SHOUTING AT YOU HUB PAGES!!! OUR HUBS ARE BEING RIPPED OFF. CRIME!

1. 91

   GoodLadyposted 11 years ago

   Please make a note of all of us in several forums that have found so many (or our) hundreds of copied hubs onto other sites. Read the threads because they contain so much information and then DO SOMETHING about it for all of us at Google.  NOW.
   
   I've only just begun to look for stolen hubs and here is my list in the last fifteen minutes!
   There are more, found by fellow Hubbers. (I'm just too angry to go and do any more coipying and pasting).
   
   http://www.pets-and-animal.com/great-na … -dogs.html
   
   wire haired fox terrier dogs
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/?s=goodlady  from this the following 16 hubs copied are these
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/fruity-al … ktail.html
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/easy-mixe … fruit.html
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/negroni-c … ecipe.html
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/how-to-ma … s-tea.html
   
   This is ridiculous.  Unbelievable.  Unacceptable.  Criminal.  It is theft.  No matter what clauses there may be in the small print of what our deal is with you at Hub Pages, I/we need some serious protection and help here. 
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/when-to-u … e-oil.html
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/using-bal … cipes.html
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/easy-fig-cake-recipe.html
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/garden-peach-cake.html
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/isnt-30-y … nswer.html
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/italian-c … ucine.html
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/how-to-ma … -ceci.html
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/cheapest- … sauce.html
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/recipe-ho … salad.html
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/simple-re … -tart.html
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/delicious … ecipe.html
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/easy-ital … orino.html
   
   http://www.foodforcooking.com/welsh-rarebit-recipe.html

   replyreport
   1. 95

      theraggededgeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      +1

      replyreport
   2. 88

      Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      GoodLady, I am so, so sorry that this happened, and I really wish there were more we could do to help, but there is not.
      You retain full ownership of your work and therefore are responsible for filing DMCAs- we don't have the grounds (or the resources) to do that.
      Again, I sincerely regret that we cannot do something more to help, but contending with copyright violations is just something that modern online content creators have to manage independently if they own their own work.

      replyreport
      1. 91

         GoodLadyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         So basically it really isn't worth being an online content creator?  If someone/ anyone clever enough can come along and steal every word and get away with it until DMCA's are filed,  (And Google eventually connects dots to do something about it, temporarily),  then  writing quality, original content (such as mine has been!) can be stolen.  This means it is no longer my original, well written, well photographed, laboriously researched, personally crafted, correctly credited di da di da work.
         I'd like to remove my work from Hub Pages.  I also wonder if there is any point. 
         If I found another site to publish on, wouldn't my work be up for thieving grabs there too?
         Is there any point to being an online content creator?
         Please, a candid answer Simone?  Thanks

         replyreport
         1. 87

            Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            If you post articles, poems or photos online, there is a risk they will be stolen. 
            
            However, they are at much greater risk on HubPages than on your own website or blog.  That's because there are unscrupulous people who see HubPages as a free source of material for their own websites.   By scraping a big site like HubPages, they can get a constant flow of hundreds of articles every day.   A small one-person site can't possibly supply enough articles, so your own blog is pretty safe from them.
            
            The downside is that on your own blog, you're not part of a community and you may struggle to get readers, if you don't know anything about working online.

            replyreport
            1. 85

               DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Well, that's just frigging great news!  

               replyreport
               1. 81

                  quicksandposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Makes one dizzy, huh?

                  replyreport
               2. 87

                  Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  It's just a fact of life and it's been happening ever since I joined HP.
                  
                  In the early days of HP, when all you had to do was write an article, sit back and let the traffic roll in, the risk of theft was a small price to pay for the ease of use.  These days, Hubs don't have much advantage over blog posts - both need active promotion to get readers - so its harder to see why you would expose your articles to the risk on a revenue-sharing site, when they'd be less liable to theft on your own site.
                  
                  However there is a catch. To get readers to your own site, you must specialise in a single topic. To make money on your own site, you need to know how to monetize it.  So if you prefer to write on a variety of subjects, and/or if you can't get your head around affiliate sales and advertising, then a blog isn't likely to be successful and therefore a revenue-sharing site is your only alternative.

                  replyreport
         2. 73

            Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I noticed he still has Google Ads. What is the deal with that? Google should have closed his account.

            replyreport
            1. 96

               wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Google (search engine) and Google (adsense) are separate entities, albeit with the same parent.  What one does is "supposed" to be completely separate from the other.

               replyreport
   3. 89

      TheKatsMeowposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      can you edit your post to change the links so that they are broken? Correct me if I am wrong but aren't backlinks favorable to a site? I feel like you might accidentally be helping the thief out.

      replyreport
      1. 91

         GoodLadyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         thanks.  tried to edit my post but can't get back in now!  what a pity.

         replyreport
         1. 85

            aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Have you tried the "more" button at the bottom of your post.  It should open up the "edit" function.

            replyreport
            1. 91

               GoodLadyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks but the edit option is removed after 'some' time. Shame.

               replyreport
               1. 89

                  TheKatsMeowposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  no worries GoodLady

                  replyreport
2. 89

   SimeyCposted 11 years ago

   In defense of Hubpages if they did follow up with DMCAs on all of these sites, all they would be doing is filing DMCAs - there'd be no time for any devopment. There are potentially several thousand hubs stolen every day - if HP had to file DMCAs for each of them then poor Simone would not have any fingers left.
   
   Perhaps something that HP could do is provide a more automated way of filing these claims - I seem to remember there was an editable pro-forma email - perhaps we could have a link on our stats page that would create a pro-forma email that we could paste into our email?!

   replyreport
   1. 88

      Victoria Lynnposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      SimeyC, something like that would be great. It looks like I'm going to have a lot--maybe even 100 or so--complaints to file. It's ridiculous. Anything would help to make the process easier.

      replyreport
3. 90

   Judi Beeposted 11 years ago

   I think we all get that we own our content and that HP can't file individual DMCAs.  I don't think that is what is being asked of them.  I believe that some of us might be wondering if, when the scraping is by one individual/group, and it's on this scale, whether HP can't compose a letter/email/whatever and send the details off to Google.  Perhaps that's way too simple.

   replyreport
   1. 75

      Jenn-Anneposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That's what I was wondering. Because the scale of the theft in this case is so large, I wish Hubpages could contact Google and give them a heads up that they could be getting however many hundreds of DCMA filings relating to these specific sites.

      replyreport
   2. 91

      GoodLadyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Hear hear.  It is on a huge scale after all!
      
      HUGE SCALE!
      
      Can't there be a precedent?  Isn't this how necessary laws are created?  Don't you think we are all worth this legal copyright battle?
      Doesn't the internet need some serious regulation?
      Isn't GOOGLE after this?
      Replies, please.  Thanks

      replyreport
      1. 73

         relacheposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         1) long-since set
         2) laws already exist.  You've just not bothered to educate yourself on how they work
         3) you are responsible for the content you own.  Just like how you have to wipe yourself when you go to the bathroom.
         4) the Internet has a lot of regulations.  They change pretty frequently, and people have to participate in how those rules get made so they become effective and yet don't restrict freedom of speech.
         5) Google will remove copied content from their index if you take the time to report it to them according to established guidelines.

         replyreport
         1. 91

            GoodLadyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            This is a friendly forum post relache and so it's nicer, if possible, to use non offensive language.  I find your 'bathroom' habit analogy distasteful.  You may know all there is to know about the laws which govern Internet writing and be up to date on all the changes and this is admirable but it isn't helping us deal with the large scale copying of Hubs that is going on at present.  Perhaps you have noticed that some of us have had upwards of 50 hubs copied.  Some is us have spent days of work writing DCMAs.  Even you must consider that something isn't right somewhre surely.  I'm more interested in your 4th comment and ask how you would 'participate' in getting 'rules made' and 'become effective' in the light of the mass copying going on here (of Hubs)?

            replyreport
            1. 73

               relacheposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               As someone who had already been working online as a content creator for four years when I joined HubPages six and a half years ago, I was familiar with the situation of copied content and having to submit NOIs to sites before I ever started here..  (You do not "write DMCAs" as an author, unless you are reinventing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act on a daily basis.  You send out Notices Of Infringement.)  Interesting that you think I am somehow immune to the scenario.  Although it brings extra responsibilities, it is because I retain ownership of my written work that I choose to write here. 
               
               As to participation in how Internet rules get made, I regularly spend time reading up on how the various web-governing bodies and governments are making Internet policy (HubPages is just as much a user/customer of those folks as am I) and participate in several grassroots/citizens campaigns that aim to educate politicians and web-users alike.  I vote both as a citizen, and as a consumer (where dollars are your vote).  It works the same as politics:  you either get as involved as you can, or sit back and wonder why a bunch of people made the decision they made.  The changes necessary to shift the situation go beyond how just HubPages functions because they are merely acting in accordance to established web policy. 
               
               As someone who writes for three or four sites, it's not effective for me to just yell at them (which appears to be the strategy with which you are currently experimenting).  Of course, you are perfectly welcome to continue to do that, but please note the people who opted for that strategy here in the past  are still doing the same thing one, two and even three years later... Or have just packed up their content and left.

               replyreport
               1. 92

                  ktrappposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Hey Relache, I found a couple of my Hubs copied on articleama dot blogger dot com which looks like it has about 65 Hubs copied (mostly Google/Twitter/Facebook type of Hubs) but one of yours on a different topic (love) was there. It's easy enough to read through the list of titles there to find it.
                  
                  What I am a bit concerned about, is that it appears that the infringement notice I filed with Google for one of my Hubs copied onto that blog was rejected, although I think it may be still under consideration. This guy copies the Hubs word-for-word and images, too, but he adds a lot of random punctuation.
                  
                  Anyway - Just thought I would let you know in case you hadn't already detected this one.

                  replyreport
               2. 91

                  GoodLadyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  I absolutely agree with you that it is important to know how Internet  policies are made.  I hadn't thought about how important it really is until now.  In fact, if we write online pieces  we should. 
                  
                  I yell at HP because I'd hoped they would intervene on their writer's behalf and speed up the process of getting this guy to stop copying so very much of our original work.

                  replyreport
               3. 95

                  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Too true. Owning my own content is of primary importance to me as well.
                  
                  I've not been in this line of work for as long as Relache, but I can say that I learned pretty early on that finding and dealing with copied content is a part of being an online content creator that we just have to accept responsibility for.

                  replyreport
4. 80

   Uninvited Writerposted 11 years ago

   Nice of you to give them so many backlinks.

   replyreport
   1. 91

      GoodLadyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Can't change them now, unfortunately.

      replyreport
5. 89

   SimeyCposted 11 years ago

   Any lawyer's in here? My understanding is that the only people who can contest any form of contract dispute are the two parties (owner and thief) - therefore HP has its hands tied?
   
   I'm not sure how Squidoo are getting around this unless their TOS includes something that gives them joint ownership?

   replyreport
   1. 77

      LuisEGonzalezposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'm not sure how Squidoo is doing this but you have a great point. If HP had some sort of ownership then they could perhaps institute an automatic system that would let us know when hubs are copied since it seems that the HP filter that warns of possible copied material does not work.

      replyreport
   2. 96

      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That can't be absolutely true or a lawyer couldn't do it for you.
      
      Seems like if we gave HP permission, they could do it for us.  That would mean that HP is then filing thousands of DMCA's each day, and that obviously isn't going to work.  I'm looking at dozens, if not 150 or so, in this single episode, but don't see how HP could ever handle the load, either.

      replyreport
      1. 89

         SimeyCposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         The lawyer is representing you in the case - the case is always you 'v' other.
         I guess we can give some sort of power of attorney to HP? I agree though, HP doesn't have the manpower. I'll do it for a $1 per complaint

         replyreport
   3. 58

      MelissaBarrettposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Not a lawyer...but
      
      Only the owner of the copyrighted material (or his/her legal representative) has the legal standing to defend it.
      
      That goes for ALL copyright, not just online.  For example, I can't file a report because Steven King's book was copied... It's common sense.  You own it, it's your responsibility to protect it.

      replyreport
      1. 89

         jellygatorposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I do not believe this is an accurate statement.
         
         Online publishing is really just a lot faster way of doing the same kind of publication that has been done for centuries. If Random House discovered that Joe Blow reprinted one of the Steven King novels they published, they absolutely WOULD have a right to go after the offender even if King retained ownership because Random House would be an injured party.
         
         HP is an injured party in events like these. It cuts into the site traffic and harms ad revenue. HP can file a lawsuit against an offender who is doing such a wholesale attack as this one. Those sites Goodlady mentioned appear to be mostly traceable back to a single person.
         
         HP could also take more proactive steps in other ways to protect its users. This isn't something that will be done overnight, but here are some ideas for long-term protection:
         
         1. HP already scans regularly for duplicated content. By hiring a developer to create a similar technology, HP could create a system that not only verifies our material as original when published/edited, but also continues to check it periodically, notifies us when infringements take place, and auto-inserts allegedly infringing text/photos into a DCMA complaint form along with HP's own record of verification that the material was not duplicate material of online publications when published. This would simplify the process tremendously for wholesale thefts like the ones taking place this week.
         
         I can't imagine it would cost more than a few thousand dollars to reverse engineer the existing software and tie it into a form for users... certainly it's got to be small pennies compared to the lost revenues from these events!
         
         2. I don't know how practical it would be, but HP could use these events as opportunities. When large chunks of materials are stolen, if HP has a staff attorney who could pursue the ones that appear easy to win in court, they can go after the thieves by naming themselves and the intellectual property owner as injured parties. The payoffs for these kinds of cases are pretty significant, and even if the IP owner only gets 10%, 30% to the attorney, and the remainder to HP, that's a HUGE benefit to everyone... as long as it's practical to actually get those judgments enforced and as long as the IP owner agrees to the split as part of the terms of service they agree to before publishing on HP.

         replyreport
         1. 91

            GoodLadyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Thank you for your suggestions jellygator and let us hope that they hit the mark at HP.

            replyreport
         2. 95

            theraggededgeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Yes! Yes! This. HP are you listening?

            replyreport
         3. 87

            Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            HP has said it uses a third party to check for duplicate content and it's very expensive.
            
            As for taking legal action, most of these crooks are in other countries. International law can get very complicated and very expensive.

            replyreport
            1. 89

               jellygatorposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Exactly... they already use the technology. It just needs a bit of tweaking to make it protect HP and its users better.

               replyreport
               1. 87

                  Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Yes,but you're suggesting expanding its use, and they're saying it's already too expensive to run it regularly.
                  
                  If I understand you correctly, you're suggesting they enhance their existing software to do more. The point I'm making is, it's not their software. They're paying for a third party service - something like Copyscape - to do the checking for them.  So HP does not have access to the technology to enhance it.

                  replyreport
                  1. 89

                     TheKatsMeowposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     If they regulated the content and checked for stolen hubs, fine. that would be great. At this point I don't even want that, all I want is for them to make the list of sites that are stealing our content available to the community. Hubpage user Judi Bee already created the list and it's in another forum thread, how about making that forum a sticky thread so that it's on the top of the forum? That's all I want and it's not a lot to ask. There are a lot of hubpage users who have had their content stolen from this one particular thief and a lot of people don't know about it. He is still scraping content and posting new stuff everyday. I wouldn't have known about it, but I just happened to check in the forum and by chance saw the thread.... I am very thankful that I did, because for the most part the stolen hubs aren't showing up in google searches.

                     replyreport
                     1. 90

                        Judi Beeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        Theraggededge suggested an email and I suggested a sticky thread.  To no avail - this is all too common an occurrence to bother people about.
                        
                        http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/111323

                        replyreport
                        1. 89

                           TheKatsMeowposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                           An email would be awesome, but just a sticky thread would be wonderful!

                           replyreport
         4. 58

            MelissaBarrettposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            It is very very unlikely that Steven King owns the rights to his novels.  If he owned all rights to his novels then no, random house couldn't do anything... as they couldn't possibly be an injured party. In this case, HP isn't an injured party either, as they take a percentage of your earnings ... vaguely like an agent. So the comparison isn't like random house at all... it's more like Steven King's agent suing for copyright infringement.
            
            HP owns no rights to your work.  As they own no rights, they can't be an injured party under law.  You cannot "lose income" from a product that you don't own.

            replyreport
6. 94

   FatFreddysCatposted 11 years ago

   I filed over 20 DMCA's against this choad last night. I'm almost afraid to go back for another look at his site because apparently they're still adding new stolen Hubs every day, so I'd probably  find even more of my stuff.

   replyreport
   1. 89

      TheKatsMeowposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, I just checked a few minutes ago and more and more hubs have been added!!!!! 

      replyreport
      1. 87

         Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, because if everyone is just filing with Google, the site will continue to exist.
         
         When you file with Google, all that happens is that they stop including it in their search results.  Google has no power to get the site closed down.
         
         You're not searching, you're typing in the URL, so you can still find it. So can anyone searching on Bing or Yahoo.  That's why I keep saying - complain to Adsense instead, so he loses his Adsense account (which will hurt him financially) and file a DMCA with his hosting company, who do have the power to shut him down.

         replyreport
         1. 89

            TheKatsMeowposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            @Marisa Wright, thanks for the tips! As mentioned in a few places, quite a few people, including myself have done all of this already that's why it's so frustrating when we see that the site is still up and running. Thanks for helping out though! and any new suggestions would be really appreciated

            replyreport
7. 76

   chrissieklingerposted 11 years ago

   Is there really no way that in HP's programming/hosting that they can't prevent copy and paste features? Some websites do that. That won't stop people from using your work word for word, but it would have stopped this current thief who copied and pasted hubs in their entirety. I love all the capsules and features and the community the HP offers. After seeing many of my articles that took hours to research and write be stolen so easily, I am discouraged to write articles for a while on HP. This person has attacked HP writers and started dozens of sites with only stolen HP content. I filed my DMCA, but in my opinion HP should be a little more concerned that all this content is being stolen and what it does for the site overall.

   replyreport
   1. 89

      SimeyCposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      "but it would have stopped this current thief who copied and pasted hubs in their entirety" not sure if the current thief did that - he probably used scraping software that would by-pass any sort of protection...

      replyreport
      1. 76

         chrissieklingerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         It is just weird that everything he is using is HP articles, nothing else. I just have a feeling that he found the site to be easy to steal from.

         replyreport
         1. 84

            Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            It's not all that weird - sites like ours are sitting ducks for content scrapers.  It's like one-stop shopping.  They plug in their scraping machine or whatever and quickly have a huge variety of content.  This particular one chose to separate it into multiple domains, but others have just put it all on one domain.  One person (or group) even inserted the 'names' of fake authors.  Of course, everyone had shadow silhouettes rather than profile photos.
            
            I'm sure all the user-generated sites get this regularly.  But that doesn't mean the site should not take action.

            replyreport
            1. 73

               Horatio Plotposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Scraping machine! Yuck! Sounds vaugely industrial, slightly medical and somewhat Victorian.

               replyreport
      2. 89

         jellygatorposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Another site (you can probably guess which one since you've heard me talk about it before, Simey) converts text into non-copy images. This would work well with a site like this that uses modules, I think, but it appears this particular thief was able to scrape the Amazon modules as well, which I don't understand. They were not able to get the photos, though.

         replyreport
         1. 73

            Natashalhposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            And ratings capsules! But not images. I may have to look into the text to image stuff.

            replyreport
            1. 95

               theraggededgeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               He got tons of my images! Especially on the artswithcrafts site.

               replyreport
         2. 89

            SimeyCposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Yep - I use that site too - however there is already software available that can 'read' text in an image, in a pdf file etc.
            Professional scrapers are already using sophisticated software to steal, so they'll find a way around this protection...
            
            http://forum.thewindowsclub.com/windows … mages.html

            replyreport
            1. 73

               Natashalhposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               True. I guess I was kind of hoping if this particular person couldn't figure out stealing the images, maybe that would foil 'him,' but you're right.

               replyreport
8. 84

   Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years ago

   I'm curious what the purpose of the box in the DMCA form is that specifies the compliant is not being filed by the copyright owner? 
   
   In addition, I still am not clear why a large site, that surely is a known entity to Google, can't approach them on an executive level in these instances. This is damaging Google (the integrity of their AdSense program) as well as HubPages and those of us who write here.

   replyreport
   1. 91

      GoodLadyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      It is most bizarre that Google and Hub Pages can't have a meeting about 'these instances'.  It would provide Google with a direct line to cutting out the rubbish they say they want to cut out,  whist providing online writers with their copyright rights AND keep HP in business (adsense etc).
      Very weird.
      What's wrong with picking up the phone and making the appointment?

      replyreport
   2. 89

      jellygatorposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Because they allow an owner to appoint an agent who works on their behalf. HP wouldn't want to be our agent because it involves something called "fiduciary duty" - HP would owe loyalty and have to obey anyone who it represents as an agent, which would not be even remotely workable for them.

      replyreport
9. 90

   jenb0128posted 11 years ago

   Thanks for the heads up. ALL but a couple of my animal-related hubs are on that joker's website, and I recognized several others by hubbers I follow.

   replyreport
   1. 89

      TheKatsMeowposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      this thief has 14 or 15 different sites with hundreds and hundreds of hubpage articles. Better get to the other forum thread and make sure nothing else has been copied Hubpage user Judi Bee made a pretty great list. If it hadn't been for that list, I wouldn't have found my stolen stuff.

      replyreport
      1. 90

         jenb0128posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks for the tip. I just looked at the pets and animals site for now, since most of my hubs are animal related. I'll check out the others as soon as I'm done with the DMCAs for these!

         replyreport
10. 94

    PegCole17posted 11 years ago

    Mine are copied too. LOTS of them - even with my name all over them.
    
    So, I went into the "leave a comments" section and used the name "Stolen Content" and gave them an email address that I never use. They even have a "Captcha" effort to prevent robots ! HAH!
    
    Well, the comments are posting under Recent Comments and the first line is
    STOLEN CONTENT
    
    So there! Copyright userpers. They have the nerve to put a copyright symbol at the bottom of their page. The audacity of them. Harumph.
    Peg

    replyreport
    1. 89

       TheKatsMeowposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I know! that copyright simple at the bottom made me really angry. It's pretty laughable how this person seems to have no morals!

       replyreport
       1. 94

          PegCole17posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          This reminds me of the time someone stole my NO TRESPASSING Sign. Really? I hope it works better for them than it did for me! LOL
          

          replyreport
       2. 89

          jellygatorposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          On the site where mine appear, it's an @ instead of the copyright symbol.

          replyreport
11. 81

    Hyphenbirdposted 11 years ago

    Some of mine are on there also. I just despise theft. Grrrr. I left this comment on "my" recipes and typed The Real Owner as a user name.:
    
    "Please be advised that this content was stolen from me, Hyphenbird(Brenda Barnes). It is legally published only on HubPages by me and this website has stolen it and placed it here. I am filing a DMCA. 4/5/2013"
    
    This type of person does not personally monitor the site most likely so now we must take time from our lives to file DMCA's and hope it works. Grrr again.

    replyreport
    1. 94

       PegCole17posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Good One, Brenda. At least the people who read on that site will be aware of the theft. Anyway, my copy is sort of jumbled up and messy, missing some pictures, so good luck to anyone using my recipes and advice from there.
       

       replyreport
12. 60

    alzepposposted 11 years ago

    My humble reply to what you complain, and its rather annoying for all of us what they do, is a copy protection site I found, for to ad a banner to our hubs to protect them from copy. Maybe Hubpages should consider doing that or let us do it ourselfs, since to ad a banner to any hub we must use the code capsule which only works for PC programming hub writers and works only as text.
    Maybe if we should all point that to Hubpages we might get help.
    Check this out      http://www.copyscape.com/

    replyreport
    1. 87

       Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       That banner is only an advisory and won't bother the crooks at all.  These crooks know they are stealing copyrighted articles and they don't care.

       replyreport
       1. 60

          alzepposposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I've checked and you are right but. If you google "disable copy paste code" you will find many codes doing that the proper way.

          replyreport
    2. 95

       theraggededgeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I use it on a lot of my Squidoo lenses. They still get stolen Having said that, perhaps it does deter the 'casual copier'.

       replyreport
13. 92

    ktrappposted 11 years ago

    While I have filed a dozen DMCA's with Google within the last few days, only one has been approved so far, yet if I do a search for any exact line of text from my Hub or its stolen counterpart, the domains in question are no longer showing in results. So I suspect (hopefully) that Google has now taken care of this particular problem at the domain level.

    replyreport
    1. 84

       Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I usually don't get an actual 'Hi, we got it" email - but the screen pops up saying the report was properly filed.  Then, after a few days, they start letting me know the outcome.
       
       Gosh - I am sure what we are experiencing is happening all over the Internet - can you imagine what Google goes through everyday, getting these complaints?

       replyreport
14. 90

    jenb0128posted 11 years ago

    For those who have filed DMCAs, did you get a confirmation email from Google? I just filled out one huge form for all of my stolen Hubs on that "Pets and Animal" site, went to submit, and it took me to my account login screen (I somehow got logged out... arghhhhh). I logged back in, and it went to my webmaster tools page, but there's no sign of any DMCA filed anywhere, and I can't get back to it. I'm just wondering if there's any way to find out if it went through before I spend time doing it all over again.

    replyreport
    1. 89

       TheKatsMeowposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       When I filed mine it went to the webmaster tools dashboard. It shows a list of pending, approved and denied requests. That's the only way I can see the updates, I didn't get an email or anything.

       replyreport
15. 90

    jenb0128posted 11 years ago

    Thanks, Marcy! I guess I'll wait a few days to see if I start getting any sort of outcome reports before I redo it. I don't want to annoy Google with any repeats (I want them on our side, after all).

    replyreport
    1. 92

       ktrappposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Use Google's "removal dashboard" in Webmaster Tools:
       https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dmca-dashboard
       
       It shows which URLs you've filed and whether the request is approved or rejected. So far one of mine has been approved, but that one and the others copied onto all those domains no longer appear in search results.
       
       That is what I meant when earlier I wrote that hopefully Google has taken care of this at the domain level instead of dealing with all the submitted infringements one-by-one - hopefully!

       replyreport
16. 81

    quicksandposted 11 years ago

    Disabling highlighting text and disabling right clicking may bring about a significant drop in this kind of online robbery.

    replyreport
17. 81

    quicksandposted 11 years ago

    Quite apart from that, many article sites that existed before HubPages served the sole purpose of providing free content to web masters. The only requirement was to put a link back to the original article. What the site owners wanted was links back to their sites as such sites were totally immersed in Ad Sense ads.  I guess that many of those who scrape content are not aware that sites like HubPages do not allow their content to be copied.

    replyreport
    1. 72

       galleryofgraceposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Any good hackers available? Maybe we should log in and sabotage the site.

       replyreport
       1. 77

          LuisEGonzalezposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Amen to that!

          replyreport
18. 89

    jellygatorposted 11 years ago

    One possible time-saver:
    
    Although I didn't do it initially, I now use "by Kathy Batesel" in an untitled text module on my hubs. When I learned about the site that stole my material, I was able to search the site for my name and it brought up the stolen material all on a single page so I didn't have to go through every single article on that site.
    
    I don't know if there might be faster ways that are still free, but it shortened the search time for me.
    
    Now I'm hoping that I'm doing the DCMA forms right.

    replyreport
    1. 91

       GoodLadyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       When I get the time to follow through with DCMA forms I'll follow the notes in the 'Learning Center' Guide.  Had a quick look at them  yesterday and although it looks ghastly complicated, by the time I get to the third one I may have learned how to do them.  Any notes on how to get through them all quicker, please let me know on our other page!   Thanks and best luck Kathy.
       (I'm packing and moving house and life is upside down so its going to be complicated getting space, time and mind to write the DCMAs! )

       replyreport
    2. 73

       Natashalhposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       One stolen hub of mine was brought to my attention by another hubber, but I haven't had time to check yet. Becuase I do have my name, the looser indluded my name in the stolen article!! I need to find the time to do some more looking.

       replyreport
       1. 60

          alzepposposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          In Greece where I live there is a law for that. If a copy paster includes the source of the post and the official owner of it, then there is no law broken, and he/she can do it.

          replyreport
          1. 91

             GoodLadyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             But this guy isn't including our URLs so he is breaking copyright infringement laws.

             replyreport
             1. 89

                jellygatorposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                Even if he was using our URLs, he's breaking copyright infringement laws.
                
                Greece apparently does have laws on the books, according to http://kluwercopyrightblog.com/2011/03/ … -material/ and a couple other items I found.

                replyreport
       2. 75

          Jenn-Anneposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          At this point, if you have published a hub on hubpages then chances are this guy has copied it. He appears to have scraped whole sections of the site. I gather from what other posters have mentioned that he's continuing to grab new stuff as it is published.

          replyreport
          1. 72

             galleryofgraceposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             And- if the scraper is in another country he probably can't be criminally prosecuted.
             However the site can be torn down and they can be banned from adsense.

             replyreport
19. 89

    jellygatorposted 11 years ago

    The pages I filed DCMA about were de-indexed within minutes after I filed them, it appears. I think I must have been late to the party.

    replyreport
    1. 96

       wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Hah!  The one about home stuff is de-indexed too.  That was where I found most of my stuff.

       replyreport
    2. 73

       Natashalhposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I'm still waiting

       replyreport
20. 85

    aa liteposted 11 years ago

    All Google can do is de-index the site, it is not actually responsible for what gets published on the net.
    
    To get rid of the site, I think you need to write (file a DMCA) with the hosting company.  According to whois that apears to be syra.com.au.  They have the power to take the site offline.

    replyreport
21. 90

    Judi Beeposted 11 years ago

    It's still there - with stuff added today - http://www.  pets-and-animal.  com/
    
    I think most of us have filed with Adsense for abuse, written to hosts where possible etc.

    replyreport
    1. 84

       TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I have a quick way to fix this problem. We find out who this person is and where he lives, and one night we all pay him a little visit, baseball bats in hand.  A few broken knee caps would remind him every day that we don't appreciate thieves!!!

       replyreport
22. 76

    alphagirlposted 11 years ago

    Can Hub pages do backdoor programming so that there is a watermark on the original hub with a stamp date or some Type of logo mark. If Someone copies the hub, the watermark bleeds all over the new stolen hub on the copycat site. The perpetrator just ends up with a a blank page.This stolen page then sends an alert back to Hub pages in the form of the url in red ink. Google does not need to get involved. This gives Hub pages more control and the authors are happy. The money earned stays with
    the original hub. I guess it is like a copy right symbol.
    
    "I am guessing this requires much programming."  Does anyone like my idea???

    replyreport
    1. 87

       Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       You could probably make a lot of money if you could invent such a thing.  It would be very popular with revenue-sharing sites across the internet.

       replyreport