Theft of Articles

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   aviannoviceposted 16 months ago

   In the computer age and the problems that we have all been plagued with regarding article theft, what can HubPages do about it?
   
   We basically have our hands tied, but I have tried to save articles regarding birds and global warming, however, some of these articles cannot be saved.  There is some kind of program that protects them from this.  Can your IT department do this, too?  It would save everyone a lot of time and trouble.

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   1. 99

      theraggededgeposted 16 months agoin reply to this

      No, we are the copyright owners so we are responsible for dealing with the thieves. I have had many articles of mine removed by issuing DMCA notices. Most sucess comes by approaching the hosting site of the infringing website.
      
      On your account page you will see when HubPages has picked up a copied version by the little symbol next to the title. Go to the hub and click on the copied warning and a sample DMCA notice is available to you. Be aware that HP can't pick up all instances of copying.
      
      Use a whois search to determine the webhost and send them the notice.
      
      I'm not sure what you mean by 'saved'? You mean removed?

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      1. 91

         aviannoviceposted 16 months agoin reply to this

         Regarding saving articles to read later, I had tried to save them on my computer, but I was unable to do it because the article was protected from that.

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            theraggededgeposted 16 months agoin reply to this

            Oh, I see. The site owner probably disabled right-clicking. It's easily done on your own site (not here though), but won't stop those who are determined to hijack your work.
            
            DMCA notices are the way to go. I had at least a dozen copied articles last year but by persisting, I managed to get them all taken down. Webhosts are terrified of legal action, so they usually comply straight away. The site owner risks losing their site if they don't comply with their webhosts T&Cs.

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            TIMETRAVELER2posted 16 months agoin reply to this

            If you sign up for Flipboard you can save articles there.

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            1. 91

               aviannoviceposted 16 months agoin reply to this

               Thanks for your help.

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      2. 91

         aviannoviceposted 16 months agoin reply to this

         It took me a little while to find that this was on wordpress, so I wrote to the controlling entity over there.  Evidently, this was stolen on April 18, and I was informed about the theft a couple of days ago.

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         1. 91

            aviannoviceposted 16 months agoin reply to this

            I didn't send the web host anything official.  I could do a lot more damage with a hubpages article, I'm sure.

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   2. 90

      Jackie Lynnleyposted 16 months agoin reply to this

      That is a shame Deb. I know how hard you work on your photos and articles and it is just not right for someone to come along and steal what someone else worked for.
      I have no idea what to do. Many of my photos were getting stolen so I basically have stopped using them when there are s many out there to use but having taken them we want to show them off. There just needs to be harsher penalties against these thieves to make them think twice.

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      1. 91

         aviannoviceposted 16 months agoin reply to this

         That's why I'm hoping that IT will do something for us.  That's part of the reason why I stopped putting things up.

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2. 96

   Marisa Wrightposted 16 months ago

   Actually, no you couldn't.  You really should learn how to file a DMCA with a web host.  You will not only protect your own work better, but you will help others too.
   
   If you report the offender to their web host, the web host will remove the offending article.   It's quite likely the thief is stealing from others too - and if the web host gets a few complaints, they will close down the whole website and ban the person from starting a new one on their system.
   
   Of course, the thief can then go and start a new blog or site on another host, but if he continues to steal, he'll eventually get banned there too, and eventually he'll get fed up trying to find a host he hasn't been banned from.

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