I filed my first report on a stolen hub at Squidoo

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   pgrundyposted 15 years ago

   After letting it settle in over the weekend, I decided to make an issue of it since the hub that was stolen is one of my highest earning hubs and the guy published the entire piece as his own original work at Squidoo. It will be interesting to see if they do anything.
   
   I asked them to take it down or give me a byline and a link to the original here at Hub Pages--but really, they should just take it down.
   
   How cheeky of that dude. Geez.
   
   I can't believe people do this.
   
   I decided to only make a big deal of it when it is stolen outright like that. If someone just quoted it or something because they liked it, that's different, but just stealing it and acting like he wrote it, that's just not right.

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      Maddie Ruudposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      I know, it's extremely frustrating.  Every few months I have to file a whole slough of DMCA complaints--some sites are more responsive than others, which is frustrating as well.

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   Christoph Reillyposted 15 years ago

   Pam: Squidoo should absolutely take it down, but of course I'm speaking morally. I don't know anything about Squidoo, but since they are not a fly-by-night site, I expect you will get some satisfaction. I hope you do.

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   pgrundyposted 15 years ago

   Hi Maddie & Christoph,
   
   I decided to just bite the bullet and follow through on the outright plagiarism cases only. It's a drag but so far there's only that one that is really flagrant. I feel lucky that I haven't had more trouble than that--Clearly this is an ongoing issue for lots of folks here!

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      rockinjoeposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Good writer+Good content=Better theft potential.
      
      It's no different than doing a show in a comedy club and then having some comic do your material in another club a week later. First my jokes, now my hubs. I'm going to hold onto my underwear very tightly.

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      Lissieposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      
      
      Someone stole my India travel tips hub and posted it on an Indian discussion board - the discussion was actually quite complementary and the person who did it had go several thumbs up for the content - he was Indian - I thought it was quite a complement actually and probably left it if he hadd posted an extract or a link
      
      Instead I registered , posted on the thread with the backlink and threatened to report him to the admin or report the site to Adsense if he was admin - the thread was gone in hours - threats work well with guilt conscienses

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   pgrundyposted 15 years ago

   ROTFL rockinjoe! Yes, definitely hang onto your underwear. And Lissie--you go girl. Get them cyberthieves. Bam! Pow! Zap!
   
   Seriously though, it's getting very hard to get into paper print, so the internet is kind of what there is right now (not counting comedy clubs--I've never tried that!)--so it's REALLY annoying to be ripped off in the only real forum new writers have at the moment.
   
   It's like there's two kinds of people here--People who really care about writing and expressing themselves, and people who are in some MLM alternate universe earning to speak SPAMish.
   
   It's so strange.

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      rockinjoeposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Increase your fan base and if you feel you're that good (which I think you are) you can start a subscription pay site utilizing Paypal. Charge enough where you're keeping out the crooks and spammers, but make it cheap enough for your readers. Even just a few bucks a month would stop a thief in his tracks. Granted, it's probably not foolproof, but I bet it cuts your theft down 99%.

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   Eric Graudinsposted 15 years ago

   It's the attitude of these people that amazes me.
   
   I called out a hubber on his cut and paste of an article from another website - without any attribution, and claiming the work as his own - , and his response went something like:
   
   "Well, it's on the net, people want to read this stuff, so I'm just spreading it round. Nothing wrong with that".
   
   sheesh!
   
   (He's no longer with us, by the way)
   
   Eric G.

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