Stolen Articles

1. STAFF

   Larry Slawsonposted 4 years ago

   Hey everyone. I don't know what it is, but I've experienced a substantial increase in the number of articles that have been copied/stolen from me the last few months.  Anybody else experiencing this as well?  The latest thief is from Nigeria and refuses to remove my article from his blog (claiming he is unable to do so).  I'm just curious if anyone has found an effective way to combat the theft of articles on here?  Is reporting it to Google a viable option?
   
   Moreover, what do you do if an individual refuses to remove the stolen content (especially since its in a foreign country)?

   replyreport
   1. 73

      clivewilliamsposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      File complaint with google. But I don't believe that it will dampen your page views as he copied the same content and published that content at a later date than yours. Your content will be crawled and put in search results before his.

      replyreport
   2. 87

      quotationsposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      Can't say that I have seen an increase in the number of my stolen hubs.
      
      But I can offer a suggestion about your situation with the Nigerian scammer. Make a complaint to his hosting company and they may drop his site. Also you can ask Google to delete all links to the copied article so you at least deprive him of traffic.

      replyreport
   3. 96

      chef-de-jourposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      I have a set routine when I find a copied article:
      
      polite email to contact
      threatening email to contact
      email to domain address on whois
      DMCA
      
      Good luck. Persist if you get no joy with the first three approaches. If you have no time or inclination fill in the DMCA form immediatement!

      replyreport
2. 97

   Rupert Taylorposted 4 years ago

   Is your Nigerian scammer Obiaks? I've been chasing this blighter down for a couple of weeks. I did finally track him down to Amazon Web Services and I received the following from AWS a few days ago but have heard nothing to date.
   
   Hello,
   
   Thank you for submitting your abuse report. We have begun our investigation into the source of the activity or content you reported.
   
   We've determined that an Amazon EC2 instance was running at the IP address you provided in your abuse report. We have reached out to our customer to determine the nature and cause of this activity or content in your report.
   
   We will investigate your complaint to determine what additional actions, if any, need to be taken in this case. We may notify you during our investigation if our customer requires more information from you to complete their troubleshooting of the issue. Our customer may reply stating that the activity or content is expected and instructions on how to prevent the activity or manually remove the content, as well. If you wish to provide additional information to us or our customer regarding this case, please reply to this email.
   
   Please note that if we determine the activity or content to not be abusive, we will notify you and resolve the case; we may refrain from communicating further, in that case.
   
   We will notify you once this case has been marked resolved. Thank you for alerting us to this issue.
   
   Regards,
   AWS Abuse
   
   Case number: 57511068578

   replyreport
3. STAFF

   Larry Slawsonposted 4 years ago

   Thank you for the replies everyone.  I will definitely give these options a try.
   
   @Rupert  Yes!!! That's the same one!  Haha. As of thirty minutes ago, Obiaks has stolen four more of my articles and posted them to his blog! So irritating. It seems like he is targeting articles from Owlcation. I hope AWS helps you to resolve this; keep me updated on what you hear back from them.  I'm going to submit a complaint to them as well.
   
   For those reading, I would encourage you to check and see if your articles have been stolen from Obiaks as well. He has quite a few articles on there (which were definitely copied, no doubt).

   replyreport
4. 92

   Kenna McHughposted 4 years ago

   I recommend an onslaught of verifiable complaints. The guy will be taken down.

   replyreport
5. 60

   paradigmsearchposted 4 years ago

   Thieves, the bane of our existence.
   
   Here's my rhetorical rant of the day:
   
   Why is it if my $5, ratty, old lawn chair is stolen from my back yard and the thief is caught, then the police and prosecutors are all over it; but if my article that's worth several $100 in revenue is stolen by a US thief that can be located, there's never a police officer or prosecutor to be found?
   
   For US thiefs, am seriously considering finding a collection agency.

   replyreport
6. 95

   wildernessposted 4 years ago

   That's at least two hubbers being victimized.  Get on him, people!
   
   Several years ago someone found a thief that was scraping large sections of HubPages and a bunch of us began filing DMCA's with the host.  We shut him down...to have him come right back with a different host.  Long story short, but we chased him all over the globe, shutting down his sites as quickly as he could get them up.  He went through about a half dozen hosts, but finally gave up on HP.  No doubt he's still scraping other sites, but he got the message with a dozen or more hubbers chasing him.

   replyreport
7. 97

   Rupert Taylorposted 4 years ago

   Further information about the thieving Obiaks dude. I just received the following from Amazon
   
   "Hello,
   
   Thank you for submitting your abuse report. We have begun our investigation into the source of the activity or content you reported.
   
   We've determined that an Amazon EC2 instance was running at the IP address you provided in your abuse report. We have reached out to our customer to determine the nature and cause of this activity or content in your report.
   
   We will investigate your complaint to determine what additional actions, if any, need to be taken in this case. We may notify you during our investigation if our customer requires more information from you to complete their troubleshooting of the issue. Our customer may reply stating that the activity or content is expected and instructions on how to prevent the activity or manually remove the content, as well. If you wish to provide additional information to us or our customer regarding this case, please reply to this email.
   
   Please note that if we determine the activity or content to not be abusive, we will notify you and resolve the case; we may refrain from communicating further, in that case.
   
   We will notify you once this case has been marked resolved. Thank you for alerting us to this issue.
   
   Regards,
   AWS Abuse
   
   Case number: 52202188430"
   
   Now you may be wondering, as am I, what an Amazon EC2 is. So I looked it.
   
   "Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides secure, resizable (sic) compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale cloud computing easier for developers."
   
   Well, of course. Does anybody have the vaguest idea what that means?

   replyreport
8. STAFF

   Larry Slawsonposted 4 years ago

   Thanks for the replies (and advice) everyone.
   
   @Rupert  I suspect that I will be receiving a similar email from Amazon soon.  Really hope they can do something about this. I've had several more of my articles stolen from him the last few days.  As for what an EC2 is, I have never heard of that before haha! 
   
   By the way, I actually received a reply from Obiaks the other day.  Here is what he had to say when I sent my complaint letter to him:
   
   "Hi Larry
   
   We are deeply sorry on the copyright issues.
   
   This is the second copyright issue we are having on the website
   owlcation.com.
   Like i resolved with the previous complaint
   
   "The problem arouse when we employed The user Kayode Oseh as a content
   writer on our platform. We have received a lot of complaint about our
   writer especially articles that were written between the time frame.
   Policies has been but in place to ensure our writers deliver original
   and quality contents."
   
   Unfortunately we can not take down the article. We will acknowledge the
   source of the article and give you a permanent do follow back link.
   
   I sincerely know how it feels, it hurts to have your contents stolen, We
   don't stand to gain anything by lifting your content. I am deeply sorry
   and deeply regret such action.
   
   The article has been modified, and due credit has been given to the
   source.
   
   We hope that works for you. Let me know your taught.
   
   Thanks
   Obiaks"
   
   Its kind of funny in a weird way. Acknowledging our content was stolen, but basically telling me to get over it haha.  I've seen some more articles posted on there today (stolen ones, without a doubt), so I would encourage everyone that is reading to take another look at your "copied articles" tab to make sure he hasn't stolen your content.

   replyreport
   1. 95

      wildernessposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      You might include a copy of that letter when you file with Google to have it de-indexed and google ads removed.  Just a thought...

      replyreport
   2. 97

      theraggededgeposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      Ha ha... I would be writing back pointing out that the DMCA is a legal document and that you are a wealthy American who will be instructing your lawyers and debt recovery agency to come after him with a demand for payment for $1,500 for every Owlcation article stolen.
      
      He'll soon take it down.

      replyreport
9. 97

   Rupert Taylorposted 4 years ago

   mea culpa mea maxima culpa. It has come to my attention that in the DCMA I filed against the Nigerian toad I reversed the URLs so it seemed I was complaining that my article on HubPages was the copied one and the Nigerian's the original. I have corrected this error that comes from a brain that has suffered multiple insults over its 76-year lifespan.
   
   It's said that confession cleanses the soul; no it bloody doesn't, it makes you feel like a dork.

   replyreport
10. STAFF

    Larry Slawsonposted 4 years ago

    Haha, thanks for the replies everyone.  Just got back from vacation this morning and checked Obiaks page. Everything has been taken down finally.  Yay!  Haha.
    
    @Rupert Oh no!  Haha. Did you ever get this resolved?  I sure hope so. I think all of our complaining to AWS may have paid off

    replyreport
11. 97

    Rupert Taylorposted 4 years ago

    Hi Larry and all others. No I have been unsuccessful. I keep getting replies that I have filed my complaint incorrectly and I'm damned if I can understand why. I have thrown my hands up in frustration and decided I've got better things to do with my time than navigating the labyrinthine dark arts of the web.
    
    Now, where's the cat? Time for a cuddle and a book.

    replyreport
12. 97

    Rupert Taylorposted 4 years ago

    Progress. AWS seems to be moving forward on getting this rascal shut down. Happy New Year.
    
    Hello,
    
    We've received your report about alleged posting, hosting, or distribution of unlicensed copyright protected material on Amazon Web Services. We've completed an initial investigation of the issue and learned that the activity you reported originated from a user of our network.
    
    We take reports of copyright infringement very seriously. We've taken appropriate action in response to your complaint to remove or disable access to the material and to notify the user who posted the material of your complaint. If the user sends us a counter-notice, we will forward such counter-notice to you with additional instructions.
    
    Thank you for alerting us to this issue.
    
    Regards,
    AWS Abuse
    Amazon Web Services, LLC
    
    Case Number: 51492140137

    replyreport
    1. STAFF

       Larry Slawsonposted 4 years agoin reply to this

       Happy New Year Rupert! That sounds great!  Haha. I'm glad they are taking action against him finally.  All of the ones he stole from me have officially been deleted.  So all of our complaints must have had a positive impact.
       
       Glad you don't have to worry about this anymore. Stuff like this is so aggravating.

       replyreport