Tracking down article thieves

1. 97

   Thomas Swanposted 8 years ago

   I'm having a hard time tracking down the hosts of some of the websites that are plagiarizing from me. For example, this one:
   
   towhoo.com
   
   According to whoishostingthis, it's hosted by Software Works Group. They don't seem to be a hosting service or a legitimate business because the email on their site doesn't exist. Their contact form just goes to blank after hitting send too. I've found some of their other email addresses, but I received no reply.
   
   I think the real host may be HostGator or nexcess due to some clues I've found on IP tracing websites, but I wasn't certain. Can anyone help me track down the real host of towhoo.com ?

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   1. 91

      lisavollrathposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I'm having the same problem, with another site "hosted" by Software Works Group, which seems not to be a hosting company. So far, I've filed DMCA complaints with GoDaddy, the site's masked admin address at domainsbyproxy.com, and the contact address at softwareworksgroup.com. Oh, and the admin address of the site itself, which bounced, of course.
      
      I also filed a URL removal with Google.

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      1. 97

         Thomas Swanposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         The first step is to go to whoishostingthis.com and to put the domain in there. It'll probably give you the SoftWare Works Group result again, but it will also give you the IP address for the site, and the nameservers. The nameservers are what should identify the real host. In my case, the nameservers had been changed by the plagiarist to hide the real host. So the next step was to put the IP address into google and see what it throws up. I found the a useful website called tcpiputils.com, and when I searched for the IP address, it gave me nameservers (DNS Servers) called usiphosting.com. Googling these showed that they're owned by seowebhosting.....
         
         So, now I have to see how seowebhosting respond to my DMCA. Hopefully, that was it.
         
         Software Works Group appears to be a defunct company. I emailed doug@ that domain about a month ago. No response. I emailed another one this morning called noc@. I tried the info@ from their site, but it bounced. I think these plagiarists are somehow using this dead company to cover their tracks.

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      2. 95

         Marketing Meritposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         I always do this first, before the DMCA to be honest, to get it out of the search results....assuming that the copied article is ranked of course.
         
         When I've done it the other way around, I've had several instances whereby the article was promptly removed. Consequently, Google said that it could find no copyright infringement on the (no longer) offending url, and did not remove it from the search engine results.
         
         The url was redirected to another page and remained in the search engine results for months afterwards.
         
         A lesson learned the hard way!

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2. 61

   LindaSmith1posted 8 years ago

   Looks like it is Go Daddy.  Here is link with their information.
   
   http://www.elhacker.net/whois.html?domain=towhoo.com

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   1. 97

      Thomas Swanposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Not sure, but I think that's the domain host, not the website host. I've contacted GoDaddy before regarding sites with whois information like that, and that's what they told me. I've found you have to look at the nameservers, but for this site, they seem to be the same as the URL.

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3. 92

   Phyllis Doyleposted 8 years ago

   Hi Thomas. Have you filed a DMCA complaint? That is what  you should do when you find your content copied. Here is a link that will help you:
   
   http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/how- … -complaint
   
   Sorry you are going through this frustrating issue. Good luck to you in resolving this.

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   1. 97

      Thomas Swanposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, I know how to send a DMCA. I just need to find the host of the site so I can send it.

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      1. 89

         Shinkickerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Yeah, It's not so straightforward.
         
         I tried to send a DMCA by email but the website blocked it saying I had to enable cookies

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      2. 95

         Marketing Meritposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Looking at the IP address, I believe that it is BlueHost.
         
         However, looking at the domain name servers, it may be hosted on a dedicated server.
         
         I have experienced problems with these in the past as the host, incorrectly in my opinion, refused to take action, as they stated that they did not have access to the files.
         
         Fire off a DMCA to Bluehost here....
         

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         1. 95

            Marketing Meritposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            I seem to be going around in circles here! I have now found the IP address registered to:
            
            
            
            Keep searching for the IP address and see where it leads you. The worst that can happen is that you send a DMCA and the host says that it is not their address.
            
            Best of luck!

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            1. 97

               Thomas Swanposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks for this. I've done some more searching too, and I've come to the same conclusion: seowebhosting.
               
               After doing some more IP hunting on your advice, I found this great website:
               
               http://www.tcpiputils.com/browse/ip-add … 75.169.130
               
               seowebhosting is listed as the DNS.... though the ASN (ISP) is a company called "Nexcess". I'll contact seowebhosting.
               
               They appear to be hosting another plagiarist site that claims to be on Software Works Group but isn't. Hopefully I can kill both with the same notice.
               
               Weirdly though, I'm seeing other hosts coming up too, such as "Cyber Wurx", though I haven't seen BlueHost yet. Hopefully seowebhosting will have it.

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               1. 95

                  Marketing Meritposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Hi Thomas,
                  I came up with a server IP address of 64.247.180.120 from here....
                  http://whatmyip.co/view/dns/1111240/ns1.towhoo.com
                  
                  Then the IP address of the actual site is 65.75.169.130.
                  Either way, it all leads back to the same place.
                  
                  Do keep us posted as to how you get on....

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                  1. 97

                     Thomas Swanposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     Thank you for your investigations Marketing Merit (and to everyone else who helped here!). I got a prompt reply on Monday afternoon from seowebhosting to say that they have contacted the customer and will take the content down in 48 hours if they don't get a counter-notification. So, it seems like seowebhosting were the wizard behind the curtain. Success... I think.

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4. 73

   relacheposted 8 years ago

   Thomas, what you have discovered is a domain which has utterly falsified their registration and you can't contact them.  There is one great way to take down sites like this.  It's pretty straightforward and I have never had it not work for a site registered to a US company.
   
   Report them to their domain registrar as having false contact info and that you can't contact them regarding stolen web content and that there is a copyright issue. 
   
   When their domain registrar can't contact them, it will take down their entire domain because that's what they have to do with a site that has falsified their info and can't be contacted who has been reported for copyright violations.

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   1. 97

      Thomas Swanposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks relache. I didn't know that route was an option. It definitely would have been my next step.

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5. 94

   wildernessposted 8 years ago

   According to Kloth.net the ip address is 65.75.169.130
   
   According to whois.arin.net that ip belongs to SoftwareWorks Group, Inc. and the email is doug@softwareworksgroup.com with a contact of Douglass Hanna.
   
   I went through this some time ago and compiled the information on how to find difficult sites into a hub - it is on my carousel.  It's certainly not the end-all, but I found it useful.

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   1. 95

      Marketing Meritposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      The IP address I found Wilderness, was: 64.247.180.120, although it seems to lead to the same place.
      
      "Who is" is listed as Callsol Tech with the parent company as SoftwareWorks Group.
      
      Callsol Teach seems to have a few groups of IP addresses. One is listed to Bluehost and another to Seowebhosting.
      
      The latter seems to include the IP address for the offending website.
      
      What should be an easy process is extremely frustrating!

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   2. 97

      Thomas Swanposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks wilderness. Yea, the doug@ email was the one I tried a month ago. No response. I think it's a dead company that has (had) nothing to do with web hosting, and is being used as a front by plagiarists to mask their "work".

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6. 97

   Thomas Swanposted 8 years ago

   Wow, Hubpages just found 2 more copies of my hubs on sites that show SoftwareWorks Group as the host, with nameservers: towhoo.com
   
   That's 4 of mine, and Lisa Vollrath commented above that she's had one too.
   
   All of mine were on different domains, but each domain is the same plagiarist. A quick search shows that MANY of the posts on these sites were copied from Hubpages.
   
   The real host appears to be seowebhosting.net . Their support team seems quite helpful.

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   1. 91

      lisavollrathposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      My copied content disappeared for a time yesterday afternoon, but is back this morning. I've filed a complaint with seowebhosting.net. Thanks for tracking down this info, Thomas.

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7. 61

   Michael Murcottposted 8 years ago

   445 Nimitz Avenue, Redwood City, CA 94061: Phone: 404-865-1095: E-mail:info@softwareworksgroup.com. Phone: 404-865-1095

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