Double Check Items That Appear to Have Been Removed After DMCA Notices

1. 89

   Kylyssaposted 9 years ago

   Today I was checking my copied hubs report, a little bugged that some of the copies that had long since been removed by the host ISPs (or so I thought) were still hanging out on the page. To my great surprise, two of the copies of my money rose hub that I'd dealt with a copyright agent for the ISP on were right there, being all plagiarism and stuff, where I thought they'd been removed from because I'd checked before and I saw a big frowny face that said something like "sorry you can't see that tip anymore" on both copies.
   
   The reason I saw my content still there is that today, I logged in with my tablet. I had previously signed up with the site because I tried to report the plagiarized content using a flag button and so signed up and signed in with facebook. So my desktop has been signed in to the website that hosts the thief the entire time! All they did was block my ability and only my ability to see the content!!!
   
   So, if you still have notices on your copied hubs page after you've supposedly gotten resolution of copyright infringement, make sure your cookies are purged and your browsing history is wiped or sign in from a different computer and see if those copies your copied hubs report seems to think still exist still do. They might just.
   
   I sent the unethical website copyright agent another copy of the DMCA, this time with this added to the top:
   Making it so I can't see the tip when I'm signed in to [REDACTED] isn't the same as removing my infringed content from your website. Hiding the content from the copyright holder isn't an adequate response. Please comply with the DMCA infringement notice.

   replyreport
2. 66

   relacheposted 9 years ago

   Send a DMCA complaint to the offending site's internet hosting company, and include a report of how they responded to your direct complaint.
   
   That should get someone's attention.

   replyreport
   1. 89

      Kylyssaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      They have since removed my content. Do you think I should send the emails to their host? The whole interaction seemed quite shady and it was shocking from a multi-million dollar Internet startup business bigger than HubPages and backed by multi-billionaires. Their host is a multi-billion dollar mega-corporation that is murder on plagiarism.
      
      I'm not naming names because they are big enough to squash me like a gnat.

      replyreport
3. 86

   Marisa Wrightposted 9 years ago

   Kylyssa, I stopped filing DMCA notices with website owners a long time ago. 
   
   Nowadays I go straight to their hosting company, or (if they are displaying Adsense ads), I report them to Adsense. 
   
   The only exceptions I make are when I look at an offending website, and feel that the website owner is not a spammer but has made a genuine, innocent mistake and does not understand internet copyright rules. 
   
   It's relatively rare, but on those occasions I send a nicely worded email, explaining that the article is copyright and offering to sell it to them for a fee (I quote a fee, which I decide based on the value of the article).   Usually they simply remove the article rather than pay the fee, but I have actually been paid sometimes!

   replyreport
   1. 89

      Kylyssaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you. No matter how big the company, I'm going straight to the host from now on.
      
      I've been filing DMCAs with sites owned by large corporations for years without any problems. Since the content farm which has "tips" or photo tutorials in the form of slide shows in an Android and IOS app is owned by some big names one hears in the news and is much, much bigger than HubPages, I figured they'd have a professional staff of some kind. They don't.
      
      They have since actually taken my content down, framing it as if it was an accident that they blocked my ability to see the stolen content instead of removing it. I'm of the thought that it's not possible to do such a thing on accident without a really, really terrible software interface. Then again, they could have a software interface that really is that awful.
      
      They are owned by people and corporations with names one hears in the Wall Street Journal but they have some person who won't identify him or herself but goes by [REDACTED] Copyright Agent handling copyright issues. Their initial response was kind of weird, too, referring to the plagiarist as "the author" and asking me if I wanted to have them leave the tips up and link to my site. I replied no to that in no uncertain terms.

      replyreport
4. 88

   Stacie Lposted 9 years ago

   I will play devils advocate and can tell that some website owners did not know that their website builder stole the text for the site.
   Some were nice and complied and others were rude telling me to talk to the webmaster.
   Anyone having a site built should write their own material or run it through copyscape.

   replyreport
   1. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      You're absolutely right, several times I've had website owners apologise and say they had no idea where their website designer got the content from. 
      
      However I think it's fairly easy to spot those sites as opposed to the spammers and scammers.  They are more likely to be small businesses, where the bulk of their site is about their business and they have just a few "advice" articles about their specialist area.

      replyreport