Theft of content on Tough Nickel

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   TessSchlesingerposted 20 months ago

   There is a site called Smart Money Edu that is stealing content from writers on Tough Nickel. I have reported it to Google, but despite my providing them all evidence, they refuse to believe it's my copy - even with screenshots showing them that Hubpage shows when it was stolen.
   
   Here are some examples.
   
   Margaret Pan wrote this piece on Sept 3, 2021
   https://toughnickel.com/self-employment … Freelancer
   
   Here is it on Smart Money Edu
   https://www.smartmoneyedu.com/self-empl … ancer.html
   
   Andrew Smith wrote this on Tough Nickel
   https://toughnickel.com/personal-financ … -Investing
   
   Here it is on Smart Money Edu
   https://www.smartmoneyedu.com/personal- … sting.html
   
   Alexander Okelo wrote this on Tough Nickel
   https://toughnickel.com/real-estate/Are … nnsylvania
   
   here is his stolen work
   https://www.smartmoneyedu.com/real-esta … -know.html
   
   Every single story on that site is taken from Tough Nickel. I had a long email session with the Google DMCA section and they said they aren't going to do anything about it, but if that site was taken down, then all their work would disappear.
   
   I take it that Google knows that the work is stolen, but for some reason isn't doing anything about it.
   
   As hubpages gave me the link when they said my copy was stolen, obviously it isn't that Maven is using our copy elsewhere. Or is it?

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      OldRosesposted 20 months agoin reply to this

      I'm having the same problem with my articles on Dengarden.  In my case, it's the hosts who are refusing to take down the pages which violate my copyright even when the authors have literally copied and pasted my copyrighted article and then put their name on them.  It's very discouraging because more and more of my content is stolen every day.

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         TessSchlesingerposted 20 months agoin reply to this

         I have been searching for two days now to find the 'hosts' of the above site, and they are anonymous. They aren't registered. I think, because there is no punishment, they just carry on.
         
         I wonder why Hubpages doesn't do anything. They must be aware of it. As far as I can see, the whole of Tough Nickel has simply had all its articles transferred. Is that the same with Dengarden?

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            OldRosesposted 20 months agoin reply to this

            Not yet but I'm sure I'm not the only Dengarden author who is having their content stolen piecemeal by different websites.

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      Miebakagh57posted 20 months agoin reply to this

      Tessa, many thanks for displaying your findings and search as a sort of parallel line.                                    We writers are no longer are no longer at the mercy of Google regarding any  DMCA.                                          Fortunately, I'm not at ToughNikel. But as a writer of concern, I should aired my voice. The thing is that if the trend of stealing another writers' article cmtinue and persists, all original writers should come under a sigle unbrella.

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      TheShadowSpecterposted 19 months agoin reply to this

      They have stolen two of my articles from Tough Nickel too.  If this website is something that Google can take down and they refuse to do so, it would appear that we may have a legitimate legal claim against Google.  If you've been providing Google with screenshots showing that you initially wrote the articles that Smart Money Edu stole, I don't understand what more they could want.  It's as though they are arbitrarily choosing to ignore the copyright laws in our nation.

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      TheShadowSpecterposted 19 months agoin reply to this

      Tess?  Smart Money Edu is a Wordpress site.  Are you sure that Google would have the ability to take it down?  I don't think that a WordPress site is a Google site.  Nonetheless, they should still remove any listings of that site from the Google search engine results.  I'm going to contact the advertisers on that site and notify them that they have stolen two of my articles from Tough Nickel.  If any of us can hit Smart Money Edu where they live, we might start getting some results.

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         Miebakagh57posted 19 months agoin reply to this

         Good talk. How then do we go about doing that?

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            TheShadowSpecterposted 19 months agoin reply to this

            Matt Wells is a staff member of HubPages.  We should follow his advice.

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               Miebakagh57posted 19 months agoin reply to this

               Yes, I got it. And thanks.

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      2. STAFF

         Matt Wellsposted 19 months agoin reply to this

         Here is a link to file a complaint to get copied content removed from Google's search results.

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   eugbugposted 20 months ago

   Cloudfare are reported as being the pass-through maskers of the site. I normally submit an abuse report to them here:
   
   https://abuse.cloudflare.com
   
   This is a typical reply email they issue, giving the name of the web hosting provider. (On desktop, to see the image below, right click and open image in new tab, then Ctrl + to zoom)
   
   

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      TessSchlesingerposted 20 months agoin reply to this

      For the Smartmoney site?

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3. 94

   Readmikenowposted 19 months ago

   Tess,
   
   Thank you for the warning.  I appreciate it.
   
   I've had my stories reproduced many times and in many ways without my permission.
   
   It is a frustrating thing.

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      Miebakagh57posted 19 months agoin reply to this

      Very frustrating indeed. I hate all content thefts. Creating contents its not rocket science. Still I can get my hands around that topic and come up with an evergreen write.

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      TessSchlesingerposted 19 months agoin reply to this

      Well now that I know that Cloudflare protects them, I'm going to report them to Cloudflare. I don't come here often anymore, so I haven't got around to reporting them yet.

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         Miebakagh57posted 19 months agoin reply to this

         Now, this is confusing to me. Reporting the protected to the protector. How can they be a solution? How can the evil be resolve?

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         TheShadowSpecterposted 16 months agoin reply to this

         Tess?  It looks as though their website may have been taken down.  I attempted to click on the links cited above to their website, and I only got this one message shown in the screenshot below. 
         
         
         
         I noticed this just recently.  Smart Money Edu may be finally out of our hair.

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            TessSchlesingerposted 16 months agoin reply to this

            I got on to the site - from Ireland. So if Google has done something, they have only ensured that nobody in the States can see it.
            
            A website called Levitrares (I think that's how you spell it) is stealing content from hubpage writers as well as Medium. Hubpages refused to do something about it. However, when I reported it to Medium they said they were aware of it and they were doing something about it.

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               TheShadowSpecterposted 16 months agoin reply to this

               Yeah, unfortunately, the Smart Money Edu website came back.  Its brief absence from the Internet was just too good to be true.

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                  Miebakagh57posted 16 months agoin reply to this

                  Ah,  Omg. these content theives!

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                  TessSchlesingerposted 16 months agoin reply to this

                  The problem is that they're hiding behind some sort of software that prevents Google from recognizing whose writing it is.

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                     TheShadowSpecterposted 16 months agoin reply to this

                     What I find really baffling is how they are making their money off of our articles.  I've noticed that there doesn't appear to be any advertisements on their website.  However, they must be making money off that website somehow.  Otherwise, they wouldn't spend so much time stealing other people's articles.  Their kind are always greedy.

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                        Miebakagh57posted 16 months agoin reply to this

                        Could it be possible that they're selling copies of complete re-edit of our original content? The original on display are to me a type of show casing.

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                           TheShadowSpecterposted 16 months agoin reply to this

                           It's hard to say, but I would not rule it out.

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                           TheShadowSpecterposted 15 months agoin reply to this

                           One of my fellow Hubbers told me that it appears that they are harvesting e-mail accounts of people who read those articles and provide them with their contact information.  In that manner, they can spam those individuals with sales e-mails any time they want.  In any event, what they are doing is still against the law and so very wrong.

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                              Miebakagh57posted 14 months agoin reply to this

                              Those wrong doers are really among us.                                          In that case, our email accounts with hubpages are not safe.                                        Few days ago, I was checking my gmail with hubpages. I noticed suspioious mails from facebook, which should not, and has never been connected with my Hubpages gmail . I just deleted them. I don't think reporting the instance to HubPages (HP) could yeild a solution, as in the case of DMCA. I believe HP would have held that that's a Googles' question. Thank you.

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                     TheShadowSpecterposted 14 months agoin reply to this

                     Tessa?   I have some good news.  The Smart Money Edu website has been suspended.  Click onto it and you'll see that it states that the account for it has been suspended.  Hopefully, this will be the end of their unethical activities.

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                        Miebakagh57posted 14 months agoin reply to this

                        The Shamdow, I'm glad to note that. Methink this suspension is effect by Google? If so, would be content thieves should think more than two time, before plagiarizing our articles.

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                     2. 61

                        TessSchlesingerposted 14 months agoin reply to this

                        That's great news. I hope they close Levitrares as well. They are also stealing stories from Hubpages and Medium. Medium knows about it, and has known about it for months, and they say they are working on it, but it's still up.
                        
                        Thanks for letting me know.

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                        TessSchlesingerposted 14 months agoin reply to this

                        Medium just let me know (or rather they did a few days ago), that Levirtrares was down. So obviously there was more than one website involved!

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4. 95

   eugbugposted 19 months ago

   I see articles on the site belonging to Denise McGill., Heidi Thorne, Margaret Pan and Paul Goodman.

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5. 93

   Abby Slutskyposted 19 months ago

   I am having problems with theft as well. I've yet to receive satisfaction when I complain.

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      Miebakagh57posted 19 months agoin reply to this

      Abby, you're not alone. D' you think you're?

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6. 96

   Kosmoposted 14 months ago

   Smart Money ripped off one of my HubPages articles as well, but I didn't protest because I couldn't find an email address for the site!...

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