Someone is using my Article and no Linking Back to EZA. What to do?

[deckman]

Out of curiosity today I went to copyscape and ran a few of my Ezine articles through. I found that several sites had republished some of them and when I click through to the sites it said that it appears that the site had removed them. I found a few that had used my articles and gave me credit like they should. I found one that had been spun into a bunch of gibberish. Others I found that they had used maybe just a paragraph. The majority of these did not credit me for the content.

What really pissed me off though was someone that had reused one article in its entirety word for word with no linking back to me. This site had no way to contact them so I went to whois to see if I could track the owner down to find they they are using domains by proxy.
From what I have read previously at the domains by proxy website is that they do not give out ownership info unless it is a law enforcement official and he had better have a court order.

Is there anything that I can do about this or is this just something that has to be accepted as a fact of doing biz in cyberspace?

[David]

Originally Posted by Desmond Chen

i guess that this is an instance of smething which cannot be changed and must be accepted.

bull ****

it is not acceptable


legal action?
get a prepaid lawyer to maybe make the webhost think you're taking full legal action perhaps?
as I understand it, the opposing side has no way of knowing that you got your lawyer on the cheap.

that might be enough to get a cease and desist order enforced?

===
disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer and any suggestions do not constitute legal advice

[GeorgR.]

I submitted a few on my articles to article directories as well as to a bunch of submission services. SUPRPRISE...my articles pop up at other sites on the web

Seriously, it WILL happen, actually its intended. However, needless to say that you wont have control/guarantee whether individual webmasters (especially owners of autoblogs) adhere to guidelines and leave the link intact. SOME don't.

You could very well "hire a lawyer" and then go after each blog you find which doesnt have your link in it. In my opinion a waste of time/money. Next week there is another blog with your article somewhere else.

If you value your articles that much that the thought of them circulating on the net irks you..respective you dont WANT then to go viral (WITH or without your original links) you really shouldn't put them on places like EZA in the first place. Just my $0.02

[George Wright]

Hi Deckman,

A few months back I personally ran copyscape on articles from major magazines just to see if they were being ripped off and I found their content stolen word for word every time I did such a search.

Keep in mind this was printed material. Not simply cut and paste, it had to be typed in.

If the bandits could be stopped I think the multimillion dollar companies would stop them. I hope I'm wrong.

George Wright

[deckman]

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

I submitted a few on my articles to article directories as well as to a bunch of submission services. SUPRPRISE...my articles pop up at other sites on the web

Seriously, it WILL happen, actually its intended. However, needless to say that you wont have control/guarantee whether individual webmasters (especially owners of autoblogs) adhere to guidelines and leave the link intact. SOME don't.

You could very well "hire a lawyer" and then go after each blog you find which doesnt have your link in it. In my opinion a waste of time/money. Next week there is another blog with your article somewhere else.

If you value your articles that much that the thought of them circulating on the net irks you..respective you dont WANT then to go viral (WITH or without your original links) you really shouldn't put them on places like EZA in the first place. Just my $0.02

I do value my articles since the majority I hand write and want them to go viral but what good does going viral do with out the proper credit?
Yes it does irk me. I know that this happens and if there is not a simple solution then I will accept it and move on.

[N4PGW]

Originally Posted by deckman

I do value my articles since the majority I hand write and want them to go viral but what good does going viral do with out the proper credit?
Yes it does irk me. I know that this happens and if there is not a simple solution then I will accept it and move on.

A lot of things will Irk you in this business. I say in a friendly way, get over it! Don't let it get in the way of your happiness or success.

If it happens to you on a small scale, it happens to the big boys and girls, too. They are still big! Today, you think this is a big rock, but I hope the time will come soon as you see your income rise, that you will look back and think about this event and realize it was just a pebble you are walking on, not a rock to stumble over.

Feel for the ones taking your articles. They are the ones who won't make it big. You will.

Hang in there!

[WD Mino]

Hi I believe you can issue a cease and desist .
-WD

[MarkAse]

I've done this as well, with similar results. It's frustrating, but overall there isn't much that you can do...unless you're willing to spend a ton of time and money which could probably be better used in other areas of your life.

My only solution has been to simply not check any more. Yeah, I know not the best solution but given my Google Alerts on me and my brands, I'm comfortable if people steal some of my content....to me it's part of the cost of doing business online...well that and having to make your own coffee!

[Big JP]

Track the Bast**ds down and shoot them!

[Joseph Then]

The time spent on hunting down the guys who misuse your articles can be well used to do more productive stuff that makes you money.

These pirates wouldn't be making much money, so don't waste time.

[jjpmarketing]

Honestly, I would forgo the lawyer mess. Too costly financially speaking even if it is on the cheap. The best course of action is to hit them where it hurts the most... in their wallets.

Study their website and find out if they have any affiliate links, adsense, etc. That is step 1. Then search their site for other ripped off, uncredited stolen material. Make a note of it all that you can find.

Then finally start contacting all of the affiliate companies they have an account with like CJ.com, Clickbank.com, Adsense, etc. Submit to them detailed proof that their affiliate is stealing your content as well as others' content.

This should be enough to cause them a lot of headaches with their affiliate networks. Don't worry so much about the domain registrar. Instead contact the company hosting their website. This can be accomplished by getting the ip of the website, and then doing a search on the ip owner. There are sites like dnsstuff.com that will help you do this with their web based tools.

If your content matters that much to you, then you can pursue the above mentioned actions. You could also bypass all of these time drain tasks, and start finding ways to leave signatures of your ownership of the article within the article. This could be as simple as mentioning your name in the body of the article. This won't be 100% effective, but at least will leave something so readers know where the content actually came from.

Dennis

[wolverine1971]

Every now and then I look out there and see my articles either copied exact or with 1 sentence spun and not giving credit. it is very irritating but like said earlier - you can waste a lot of time seeing all the places where your work has been ripped off and in that same time period you could be working to make money. it's a black hole out there so don't let yourself get sucked in because it is a time stealer

[mrozlat]

seriously... it sound like someone has simply used your article for their own link building purposes... sure it's not right but it's not hurting or helping you in any way... play your own game and move on... it's not worth "chasing them down and shooting them"... this crap happens all the time and there is no REAL way of policing it as most of these black hatters run their own hosting companies or have mates who are willing to turn a blind eye to whatever your legal team throws at them... and in any case... most of these hosting companies are in jurisdictions where your lawyers have no rights to do anything other than send threatening letters... is it worth your time, money, and effort in the sort and long run?

[reapr]

Originally Posted by deckman

Out of curiosity today I went to copyscape and ran a few of my Ezine articles through. I found that several sites had republished some of them and when I click through to the sites it said that it appears that the site had removed them. I found a few that had used my articles and gave me credit like they should. I found one that had been spun into a bunch of gibberish. Others I found that they had used maybe just a paragraph. The majority of these did not credit me for the content.

What really pissed me off though was someone that had reused one article in its entirety word for word with no linking back to me. This site had no way to contact them so I went to whois to see if I could track the owner down to find they they are using domains by proxy.
From what I have read previously at the domains by proxy website is that they do not give out ownership info unless it is a law enforcement official and he had better have a court order.

Is there anything that I can do about this or is this just something that has to be accepted as a fact of doing biz in cyberspace?

This is not that unusual. Depends on how deep your pockets are but you put one fire out another will rise.

How I deal with it is move on use my time on something more useful.

[Suzanne Morrison]

It's very annoying when this happens, but often a quick email to the site owner to ask them to either add your bio or remove the article is enough.

Otherwise, I don't think it is worth going to a lot of effort to hurt them, when you could be using that time productively to help your own business.

Cheers,
Suzanne

[brchap]

I have had this happen to me a few days ago, which is what led me to this thread. After reading the posts here, I've decided that it's not worth the stress... so, I probably won't check too often any more.

My only concern is that if my articles are automatically scraped and placed on the other websites quickly after the article is published, Google may index their content first and then put my original articles in the supplemental results.

Is this possible?

And, if so, what can be done to get your article out of the supplemental index?

Just wondering, for future reference.

[NK]

I would just let them be. There's too much work just to get a few articles removed and the whole point of posting articles is to get the backlinks and/or to get it spreaded out as much as possible.

Unless of course someone is scrapping contents from your blog. Then you would probably want to do something about it

[Troy_Phillips]

I just found on of my articles on a blog last night . It was a pr6 blog and I put up a straight sales pitch for a comment and posted my link. I then emailed the owner and told them that since they didn't give me credit for my original work I expected the comment to pass moderation.

I logged on to the site today and ... My comment is approved, intact , link and all.

[deckman]

I contacted them but have not heard back. I guess if I didnt have better things to do that I might spend more time on it. I guess sometimes you just have to take out the scales to weigh it out.

[rosetrees]

Deckman. When that happened to me I got the site owners email from whois. When I didn't get a reply, I contacted the web host.

They emailed me a couple of times until my complaint was in the required legal form - then they took the site down.

It didn't take long for the owner to contact me then! The excuse was that the content had been contracted out to a third party.

The hosts put the site back, but not until I agreed I was happy with the outcome.

So - try contacting the web host.

This sort of thing hacks me off. People do it because they know that, most of the time, they will get away with it. If they got away with it less often, they would do it less often.

[deckman]

Originally Posted by rosetrees

Deckman. When that happened to me I got the site owners email from whois. When I didn't get a reply, I contacted the web host.

They emailed me a couple of times until my complaint was in the required legal form - then they took the site down.

It didn't take long for the owner to contact me then! The excuse was that the content had been contracted out to a third party.

The hosts put the site back, but not until I agreed I was happy with the outcome.

So - try contacting the web host.

This sort of thing hacks me off. People do it because they know that, most of the time, they will get away with it. If they got away with it less often, they would do it less often.

Thanks a billion Rosetrees !
I was ready to drop this but after reading your success with this I have followed up with two of the infringements I found.
One of the host's I called and they put me in touch with their legal department and they immediately email me a DMCA Take Down Notice. I filled it out and sent back in. They said that within 24 hours that they would take the site down. They did say that if they dispute the notice that they will put the site back up and it would be up to us to take legal action from there. The article is mine and they know it so I really dont think that they will dispute it.

[Charann Miller]

I know how you feel. My articles have been copied word for word, no imagination, no spinning, not even trying to masque the fact that they stole it, that's how bold faced and devil may care they are.

They concealed their whois identity but since rosetrees was able to contact the hosting company, I might give that a try instead.

[deckman]

Originally Posted by Charann Miller

I know how you feel. My articles have been copied word for word, no imagination, no spinning, not even trying to masque the fact that they stole it, that's how bold faced and devil may care they are.

They concealed their whois identity but since rosetrees was able to contact the hosting company, I might give that a try instead.

It was BlueHost that let me fill out the take down notice and email it in but hostgator is making it a little bit harder.
Here is what they sent :

Hello,

HostGator requires DMCA notices to be filed via fax or letter. The complaint must include full contact information in the complaint (including phone number). We will call and verify. Email (unless digitally signed by a verified and trusted third party) is not an acceptable medium for legal complaints. This ticket system has received what appears to be a possible DMCA complaint, but one or more of the following are missing: (a) the complaint does not contain sufficient information (b) the format of the complaint is inconsistent with the requirements of the DMCA (c) the complaint has been submitted via email without proper authentication (d) full contact information is missing. We will need you to re-submit your claim, using the proper format, including sufficient detai, via postal mail or fax. Instructions on how to do so follow.

It is our policy to respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement. This response describes the information that should be present in these notices. It is designed to make submitting notices of alleged infringement to us as straightforward as possible while reducing the number of notices that we receive that are fraudulent or difficult to understand or verify. The form of notice specified below is consistent with the form suggested by the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the text of which can be found at the U.S. Copyright Office Web Site, U.S. Copyright Office) but we will respond to notices of this form from other jurisdictions as well.

To file a notice of infringement with us, you must provide a written communication that sets forth the items specified below. Please note that you will be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys' fees) if you materially misrepresent that a product or activity is infringing your copyrights. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether material available online infringes your copyright, we suggest that you first contact an attorney.

To expedite our ability to process your request, please use the following format (including section numbers):

1. Identify in sufficient detail the copyrighted work that you believe has been infringed upon (for example, "The copyrighted work at issue is the text that appears on http://www.hostgator.com/tos.shtml") or other information sufficient to specify the copyrighted work being infringed (for example, "The copyrighted work at issue is “Intellectual Property: Valuation, Exploitation, and Infringement Damages� by Gordon V. Smith, published by Wiley, ISBN #047168323X").

2. Identify the material that you claim is infringing the copyrighted work listed in item #1 above. You must identify each web page that allegedly contains infringing material. This requires you to provide the URL for each allegedly infringing result, document, or item.

An example:

Infringing Web Pages:
http://www.thewebsite.com/directory/
http://www.thewebsite.com/something/blah.html

3. Provide information reasonably sufficient to permit us to contact you.

4. Provide information, if possible, sufficient to permit us to notify the owner/administrator of the allegedly infringing webpage or other content (email address is preferred).

5. Include the following statement: "I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law."

6. Include the following statement: "I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."

7. Sign the paper.

8. If via postal mail, send the written communication to the following address:

HostGator LLC
Attn: Abuse Department, DMCA Complaint
11251 Northwest Freeway, Suite 400
Houston, TX 77092
United States of America

OR fax to:

(281) 476-7801, Attn: Abuse Department, DMCA Complaint

Regardless of whether we may be liable for such infringement under local country law or United States law, we may respond to these notices by removing or disabling access to material claimed to infringe and/or terminating users of our services. If we remove or disable access in response to such a notice, we will make a good-faith attempt to contact the owner or administrator of the affected site or content so that the owner or administrator may make a counter notification.

We may also document notices of alleged infringement on which we act. As with all legal notices, a copy of the notice may be made available to the public and sent to one or more third parties who may make it available to the public.

In order to ensure that copyright owners do not wrongly insist on the removal of materials that actually do not infringe their copyrights, the safe harbor provisions require service providers to notify the subscribers if their materials have been removed and to provide them with an opportunity to send a written notice to the service provider stating that the material has been wrongly removed. [512(g)]

If a subscriber provides a proper "counter-notice" claiming that the material does not infringe copyrights, the service provider must then promptly notify the claiming party of the individual's objection. [512(g)(2)] If the copyright owner does not bring a lawsuit in district court within 14 days, the service provider is then required to restore the material to its location on its network. [512(g)(2)(C)]

If it is determined that the copyright holder misrepresented its claim regarding the infringing material, the copyright holder then becomes liable to the OSP for any damages that resulted from the improper removal of the material. [512(f)]

[sawkerfs]

I mentioned in another thread that I have found my articles on blogs that have spun my articles into gibberish, with my name and website at the end. My concern was it would make me look like an idiot. At first I was PO'ed, but one poster put me at ease saying a reader wouldn't be able to make it to the end of the article to see my credits.

Mike Merisko

[impulsell]

Originally Posted by George Wright

Hi Deckman,

A few months back I personally ran copyscape on articles from major magazines just to see if they were being ripped off and I found their content stolen word for word every time I did such a search.

Keep in mind this was printed material. Not simply cut and paste, it had to be typed in.

If the bandits could be stopped I think the multimillion dollar companies would stop them. I hope I'm wrong.

George Wright

That's really interesting. I'm surprised they don't crack down on that. They (magazines) must realise.

[robshaw33]

post your articles on your website first. after that if someone rips them off for ezine and you find them - contact ezine via email on their site - and they will transfer the article to your author name as long as you can prove the content is your original work ie send them the url of article posted on your website or blog.
same thing happened to me - its just losers who cant write and dont understand seo or marketing - they wont make any money as they cant build authority -so they disappear eventually - only to be replaced by new ones.
like the guys say its a pain but you just gotta suck it up.
rob

[Syndicator]

This happens all the time but it is the highest form of flattery.

If you have a great article with a good title then this will happen time and again.

Happened to me with my Article Marketing Mastermind Notebook series....lots of LAPTOP resellers added it to their sites re-spun into gibberish because it ranks high in GOOGLE!

Dont burn any of your precious time worrying about it, chasing them, investing YOUR time in a useless endeavor. Seriously if you post 100's of article every year it simply not possible to track what is happening to all of them.

Just keep writing more articles, you keep moving forward, let them wallow in the past.

[troy23]

I've recently seen some of mine respun and used. At first I am furious, but there is nothing one can do really. I take comfort in knowing I am well ahead of any opposition. Fact is if someone has to resort to this they don't have or are unlikely to have much of a business.

[mahesh2k]

I think this happens because many autoblog software are fetching content from article directories. If you want to blame someone then blame those software makers first to promoting such business model for people.

[deckman]

Originally Posted by mahesh2k

I think this happens because many autoblog software are fetching content from article directories. If you want to blame someone then blame those software makers first to promoting such business model for people.

I gues if you take a few minutes out of your schedule to follow thru you will prevail.
One site down and one to go. Here is a email I received today from BlueHost :



Hello,

Thank you for contacting the Legal Department.

We have contacted the owner and have requested the violation be removed, or we have removed the offending website. If you ever come across sites that are violating our Policies, please feel free to contact us again.

Please feel free to contact us again if we can be of further assistance.

Shari Dixon
Legal Department

[opiel]

Deckman,

The best you can do is to forget about it and move on. I have over 1600 articles published at the Ezine and marketers like them a lot. Unfortunately, they usually remove the links.

I am so used to it now that I don't even get upset anymore.

[bluewillow]

Hi. I used to be a VA for a big name person who had a TV show. He gave me a Cease and desist letter that I sent to some people who violated his copyrights.

There were times, though, that it didn't quite fit the situation, so I just emailed a letter asking to C&D, and often they did it. I wasn't threatening, just politely asking as a first step. Of course, my client has a reputation for losing his temper now and then, so I had that kind of clout behind me. But it could work in your case, too. It just depends how much time and $$ you want to put into it. You could contact a lawyer or paralegal and ask if they could write such a letter for you.

[grandstar]

Originally Posted by MarkAse

I've done this as well, with similar results. It's frustrating, but overall there isn't much that you can do...unless you're willing to spend a ton of time and money which could probably be better used in other areas of your life.

My only solution has been to simply not check any more. Yeah, I know not the best solution but given my Google Alerts on me and my brands, I'm comfortable if people steal some of my content....to me it's part of the cost of doing business online...well that and having to make your own coffee!

There is nothing wrong in checking whether others are using your articles. Its a thing of joy and motivation realising others are! Anyway, copyright theft will likely happen and accepting it is the probably the best line of action.

[dsmpublishing]

Hi

sorry to hear that - i would pay for a lawyer to write a nasty letter to the hosting company that it is with and take it from there.

With your articles its all about the backlinks so if people re-use them its just what you want as long as the link is in place back to you.

kind regards


sam
X

[Sandor Verebi]

Originally Posted by Joseph Then

The time spent on hunting down the guys who misuse your articles can be well used to do more productive stuff that makes you money.

These pirates wouldn't be making much money, so don't waste time.

It also happened to me severals. At the beginning I was very angry. Then I realize that it is much more productive for me to dedicate my time to making a new product what I can sell.

Originally Posted by Troy_Phillips

I just found on of my articles on a blog last night . It was a pr6 blog and I put up a straight sales pitch for a comment and posted my link. I then emailed the owner and told them that since they didn't give me credit for my original work I expected the comment to pass moderation.

I logged on to the site today and ... My comment is approved, intact , link and all.

LOL, it is a profitable solution for booth party, I think. Much more paying than looking after lawyers and beeing nervous.

All the best,

Sandor
__________
- coming -

[Jeremy Morgan]

This happens to me all the time, and I rarely do anything about it. There are way too many people out there doing this to stop them all. However if you really want to you can file a DMCA complaint and at least get the article delisted from google results. Maybe if this happens enough people will start posting the links, but I seriously doubt it.

Where to file DMCA complaint with Google


Good luck, hope this helps.