. I'm billing them for unauthorized use.
  
  What bothers me even more than the plagiarism (and I think anyone who's read my posts knows that really gets to me as a writer) is the fact that a very new hubber (Stevie Cenko) was so hurt by snide remarks on this forum she felt were directed toward her work that she closed her HP account. That was a really bad impression to give a newbie. Whether meant to describe her poetry as mediocre or not, those remarks were careless and irresponsible. They seem to have been removed, but the damage is done. This is the main reason I usually stay away from the forums. While there may be information to be gained from them, there are also people who are frequently caustic with their remarks.
  
  I'd like to thank everyone whose responses were courteous and helpful even though you undoubtedly realized I am technically challenged, and for showing professional restraint. (Because, if we're publishing on HP or any other medium, we are pros and should act accordingly.)
  
  Regards,
  Jaye
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  Nadia Ribaduposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Your writing is so beautiful and so perfect, even just to complain!
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  JayeWisdomposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  What a lovely thing to say! Thank you, Nadia. I am anything but perfect, but I do like to write and try to write well.
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  Nadia Ribaduposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  You're quite welcome, my dear. I hope plagiarism won't continue to be rampant. I wrote only one or two hubs years ago, and now I'm rethinking even getting back to it on this site. I value my ideas, too, often which tend to be pretty original, so the thought of someone else just "snatching" them really gets to me. I can tell just by your writing in the forum that you're an excellent writer. You sound very professional! I'm impressed! What a loss it would be if you were to leave altogether. Please don't! It would be HP's loss, for sure!
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  Rywadsposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  People fall way too in love with their content. Now, don't get me wrong... it really stinks that people are stealing and nobody should have this happen to them.
  
  All the same, I refuse to spend more than an hour writing each hub. This just isn't the right site to produce super-quality content imo.
  
  I mean if you spend so much time making your stuff that you are afraid to publish it here, you're probably right in your thinking. Make your own website and publicize it.
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  relacheposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  As someone who was here before algorithm changes by Google changed the traffic and earnings pattern of the two previous years, I have to disagree.
  
  But then again, you and I disagreed on internal linking strategies too, huh?
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  relacheposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I have never known anyone who successfully collected when billing websites for unauthorized use if they did not have the material genuinely registered with the US Copyright Office, and they had to lawyer-up too.
  
  Please do let us know if you are successful in breaking the long-standing precedent.
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  JayeWisdomposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I think one of the two invoices I sent has a very good chance of being paid. I was phoned by a corporate PR director about my material that was posted by someone at a branch of the very large company that employs him. He apologized for the unauthorized use and told me to send the invoice which he will forward to their finance department. He left a follow-up voicemail for me today telling me that my material has been removed and again apologized for its unauthorized use, so he knows I have a recording of him stating that my content was used by someone in his company without my permission. I'm going to send him a nice email and hope for the best. If I get paid, I'll let you know. It would be cool to break a precedent, but I think someone mentioned that Marisa was successful when billing a plagiarist.
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  relacheposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I've never been plagiarized by such a professional site. I can see why you are getting a higher-grade of response now.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Relache, I've been successful twice, but I was really surprised to succeed! If I find one of my articles on a small business website (it could be a hairdresser or a physiotherapist or a dance school), I'll send them a nice email saying they may not be aware the article is copyright and therefore not legal to use without my permission - but that I'm happy to let them have it on payment of my usual fee. Usually they just delete the copy (often with an apology), but twice they've wanted to keep it and have happily paid my fee. So it can happen - and I always figure it doesn't hurt to try!
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  Rywadsposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  What sort of fee should I charge if I find my articles on someone's site? That's a good strategy.
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  relacheposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  What you are describing is different than what I'm tracking. You said they paid you, AND kept the article up. That's not that unusual.
  
  What I am noting, and which I have no anecdotal or otherwise evidence of, is an author who wanted their article taken down and who bill the site for the "stolen" use, and manage to both get the money and get their article removed.
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  Rywadsposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  That's probably because doing that makes no logical sense for the buyer. If you're gonna bill someone for an article, they should at least get to keep it. A lot of the times these site owners don't even know where these articles come from. They pay people on fiverr to make these for them (and other such places), and sometimes they get bogus articles in the process.
  
  So yeah. It sounds kinda fishy when you offer that deal - almost like you're randomly trying to extort people over the internet. If they have to pay twice for an article, they should get to keep it. That's how they'll view it.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  If a Hub was an image, then Google wouldn't be able to crawl the content and work out what it was about, and therefore it wouldn't feature in search results and you'd get no readers.
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  Rywadsposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I didn't even bother touching on the "if a hub was an image" thing because it is so obviously a silly idea that it isn't worth even explaining why it's a bad idea.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I don't think that's fair. It's obviously a silly idea to us, but to complete newbies who don't know how search engines work, it's not necessarily obvious.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  The bottom line is that the serious, large-scale thieves could easily get around any copy/paste restriction placed by HubPages because they don't copy and paste. They use automated scrapers and those can be programmed to bypass any such measures. And those thieves don't just use that method themselves - they sell the software to naive wannabe bloggers, often in third world countries.
  
  If you don't like your work being stolen, start your own blog and write there instead. The incidence of theft from your blog will be dramatically lower. That's because the professional thieves want a constant stream of new material, so they target large sites with numerous contributors - like HP. That's just life.
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  JayeWisdomposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks, Marisa, for your thoughtful (non-sarcastic) description of the issue and suggestion. I'm obviously a non-techie, or I'd never have initiated this forum thread. It's certainly been enlightening. JAYE
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  brakel2posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Hi Jaye - You have had such misfortunes with plagiarism. I hope the worst is over, and you will stay on the site. Your work is so worthy, and I have enjoyed reading your creations.
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relacheposted 10 years ago
HubPages answers this in their FAQ,

http://hubpages.com/faq/#disablecopy
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  JayeWisdomposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I think I'll wait and comment on this HP FAQ tomorrow.
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  JayeWisdomposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I feel strongly that HP administration's failure to even try and stop some of the hub content from being stolen (by less technically proficient thieves) with the copy disable feature is not only unsupportive of HP writers, but tantamount to encouraging mediocre content. Why should HP members want to publish high quality content on the site if their work is likely to become the most targeted by content thieves simply because it IS good? It would make more sense to me if HP were at least trying to find a solution--even a partial one--to protect its writers' original work and maintain quality publication on the site.
  
  This statement in the HP FAQ (" Consider if a reader wanted to copy a sentence from your Hub and then share it on Twitter or Facebook with a link. If copy was disabled for a Hub, then they would be unable to do this.") leaves me incredulous. If a reader wants to copy ONE sentence and attribute it on Twitter or Facebook, he or she can TYPE it, not copy and paste it!
  
  Of course, when I clicked on the FAQ link, it also led me to related forum threads going back years as well as a longer version of the FAQ written by Matthew. It's obvious that even a basic attempt to protect HP members' work on the site is not a priority with the HP administrative team. If we want to write articles that are not 'up for grabs' by Internet content thieves, we should be pitching them to print magazines.
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  relacheposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  The above has been true since the dawn of the Internet. Why are people so surprised by this reality?
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  fpherj48posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Hi Jaye.....Just poking my head in to ask if you received my reply to your question about the particulat Hub you were trying to track down.??
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  JayeWisdomposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  No, Paula - Did you send me an email? Jaye
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  relacheposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Jeez, if you think that's tantamount to encouraging mediocre content, how do you feel about the fact that they allow poetry and fiction from anyone? Or that they have the Question section? Or show all the bickering crap in the forums to the search engines?
  
  If you want to talk about low value on this site, it's not from not protecting the good stuff more.
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  Stevie Cenkoposted 10 years agoin reply to this
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  relacheposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  At no point have I commented directly in regards your writing. I have no knowledge of it.
  
  People over in another thread are all talking about how Google's latest guide to how their human raters judge quality has leaked, and whether you like it or not, Google is saying that websites that let anyone write about anything are to be considered "untrustworthy."
  
  If Google is putting weight behind content that people find useful and helpful, the reality is that the majority of featured content on this site is neither.
  
  It might be that the only thing that gets your content viewed as quality is to go elsewhere.
  
  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/123211
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  Stevie Cenkoposted 10 years agoin reply to this
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  psycheskinnerposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  If that happened you just needed to report it. But I suspect you were extrapolating a personal meaning to what was actually a generic comment.
  
  Forums are always home to people that will rub you the wrong way. That is just a fact of the internet. Their opinions have as much weight as you choose to give them.
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  Susana Sposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Relache was not replying to you. Are you reading the forums in threaded or chronological mode?
  
  Threaded gets very confusing!
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  JayeWisdomposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Stevie - Please do not take relache's comments as personally directed at you. Besides, her views do not reflect those of all other Hubbers, and this IS a community of writers--not just one, even if she does have seven years seniority.
  
  I hope you stay on HP because I (and others) enjoy your writing. Every poem of yours that I've read has meaning and words that project good visuals. That makes it worthy of publishing here. You're still fairly new on HP, but as time goes on and your work is shared and new Hubbers find you, you'll gather your own following of fans. One of the most positive aspects of any artistic endeavor is that not all people like the same types of art, whether poetry, fiction, non-fiction, painting, sculpture, music, etc. That means there's an audience for your work, my work, and other Hubbers' work. Diversity is welcome.
  
  This is the main reason I usually stay away from the forums, and I wish I'd never begun this thread. A bit of research (which I should have done before starting it) shows it's an ongoing topic with no solution in sight. In short, it was a waste of my time and only caused stress (which I don't need). So this will likely be my last post on this forum.
  
  We each have to make our own decisions about the venues for our creative writing. I'm angry about content theft because it's stolen from my non-fiction hubs that are my prime earners on the site. When they're copied and used elsewhere illegally, my traffic (and, therefore, my earnings) decreases. The time required to track down the thieves is time taken from more fruitful endeavors and not guaranteed to get the stolen content removed from the plagarist's site.
  
  From now on, I'll post some articles on HP, but pitch my best efforts to print magazines. I've already removed all of my fiction from HP, and my small amount of poetry left here doesn't meet any high standards because I recognize I'm not a 'real' poet. (So it isn't necessary for anyone to point that out to me. Ha!)
  
  I stay mainly because I enjoy reading the work of those HP members I follow and also for the camaradarie. I don't 'do' Facebook or Twitter, so HubPages serves as my only social network. Its redeeming factors are the good creative writing I enjoy, informative articles and the writers who have become my online friends.
  
  So, please hang on, Stevie, and give HP time to 'grow on you.' I think you'll find a lot to like here. Even if you write only poetry, you'll discover quite a few good poets here who do the same and support each other. There are also many Hubbers whose hubs are predominately prose, but who also post some poetry. Then there are the strictly-prose group who just enjoy reading poetry. That's a pretty broad audience for your work.
  
  HubPages isn't perfect, but it does have a lot to offer even though I often disagree with some of the site's administrative policies. But it isn't necessary to like everything about it in order to enjoy and benefit from the good aspects.
  
  Jaye
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  janderson99posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  While it is possible to eliminate a users ability to copy text via JavaScript ....... A more technically proficient person could simply disable JavaScript or view the page source.
  
  Yes but doesn't this make it much harder to copy the text and a lot more work rebuilding the content elsewhere. It is not perfect - but would block perhaps 50-75% of the copying. This would be very worthwhile IMO instead of the totally open system that applies now.
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  Susana Sposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I would say that about 98% of thieves of my hubs are pros and the theft is all automated, it's very rarely someone who is a naive copy and paster.
  
  I'm interested to hear other hubbers percentages.
  
  ??
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  JayeWisdomposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  A few quick words about percentages and I'm out of here!
  
  My best-viewed hub is having content stolen (currently) by twelve plagiarists, ten of whom are representatives of businesses. They're using my writing on their companies' Facebook pages, blogs, and websites, and claiming credit for it with their bylines! That infuriates me, but only the two others who are selling pdf downloads seem to be pros. Two out of twelve--16.7%
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  Susana Sposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  If it's companies you're dealing with send them a bill. Marisa has done this successfully before.
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  psycheskinnerposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Most people copying whole hubs are serial plagiarists in it for money. It will stop approximately zero percent of these. It wouldn't even stop me--I don't run javascript (Seriously, javascript is a PITA especially on mobile devices, I never use it on any of my sites).
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psycheskinnerposted 10 years ago
I feel that Hubpages decision to not use a tool known to be ineffective and cause problems for users is the correct decision.
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  Nadia Ribaduposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I trust this is sarcasm?
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janderson99posted 10 years ago
Lots of sites have copy prevention in place. It does not stop the pros, but it would stop the amateurs. HP has never tried anything.
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  psycheskinnerposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Most of the big ones don't. Probably because it really doesn't. Anyone who can Google can find out they just need to CRTL-C or view source code.
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  ChristinSposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Not only that but some browsers have add-ons that simply overwrite that javascript code anyway. Anyone can put an add-on on their browsers, so it really isn't going to stop "amateur" thieves anyway. A thief is a thief, if they want something bad enough, they'll find a workaround unfortunately.
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relacheposted 10 years ago
Srsly. Viewing the source code is about as far from pro as you can get, and it gets the job done.
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  janderson99posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Its a huge job to extract the text from the html and to re-format it. Even the javascript based blockers would stop 75% or so.
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  Rywadsposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  As opposed to the other 100% of the time when you have to reformat your stolen text into a new document?
  
  So, it's hard to view the source code (save the page or right click)... copy it... then put it into another HTML document... open that.. and copy that into Microsoft Word?
  
  That takes forever, too. It takes at least 45 seconds.
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  melbelposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Not really. Any script kiddie can put something together to pull exactly what they want from HTML. With libraries like Nokogiri or Hpricot, it's a cinch. I pull HTML for my own use all the time (obviously not for stealing articles or anything like that.)
  
  If I wanted to massively rip content from HubPages, I wouldn't do a copy and paste job... it would take too long, I would do it programmatically and it would take a just a few hours to write code that would steal every article off HubPages.
  
  And even if there was some sort of copy + paste prevention software, there are ways to get copy and paste going again.
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Barack Jamesposted 10 years ago
Search engines know about originality of a content; and stolen contents; they will show the original content in their SERP and not the scraped content
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  janderson99posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Sorry they should, but they don't. The copy can out rank the original and Google does not recognise the difference, nor give preference to the original.
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  Barack Jamesposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  May be you have succeeded by working extra hard on inbound links:) but there is how search engines handle sites with duplicate contents; based on the authority and reputation each site has online http://www.free-seo-news.com/newsletter306.htm
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  janderson99posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  What you are referring to appears, to be a patent that has not been implemented. As far as I am aware Google does not have the ability to recognise the original by date and it give it priority in the SERPS.
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  Rywadsposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Google always gives precedence to documents that have been on the internet longer. That's basic SEO. Therefore, Google will ALWAYS identify and rank the older document higher in the SERPS.
  
  If that wasn't true, then why would people bother to mask the fact that they are copying a document? Why would anyone care to rewrite something at all? It would be a waste of time if what you're saying is at all true.
  
  Seriously, dude. Seriously. Basic stuff here. Stop leading people astray all over the place with your random, incorrect understanding of how Google ranks things.
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  Susana Sposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I mostly agree with you, but ALWAYS is a big word to use. I'd go for MOSTLY, because Google is not infallible.
  
  Something that happens on Hubpages regularly is that scrapers get hold of the content just after it's been published and before google has indexed the original. It doesn't help that new hubs start off with a noindex tag.
  
  There would also be no need for Google to have a Scraper Report Tool, if originals always outranked copies. http://searchengineland.com/google-scraper-tool-185532
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  Rywadsposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Indeed, indeed. A lot of the time would be a better way to put it.
  
  You can't really stop this, sadly.
  
  I think pressure should be put on Google to stop this, since Hubpages can't do anything. Google should be pressured to index web 2.0 stuff faster and identify copies more accurately.
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  brakel2posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Unfortunately, that is not true. In the past, I had copied content ranked above me on page 1 in Serps. I wish it was different. However, I do believe the situation is better now than it used to be. I think Google is making an effort to prevent this from happening.
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janderson99posted 10 years ago
The subdomains should help to establish an individual's authority. The finding that EC's - the cream of the crop, do not get higher traffic is relevant in relation to 'quality' in Google's eyes.
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  relacheposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  My EC's have gotten higher traffic since receiving that designation but it's nothing like the "return" so many people want to induce magically.
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psycheskinnerposted 10 years ago
In my experience newer copies can rank higher for simple SEO reasons. Age is not a trump card in the algorithm, just a factor.
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skperdonposted 10 years ago
I am in a similar situation, an African website's writer copied one of my Hubs I have been trying to get that undone too. They completely ignored my efforts, I've sent DCMAs, I've written in the comments, nothing from the perpetrators. I don't know what else to do.
I've research different ways to deal with it but if there is no response what can you do about it?
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  Susana Sposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Have you sent a DMCA to the website host? That's the best way to get copies removed completely.
  
  You can find out who the host is here: http://www.whoishostingthis.com/
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Huntgoddessposted 10 years ago
Really? you can't ? Sheesh, that's pretty awful.

I did find something translated into Russian, from another Hubber.

I've never found anything of mine plagiarized, although I really haven't looked carefully yet.
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receivetipstricksposted 10 years ago
If someone wants to copy your article, there is no way of stoping him or her. Trust me, there is no way to stop someone from copying your article even if you are disabling right click or using java script. And if there would be a way, Google would have implement it 11 years back.

The simple fact is that, what can be seen can be copied.
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  Huntgoddessposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, but what about accountability?
  
  Can they be forced to stop doing that? Can they be fined?
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Matthew Hargisposted 10 years ago
Read only will hurt you more than it helps. Google needs to be able to track you to properly promote your hub. Read-only cannot be crawled by the bots. It's the wild west out here, on the internet. It sucks sometimes.
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  Huntgoddessposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I see. Thanks, that's interesting.
  
  Well, that's what Charles Dickens said, on his first trip to the U.S. Not about "read-only," but about the Wild West -- which was actually pretty wild back then, although I don't know if he would have used that expression, precisely. Not sure if Brits knew it?
  
  His books were popular here, as well as England, but he disliked the way they were being "shared" all over the place -- with no royalties going to him. He actually insulted and offended the editors and publishers who held a dinner in his honor.
  
  That's one of the many things I wish he had not done.
  
  He's still my favorite, though. We all make mistakes.
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  Rywadsposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  You do realize that people are talking about how the internet is like the wild wild west... not that we're actually talking about the Wild Wild West. That Dickens quote forray is so off topic to the OPs question so as to be almost irking. Can you at least attempt to respond to something relating to the topic of Hubpages internet plagiarism?
  
  Talking about people sharing books more than a hundred years ago seems really anti-helpful, lol.
  
  What's happening here is the equivalent of someone checking out a book from a library in Greece and attempting to pass off the book as one's own in America.
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  Huntgoddessposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I thought the topic was plagiarism?
  
  (BTW, I didn't quote Dickens.)
  
  You are free to report my comment, if you think it violates any rules. God bless. Have a great life.
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  Rywadsposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Close enough. You said "...that's what Dickens said."
  
  I'm just pointing out that the question asked is:
  
  "Why can't hubs be 'read only' to prevent content from being copied?"
  
  So, why do we need to have posts about Charles Dickens getting angry about libraries in the 1800s? How does that help and or solve the problem? If you read through the thread, people are talking about the topic. I think it was only logical for me to nudge you and say that you're getting pretty off topic.
  
  Sorry!
  
  I mean we're trying to solve the plagiarization problem. You could have at least addressed what Dickens did for his problem. Any thoughts on that? Or did he just yell at people a lot? I don't think his problem was solvable.
  
  As for the problem here at hand... I think there isn't much we can do. Maybe that's the point you should have stressed here. It's similar in both cases. We're just one individual vs. a machine called the internet. We can't stop plagiarization.
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Victoria Baughmanposted 10 years ago
Oh my goodness! That is stolen content! In one of my hubs I placed a copy of a letter I wrote as an example and I posted above it that it was for the use of an example only and should not be copied. I'm not sure if it will make a difference, but it is not ethical for others to use your work as their own! I'm so sorry to hear this. How did you discover that this was happening?
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brakel2posted 10 years ago
I remember someone downgrading poetry but not against anyone personally. It's still not right, and good poets write on this site. I haven't checked any plagiarism recently. I did find an article on the new Helium along with another copy on sAme page. I guess Helium owns them. I thought I might get it back. Thanks Jaye for responding.
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Muhammad Ali7posted 10 years ago
One good idea is that the HTML/CSS attributes of the webpage be changed in order to prevent the text from being copied, but then there are ways to copy that sort of text too
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  Rywadsposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  It's useless, because people are using scripts to copy from the source code.
  
  Thanks for playing our game! Read the whole convo next time =P
  reply report

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