What should I do about copied hubs?

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   Moon Daisyposted 13 years ago

   I've just seen that one of my hubs has been flagged up as having been copied.  Someone has copied it word-for-word on Yahoo Answers.  What should I do about this?  And will my hub score suffer as a result?
   
   Thanks,
   Moon.

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2. 0

   Website Examinerposted 13 years ago

   You will need to file a DMCA complaint with Yahoo, and they should take the duplicate material down.
   
   You will likely be penalized until it has been resolved, although you may ask HubPages to review it as explained here:
   
   http://hubpages.com/faq/#duplicate_content

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      relacheposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      WE, you DON'T get penalized by HubPages when someone else copies your work to another site.  Hubs don't get moderated when someone else steals the content and puts it elsewhere. 
      
      You only incur a HUBScore penalty if you publish duplicate material on this site.

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         Website Examinerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Then why has the OP's content been flagged as duplicate? Would that not require her to resolve the matter?

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            relacheposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Because people use the word flag indiscriminately/inaccurately and you aren't paying attention to what she is saying.  She didn't say it was flagged as duplicate, she said it was copied, and is now posted on Yahoo Answers.
            
            I've had Hub content stolen and put up elsewhere and still had that Hub rank 100 here while I worked to get the stolen content taken down.

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            1. 0

               Website Examinerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Here is what she said: "I've just seen that one of my hubs has been flagged up as having been copied."
               
               How can you say she isn't saying that it has been flagged as duplicate?

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                  Whitney05posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Flagged as duplicate is a warning, not a penalization. Either way, she got it removed. No need to argue...
                  
                  Yahoo will quickly get back with you and remove the stolen content. Yahoo Answers is bad for stealing content, I've had to have many Yahoo answers stuff removed where they've stolen hubs.

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                     Website Examinerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     I have learned a lot from this thread, thanks to everyone.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            It's a service that HP provides for us, so that we can go chasing people who've duplicated our work.  People see that word "flagged" and think it's a negative, but it's not necessarily.
            
            I reported a copy to Yahoo Answers and they took it down very quickly.

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3. 80

   Moon Daisyposted 13 years ago

   Thank you for your reply Website Examiner, and for the link.  I'm not sure what DMCA means, but I will read your link and hopefully it will all be clear.  (Apologies for any confusion I've caused by accidentally posting my question twice..)

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   1. 0

      Website Examinerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      DMCA means Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
      
      There is a procedure where the host may have a legal obligation to take down material when a complaint is filed. The other side of the issue is that hosts are usually not liable for copied content, as long as they take it down once a DMCA complaint has been filed.
      
      Here is a link to the instructions for filing a DMCA with HubPages. Note that you cannot file your complaint with HubPages, but must go to Yahoo, so this is just to give you an idea of how it works.
      
      http://hubpages.com/help/copyright_infringement

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      1. 80

         Moon Daisyposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you so much for explaining this.  I contacted Yahoo last night with the standard DMCA text, and they just got back to me to say that they have taken appropriate action.  I've had a look at the Yahoo Answers webpage and the offending post has been removed!  This is a great result.

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            Website Examinerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Congratulations on your effort! Glad to hear this.

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4. 72

   relacheposted 13 years ago

   My intention in posting to this thread was not to get into a semantic debate, and I'm sorry I allowed myself to be baited into one.
   
   What I want to reiterate, especially now that the focus has been shifted, is that content that originates on HubPages and then is republished elsewhere does not incur any sort of HubScore penalty, but content that is published somewhere else on the web first and is then republished here does.
   
   'Nuff said.

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   1. 80

      Moon Daisyposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks everyone for your replies.  I filed a DMCA complaint and got a quick response, (less than 24 hrs later), from Yahoo saying that they've taken appropriate action, and the post where my hub was copied has now been removed.  I'm very grateful for all the advice you gave me.
      
      FYI, the message that appeared at the top of my hub was as followed:
      
      "Your hub may not be in compliance with our publishing guidelines. Please review the automatically generated warning below, and correct the problem if possible. These warnings are only visible to you, the author.
      
      COPIED: The content of this hub may have been copied on another site."
      
      And I've just noticed (belatedly), that if you click this last sentence, you also get this:
      
      "Some or all of the text from this hub appears to have been duplicated on another site. While your hub is not being penalized on HubPages, if this is your original content and it has been copied without your permission, we recommend that you protect your copyright by filing DMCA complaints with sites listed below, as appropriate."
      
      Wish I'd realised that before!

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         michifusposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         good stuff, thanks

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