Yet another thief

1. 84

   Pcunixposted 13 years ago

   By the way, maybe we should have a forum just for this?  I'm going to go suggest it after this.
   
   Thanks to Edwierdo's hubdefender.com,  I found that ht tp://ultimateandextreme.blogspot.com/ had copied my content.
   
   That's a Blogger site, so it is easy enough to report (Google has their own form for that - too bad all websites do not).

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      Jake Gene Barnesposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      That really grinds my gears.
      
      Us writers work hard on our hubs/articles/what-have-you and it just flat out sucks that others can swoop in, copy and paste, and benefit from our work.

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      1. 84

         Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         We writers need to work together to root these creeps out. 
         
         Google probably won't ban that guy outright because he stole one of my hubs, but if he stole others too and each hubber files a complaint, they might.
         
         Of course some of them, being old hands at this, wil simply register under another address and start up again, but it slows them down and creates at least some impediments.  Some of them will simply disappear forever.
         
         But we need to keep hitting them.  The HubPages writers community is well positioned to do that because there are so many of us.
         
         I really recommend using Edweirdo's tools.  The free account is fine for the less prolific folks and the paid accounts are affordable even for the most noisy of us.

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   2. 0

      shazwellynposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I wouldnt imagine this one will put his hands up and ask for mercy!  There is no forgiveness for those who are not truly sorry.
      Thank goodness to hubdefender.com!

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      1. 84

         Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         You are a much nicer person than I am.  I don't forgive anyone for this.  Well, maybe if they were just honestly ignorant, but even then I think that is a poor excuse.

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         1. 0

            shazwellynposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Thats ok Pc, I wouldnt condemn anyone for their view - I am just concerned with my own 'behaviour' and keeping myself in line - which is a hard enough task on its own! x

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      2. 67

         Pearldiverposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Shaz... Save your good heart and know that NONE of them are EVER TRULY Sorry! Read what is Not being Said.. Rather than what is!
         - I'm sure that they get upset when heir sites gain the THIEF STATUS! - That's All.
         
         @ PC - Give the Thief some well placed Negative KEYWORDS!!
         
         Or Do What Det. I Will Kickurarse Did - He merely opened an account on their site and gave the bots all the crumbs they needed to state the facts.... Papatoto.com Steals Content.. just like this lot... If you google Detective Kickurarse - there are the facts!!

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      Money Glitchposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the notification Pcunix!
      
      I agree with you about having a specific forum to do such postings. 
      
      This area seems to be doing a good job.  I noticed with the posting that I did a few days ago; the Google Bots picked up the post within the first 15 minutes.
      
      I just Googled this blog's name and this post is ranking 2nd right under it.  So anyone that searches for the site will see that it has posted stolen material on it.

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2. 84

   Pcunixposted 13 years ago

   By the way, Edweirdo, that might be a service you could offer too.
   
   Call it "Where there is smoke" - if one hubber reports an offending site, you check that site against the hubs of those who subscribe.  Quick and easy, but might be worth a small fee to the subscribers.

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      Edweirdoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Reading this thread gave me a similar idea! It should be simple enough for me to run a periodic query against the HubDefender database to look for "repeat offenders" who are stealing content from my users.
      
      Your "where there's smoke" idea already happens automatically at HubDefender, in a way: All subscribers' hubs are scanned whether or not they actually report the thieves - I would just need to aggregate the results to see if the same site shows up across multiple users.
      
      My user-base is only a tiny fraction of the total number HubPages users, but there could possibly be some trends over time...

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      1. 84

         Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         What is your take on those who are afraid to report this scum?
         
         This is from an email I got today about a copied hub:
         
         I did not want to put this in the forum, since I do not want this person to create problems for me,

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         1. 87

            Edweirdoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            It's understandable - thieves are, by their nature, "scary"! I can imagine someone thinking, "They are already willing to break the rules, and if they can blatantly steal someone else's work, then who knows how far they may go?"
            
            But in reality, if you post a thief's site here, with the URL broken, then it is highly unlikely that the thief will ever find out about it.
            
            So, it's understandable, but most likely there is not an actual threat of retaliation (but it could happen)...
            
            Is that wishy-washy enough?

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3. 60

   CYBERSUPEposted 13 years ago

   Hi Pcunix, I like your idea and thanks for your efforts to make HubPages a safe place .

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4. 43

   Mikeydoesposted 13 years ago

   I just signed up for HubDefender.com Edweirdo, it is great. Love it!
   
   Get a forum for this. I second that, or third that, or whatever we are on.

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5. 61

   L.C. Smithposted 13 years ago

   You guys got my attention on this topic.  I signed up for hubdefender also.  Thank you so much.

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6. 60

   JR Whiteposted 13 years ago

   The thieves deserve to be called on it.  Inadvertant plagiarism is really not possible, though the thief will claim fair use.  Wholesale copying is beyond the pale and illegal in the US besides; and the fair use defense isn't available.  I was glad to learn about Edweirdo's service and just signed up for it.

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7. 59

   Angela_1973posted 13 years ago

   I will sign up for HubDefender.com today too, I was not aware of this site. I also did not know that we can actually report people who steal our work, where do we report this if we found that our work is stolen?
   
   Even though I have been on hubpages for over a year, I am really writing hubs for the last 5 months so a lot of things are new to me

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   1. 84

      Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Edwerdo explains the reporting and will even generate a form letter for you.
      
      Blogger and some other sites have a "Report Abuse" link right at the top of the page.
      
      I think HP should add information about this to the Learning Center too.

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8. 67

   travelespressoposted 13 years ago

   I mentioned on another post that one of my hubs had been copied on four different sites.
   
   http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/60810#post1348900
   
   I couldn't find the DMCA forms but I've emailed all four sites to ask for immediate action and for them to advise me.  So far (this happened last night), one has removed the offending account which is great but I'm waiting for the others to respond.  I will keep on their case.  It's just wrong to steal!
   
   In my view, not dealing with it will perpetrate the offending.

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      Money Glitchposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Good luck travelepresso in getting the matter resolved.  This is a new arena for me as well; needless to say, I'm glad that using the HubDefender is really 'user-friendly'. 
      
      The websites that you listed on your post are fairly large and should require the same information that HP requires for copyright infringements.
      http://hubpages.com/help/copyright_infringement
      
      Did you e-mail the writer that stole the article or the site owner? I've been getting faster responses from the site owners.  It seems the writers don't respond.

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         travelespressoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Money Glitch I emailed each of the site owners.  So far I've had replies from two of them.  One removed the article and banned the posters account!  The other removed the article.
         
         It was my hub about Halong Bay in Vietnam and in their version, they promoted a cruising company.  I also emailed the cruising company Indochinasails telling them that three people has stolen my article and posted it as their own. 
         
         I have just received a reply from one of them (actually I think they're all one person) and she said didn't steal it, because she added some material to the end.  She said she gave me credit.  She mentioned Hubpages but not me as the writer and owner of the material.  I have yet to reply to her but rest assured she will know that the article WAS stolen from me and that its not acceptable.
         
         Actually I feel like billing them! 
         
         This is all new territory for me so I'm happy to get any ideas.  Thanks for your comments.  It is much appreciated.

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9. 98

   viryaboposted 13 years ago

   Okay! now i'm off to get the hubdefender. And its about time too.
   
   I hate online theives with a passion, sometimes i wish i had a spell to exterminate them. SERIOUSLY!

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10. 79

    Rebecca E.posted 13 years ago

    another day another site, I've been emailing these guys.. and nothing.  So, if you have a more money making hubs, it is probably up there... I found three of mine.
    
    Not taken down and one has been up since October.  Of all people the aminstrator is the stealer of said hub...
    
    ht tp://bestsuccessforum.com/index.php ( go get the link delete the space)  A few look like PC's hubs, but name changes.

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    1. 84

       Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Perhaps one Edweirdo should give some extra attention to next scan..

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       1. 87

          Edweirdoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          HubDefender doesn't scan particular sites - it reads each hub and then searches for matching strings of text from that hub which exist outside of HubPages.
          
          In other words, the Hub is the driver of the whole process, so it isn't possible for HubDefender to start with the thief and end up at the stolen hub...

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          1. 84

             Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             I thought you said you did do something like "Where there is smoke"?
             
             In other words, to make sure that the ones picked up as thieves get extra attention.
             
             I do understand the difficulty of that..

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             1. 87

                Edweirdoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                When I replied re:"Where there's smoke" I meant that no one needs to report a site in order for my tools to find it.
                
                The tools I use treat every occurrence of duplicated content as potential thievery - it's only when a particular hub has a large number of matches from a specific URL that is is declared "duplicate content" of that hub.
                
                The way this works actually provides the side benefit of showing you lots of places where a hub has been backlinked - if the percentage of matching text is less than 10%, it usually means that someone has used a quote from a hub as a link back to it! I have found quite a lot of backlinks of my own hubs that I did not know existed before...

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