Stolen Article

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   anglfire693posted 15 years ago

   I recently joined Xomba and used it successfully the first evening to add some of my hub links.  The next day my account was blocked and when contacting the site for help, I was told that my account was blocked because I had copied it from 'here' and here was a link that I clicked on and took me to my article...but the problem was, it was on some site called tripledub.com and submitted by some adams.  Well I got it all straightened out, this guy who stole my article stole the absolute wrong one as it was an article in my "Great gifts for..." series so I could prove the writing matched mine, but not only that, out of all of the 22 articles he could have stolen, this guy actually takes the only one that has my name in the text of the article!  If he stole others I don't know, I couldn't manipulate the site well enough to get help and the site service people were no help after I told them I would not submit my content to their site because they were still allowing this guy to submit on there after it was proven that he stole my article.  Yes, they took my article down from his posts, but told me, "let us know if he has any other articles of yours posted and we will take care of those also." 
   
   Anyway...my question is this...is there anyway to prevent people from stealing your work????
   
   Thanks for the help!
   
   Dana

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      cosetteposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      ugh these people make me sick :x
      
      i started adding copyright disclaimers etc. but it just got too tedious so now i only add it to really personal hubs because that sucks when people copy your own life stories.
      
      how they can respect themselves is beyond me.

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         anglfire693posted 15 years agoin reply to this

         I know!  I just don't get it!  I wish there was something more we could do!  I have also started adding copyright disclaimers!

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   livewithrichardposted 15 years ago

   The ugly truth is no.  There is no way to prevent people from stealing your online content.  You could get into the habit of adding a copyright statement at the beginning or end of your hubs but that will do little to deter those that are determined to steal.
   
   Good thing that you caught it but know that it happens to all of us.  It even get's harder when you have hundreds of articles out there.

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      anglfire693posted 15 years agoin reply to this

      That is discouraging.
      
      I did start adding the copyright statement and hope it will help.  I work hard on my articles...thats BS!  Thanks for your help!
      
      Dana

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         EYEAM4ANARCHYposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         It won't.

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   elayne001posted 15 years ago

   How rude - stealing your article - I guess we can't stop them, but they will probably only "borrow" the ones they think will make them money. Next time he should read it more carefully and at least edit your name out. Sorry for your inconvenience. Good on you for figuring it out.

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      anglfire693posted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, it is quite funny.  And her really didn't even steal a "good" article...it was just an article on gift items I was searching for on Amazon and figured while I was shopping, and spending all that time looking on Amazon, I might as well try to turn it in to an article!
      
      Problem is, it blocked my Xomba account for 2 days while I cleaned up the mess, and Xomba seems to bring me a decent amount of traffic...seems more than the other sites I have submitted to.  And it took me a lot of time e-mailing and defending myself to Xomba to prove I didn't steal my own article and to please reinstate my account and then to tripledub to get them to take it off.

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   hublimposted 15 years ago

   You could look on the positive side; your hub was good enough for them to steal.
   
   With online content you have to believe the cream rises to the top, people ripping off other peoples articles will only go so far.
   
   The people creating quality original content will ultimately have far more success.
   
   Keep on Hubbin!

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      anglfire693posted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the positive thought!  You are right.  I try to believe that in life in general that what goes around comes around and Karma can be a bitch!  Can I type bitch in here??
      
      LOL!
      
      Thanks for your reply!
      Dana

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   Jeryposted 15 years ago

   I've found articles and posts on other sites on several occasions. I wouldn't really mind if I have links and they leave them, but I've found my content with my links replaced with thier link for the same offer!URRRR

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      anglfire693posted 15 years agoin reply to this

      I know, this is ridiculous!  I wish there was something we could do.  The article he stole was a "fluff" article, but I worked hard on it still...it was a Christmas gift idea article and I researched a lot of products to put on there! And he was getting paid for my hard work!!!

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   Jane@CMposted 15 years ago

   Dana, check out this forum thread, not that it will make you feel better, but you are in good company.
   
   http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/29594

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      anglfire693posted 15 years agoin reply to this

      I know!  I read it.  Hard to believe!

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   thisisoliposted 15 years ago

   I have had trouble with this on numerous occasions, the best solution I found was to e-mail a DMCA warning to both the infringer of my copyright, any service hosting the content, and to the ISP hosting the content. 
   
   One of them will usually get shaken and remove the content, or force one of the others to do so.
   
   Sites as large as ezine articles have found themselves shut down for days due to failure to comply with a DMCA notice.  Thats a lot of money lost, and the big companies pay attention to this.
   
   The only site I have ever had any trouble having duplicated content removed is when an illegal site copied content from my own blogger site.  Despite a clear infringement of copyright blogger seemed unwilling to do anything about it.  Unfortunately there was little I could do legally in this case due to Bloggers ownership of content subclauses.

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      anglfire693posted 15 years agoin reply to this

      What is a DMCA warning?  Do you actually copyright every piece you write?  And how did you find out who the ISP was?

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