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People taking my content from EzineArticles

by RustyF
33 replies
I'm seeing a lot of people take my content from EzineArticles.

And they usually don't take the resource box which just isn't right.

I just found one such article and was going to post a comment about it but of course their comments are closed.

It seems like I read on EZA it is okay to do that but are they not suppose to take the resource box as well? Does anyone know what EZA policy is on that?

Yeah I'm gonna look again but it can be hard to find information about things.

Thanks
#content #ezinearticles #people #taking
  • Profile picture of the author AnniePot
    Here is what EZA say:
    Attention Publishers & Webmasters; Our Reprint Policies:
    If you wish to publish/reprint any article from our site in your ezine, website, blog, forum, RSS feed or print publication, you must:

    • Respect the copyrights of the authors by publishing the entire article as it is with no changes.
    • Agree to include the FULL Resource box or SIG line at the end of the article.
    • Agree not to change the title or content of the article in any way.
    • Agree to make all links so that they are Active/Linkable with no syntax changes.
    • Agree to include the article source credit below each article reprinted with the link active.
    There are their full publisher TOS: Terms of Service For Publishers Who Wish To Reprint Any Content From EzineArticles.com
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    • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
      This is a common act performed by many deceptive webmasters. I have seen many of my articles on various sites without the attributes(resource box/active links).

      It is frustrating, but you can contact the webmaster and ask him to remove it. If he doesn't, lodge a complaint with his hosting company. But it does become a tedious process. I' personally don't bother anymore, because the place that the article is indexed first usually takes precedence in terms of ranking in the SERP's.
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      • Profile picture of the author RustyF
        Originally Posted by Eleva8 View Post

        This is a common act performed by many deceptive webmasters. I have seen many of my articles on various sites without the attributes(resource box/active links).

        It is frustrating, but you can contact the webmaster and ask him to remove it. If he doesn't, lodge a complaint with his hosting company. But it does become a tedious process. I' personally don't bother anymore, because the place that the article is indexed first usually takes precedence in terms of ranking in the SERP's.
        The article that has been stolen the most I have two first page rankings for it. one on Ezine and one on my blog.

        Not that hard to track down. I don't actually look for them, Google Alerts usually tips me off because I have my keywords setup there. So, my article usually pops up in Google Alerts. That's not why I set it up of course, i set it up for article ideas.

        But spending a lot of time on it doesn't make sense because it usually wont do any good. Though I did notice one of the sites I reported a two months ago finally is gone. I don't think it was because I reported it because a month later it was still there. Stolen content may not be worth posting.

        I hope that EZA knows that it is stolen from me and not that I stole it though!
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      [DELETED]
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      • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

        So anyone who finds this a "chore" or a "nuisance" is living in a slightly different world from me, I must say: to me, it's a real opportunity and future income-source.
        Well, I'm one of those people living in a "different world" from you. Evidence can be found in my location profile. :rolleyes:

        But it must be said: when one is trying to manage many niche sites, and article marketing forms just a single element in one's promotional efforts it does become a "chore" to track down the resource box robbers.
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        • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Eleva8 View Post

          Evidence can be found in my location profile. :rolleyes:

          But it must be said: when one is trying to manage many niche sites, and article marketing forms just a single element in one's promotional efforts it does become a "chore" to track down the resource box robbers.
          It just depends how you look at it. I approach it expecting it to be "easy extra money" because all I need to do is get them to put my links up, and it's extra backlinks, traffic, opt-ins and sales for me. Positive outlook and expectation (based on experience) rather than negative, I think? I'm not quite sure which one of us lives "where dreams are made", actually.
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    • Profile picture of the author RustyF
      Thanks Annie, I should have just looked their first.

      I reported it to EZA to see what they say. They are clearly in violation of that policy.

      I found the article on four sites. Two are making an effort to follow at leasts the spirit of th policy so I didn't say anything. I have a link back to mysite. Good enough .....

      The other two, it is just theft.
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  • Profile picture of the author HeySal
    People that knowingly steal the work of another are pond scum. They think that their non-existent "authority" is lost if the content isn't their own, and this is not the case. There is nothing detrimental in having "guests" on your site who can speak with authority on your subject. In fact, doing so can make you appear more integrated and networked in your market than you may actually be.

    In the last few years content theft has become a normal part of business for many. Other beginners see this theft and become confused about what is okay to do and what isn't - many don't even understand what "copyright" means anymore. Perhaps it's not important to you that your content is being heisted. The people who do this might just decide to branch out, though - and YOUR business might end up vandalized in ways that DO effect you personally. Make logos? Wanna see them as freebies everywhere? Ever seen someone else selling YOUR ebook...your website...your pictures? Don't forget the guys that will use YOUR business model to conduct a scam so you look the same to viewers.

    If people are stealing your content, dealing with it is a hassle, but it will help send the message that it is not okay to steal. If all writers would nail even a few content thieves the practice might just begin to abate.

    When you defend your own copyright, you help every other honest member of the marketing community defend their own work and business. If we are concerned about the public image of IM - we need to start taking theft seriously and acting against it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Raydal
    Yes, this is an annoying and old problem that leaves you with
    the choice of how you want to spend your energies. It is
    not easy getting these people to comply especially if your
    articles is on hundreds of sites.

    Whenever I find myself in such positions I just blog about the
    stolen article and hope that would get some webmasters
    attention.

    -Ray Edwards
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  • Profile picture of the author ruch1v
    Yeah this is pretty common and it sucks. Are you article marketing for traffic or SEO benefit?

    Ruchi
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  • Profile picture of the author RustyF
    When I have asked people to comply it got me no where. Let's see if EZA has better luck. My guess is that they will. Only takes me a minute to report it to EZA.

    Now if they have comments open, I will comment that it is my work and to please provide a link to my site.

    I love auto bloggers that post excerpts with a link. In my opinion that just rocks!
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by RustyF View Post

      When I have asked people to comply it got me no where.
      Serving a DMCA notice on them will get you somewhere, and takes no longer than sending any other email.

      Originally Posted by RustyF View Post

      Let's see if EZA has better luck. My guess is that they will. Only takes me a minute to report it to EZA.
      You lost me here. Why would EZA be either willing or able to anything about this? You're the person whose copyright has been violated, not them: they're only a publisher.
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      • Profile picture of the author RustyF
        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

        Serving a DMCA notice on them will get you somewhere, and takes no longer than sending any other email.



        You lost me here. Why would EZA be either willing or able to anything about this? You're the person whose copyright has been violated, not them: they're only a publisher.
        When I've done in the past it was ignored. The current contact email is qq mail. You think that is even monitored? it is something 32991@gg.mail.com or whatever. I saw the QQ and figured why bother? Am I wrong?

        I'll wait and see what EZA response is. You're probably correct and they will refer me to a FAQ about what I should do.

        I really don't want to deal with the thief. i suppose I may have no choice. Then what, they launch as DoS on my site and my host forces me to get a server or just disable my account?

        Perhaps I should just go to the host.
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        • Profile picture of the author rosetrees
          fwiw - I usually start with a polite request to the site owner if I can find a contact or leave a comment.

          If that fails, I issue a DMCA to their webhost. That usually works - unless you're unfortunate enough to find they are hosting on their own server or a small, couldn't care less all our clients are scammers anyway, host.
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        • Profile picture of the author FloridaKash
          Originally Posted by RustyF View Post

          When I've done in the past it was ignored. The current contact email is qq mail. You think that is even monitored? it is something 32991@gg.mail.com or whatever. I saw the QQ and figured why bother? Am I wrong?

          I'll wait and see what EZA response is. You're probably correct and they will refer me to a FAQ about what I should do.

          I really don't want to deal with the thief. i suppose I may have no choice. Then what, they launch as DoS on my site and my host forces me to get a server or just disable my account?

          Perhaps I should just go to the host.
          Instead of taking action it sounds like you have a lot of what ifs going on. I would follow Alexa's suggestions.
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          • Profile picture of the author RustyF
            Originally Posted by FloridaKash View Post

            Instead of taking action it sounds like you have a lot of what ifs going on. I would follow Alexa's suggestions.
            I did but I was hoping there was a better way. It hasn't helped in the past. At least not that I could tell.

            What about filing DCMA with Google? I looked at the before but the hoops to jump through were a bit much. Anyone done that? Google seems to even discourage it. Warning people have been sued.

            I think EZA does hold a copyright as well but I'm surely no expert on copyright law. I was thinking their name might hold a lot more weight than my own.
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  • Profile picture of the author RustyF
    Comments are closed.
    Email sent asking to provide link and credit or to remove or I would take further action. I wasn't rude but I wasn't really polite either. they know what they are doing. perhaps I should have been nicer but I don't like wasting my time on this and the person owns at least 106 domains. They know exactly what they are doing. It is hosted by omnis. never heard of them but I will go there next in 24 hours.
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  • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
    Okay, I agree with everyone regarding our rights as writers, and the need for webmasters to adhere to the regulations and rules. But is it practical?

    RustyF, I think you beginning to discover the tedious process and the hassle it takes to seek justice. Many marketers write +/-5 articles per day. That is over 100 articles each month if the marketer takes the weekend off. If each article is syndicated to 10 sites in that particular month, that is 1000 different sites a month, and if 5% of the webmasters involved strip the resource box then that is 50 emails you going to be sending out hoping for a reply, and if nothing is done to rectify the situation then there is another long and drawn-out process to follow to seek “justice”. And what happens in the next month?

    We all want justice but the world is intertwined with good and evil. There are weeds and daffodils growing in the same garden. Even when you are able to uproot some of the weeds, they grow back even faster and in greater numbers.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Eleva8 View Post

      Okay, I agree with everyone regarding our rights as writers, and the need for webmasters to adhere to the regulations and rules. But is it practical?
      You're looking at it a totally different way from me. To me, it's a source of income. They've already selected and published my article: all I want is the link from which I earn money. The email's already written. It takes a second to send it. Where's the problem? :confused:

      Originally Posted by Eleva8 View Post

      We all want justice but the world is intertwined with good and evil. There are weeds and daffodils growing in the same garden. Even when you are able to uproot some of the weeds, they grow back even faster and in greater numbers.
      Yes ... you're definitely not article marketing in the same world as me. Your entire vocabulary for discussing this is one of "rights", "revenge", "justice", "good and evil", and so on. Please excuse the observation that I find this really bizarre. To me this is just a routine part of my work, ensuring that I continue to get paid, form new relationships with other webmasters, maximize the syndication of my work, and build my residual income from work already done. It's what I do for a living. Where's the "big deal"? :confused:
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      • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

        You're looking at it a totally different way from me. To me, it's a source of income. They've already selected and published my article: all I want is the link from which I earn money. The email's already written. It takes a second to send it. Where's the problem? :confused:
        The practicality that I was addressing has to do with the tracking down of people who strip the resource box/links. Articles are syndicated all the time. I don't think it will be a rarity for an article I wrote a year ago to be syndicated today. But I personally do not have the time to go and check each article that is syndicated.

        Yes! It is a source of income. But there are pros and cons to syndication. I take the good with the bad, and I choose not to waste my time tracking down the people who strip the resource box.



        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

        Yes ... you're definitely not article marketing in the same world as me. Your entire vocabulary for discussing this is one of "rights", "revenge", "justice", "good and evil", and so on. Please excuse the observation that I find this really bizarre. To me this is just a routine part of my work, ensuring that I continue to get paid, form new relationships with other webmasters, maximize the syndication of my work, and build my residual income from work already done. It's what I do for a living. Where's the "big deal"? :confused:

        In my world I focus on organic results from the search engines. People who come directly from the search engines are my chosen target market, and it is my area of focus.

        I do however use article marketing as a tool to get "some" traffic. I also use press releases and blog comments and other white hat techniques. But getting my site to the top of google for any chosen keyword is my priority.

        When I speak about "rights" and "justice", I am referring to the nature of the IM world. There are certainly unscrupulous people who purposefully strip resource boxes, and I'm sure there are a minute number of others who "mistakenly" remove the author attributes. The point is that even if am able to bring one offender to book, there will be another 2 around the corner.
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  • Profile picture of the author RustyF
    I'm not writing that much two to three a day with it leaning to two a day. My niche is not that large so doesn't get syndicated that much. My numbers are smaller but i could have wrote an article in that amount of time.

    For now, I'll experiment and see what happens. Heck, I even went to the next article on that blog to see if they did the same thing with that article. They surely did. I went the extra step to find that author and email them to alert them their content had been stolen.

    Now they probably thought I'm a crazy guy with too much time on my hands and in this case, they might be correct. haha

    Alexa, I think you are correct here but I think Eleva is also correct. Alexa you certainly have the moral high ground and your approach is for the good of the Internet, if we all did it it might make a difference. But, I'm an accountant by training and economic sense tells me that cost benefit analysis that Eleva gave is very valid. You both have excellent points.
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  • Profile picture of the author Marhelper
    Personally, I would not waste my time going after people that use your articles and do not include the resource box as your time as more valuable than that.
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    • Profile picture of the author bretski
      All of this can be frustrating and once you get a couple hundred articles on EZA it can feel like you're policing the internet to make sure that the resource box is included in all of your articles that are syndicated. I used to get righteously pissed when I would find one of my articles on another site without the resource box and links. These days I don't watch the news and I don't go looking for people who swipe my content without giving me credit...it just messes up my head.

      In my experience, the swiped articles tend to drop out of site before long and my original article tends to regain its rightful spot.

      I DO like Alexa's point of view in that all it takes is to send out a preformatted email requesting that the link/resource box be added and "badda-bing, badda-boom" you have another backlink with very little effort. Something to think about myself...thanks buddy!
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  • Profile picture of the author Ken Durham
    it never ends.... At first I would get upset and threaten and post comments, etc.. when I found someone taking credit for my work. But I found spending the time that I sought out thieves was better utilized creating new work.
    Look at it this way, at least you wrote something well enough that others wanted it for their own. IMHO, if no one is stealing your work, you may want to brush up on your writing skills
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    • Profile picture of the author RustyF
      Originally Posted by Ken Durham View Post

      Look at it this way, at least you wrote something well enough that others wanted it for their own. IMHO, if no one is stealing your work, you may want to brush up on your writing skills
      It doesn't hurt my ego, I will admit but it will flatter me more with the link.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tom Goodwin
    It sucks, but my advice is to just move on. It just isn't worth your time or worrying about it.
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  • Profile picture of the author RustyF
    Alexa, you were right. EZA told me it was my problem
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  • Profile picture of the author walkmen
    that is definitely unfair. if they are going to take your content, they should at least have a backlink to your site and give you credit.

    i would suggest emailing them and asking nicely to do what you wish them to do.
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    • Profile picture of the author Articles4Sale
      Originally Posted by walkmen View Post

      that is definitely unfair. if they are going to take your content, they should at least have a backlink to your site and give you credit.

      i would suggest emailing them and asking nicely to do what you wish them to do.
      If it were this easy, I would be smiling everyday. Sadly, this a common practice which is very hard to avoid. Just do a linking campaign on your Ezine to insure that it will always rank higher than the stolen content.
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      • Profile picture of the author bretski
        Originally Posted by Articles4Sale View Post

        If it were this easy, I would be smiling everyday. Sadly, this a common practice which is very hard to avoid. Just do a linking campaign on your Ezine to insure that it will always rank higher than the stolen content.
        Soooooo....you would suggest promoting an article on another website over your own?...do a "link campaign" to promote your article on an article directory rather than your own site.

        I know that this is done and I've seen these articles with tons of views etc...then I read them; laugh a little bit and KNOW that there's something fishy because the article SUCKS. Maybe John and Jane Q Public ARE clicking on the link but I know that I wouldn't.

        Yet I digress....my point is that I wouldn't and don't backlink to any of my articles on any sites other than my own. To backlink to an EZA article just seems like a lot of effort that would be better spent building links to my same article on my own site.
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        • Profile picture of the author tpw
          So inclusion of the non-promotional link to this content was deemed bad and deleted...

          So here is the referenced content instead:

          Authors take note… Your articles do have copyright protections… In this section, I will show you where and how to enforce your copyrights online…

          Since copyright offenses fall under federal protection, any copyright litigation must be argued in Federal Court… This is the reason big companies like Disney, NPR, Martha Stewart and WebMD are our friends in this case…

          Without a doubt, copyright litigation is expensive, and most smaller companies cannot really afford to pursue the rogue publishers in court… But there is more than one way to bring a publisher to the negotiation table, and the easiest way is to let the publishers’ advertisers know the nature of the publisher, and its unwillingness to honor your copyrights…

          Additionally, Internet companies takes DMCA complaints very seriously…

          When I find a copy of my articles posted in violation to my copyright and Terms Of Use guidelines, I generally attempt contacting the webmaster first… I allow the webmaster that is using my content, in an inappropriate way, 7-days to correct my article or remove it from their website… 98% of webmasters will comply immediately…

          If the webmaster ignores my request, then I go to the web hosting company and file a DMCA complaint… The web hosting companies do not want to be taken to task for allowing their customers to host copyright infringing materials on their website… The web hosting company will usually take down the offending page or close the offending web hosting account…

          If the web hosting company refuses to take the appropriate action, you can always go upstream to the web hosts’ bandwidth provider, but that is painful and time-consuming to figure out who that is…

          If you cannot get the appropriate action taken by the webmaster or web hosting company, you can file DMCA complaints with Google and the other search engines, and those companies will remove the offending websites from its index… In other words, Google will remove the offending website from Google’s search results, etc.
          Digital Millennium Copyright Act

          If you find yourself in need of an official DMCA Takedown Notice, go here and here…
          http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...-template.html
          http://domainingdiva.com/legal-issue...ipoff-artists/

          On the last link in the previous sentence, the author also advises how you can notify the advertisers of the copyright theft or plagiarism… In her example, the person who stole her stuff was using Google Adsense… She filed complaint with Google Adsense, and Google removed the offender from the Adsense program…

          The point is that you should try to seek remedy directly for copyright theft and copyright infringement… But if the webmaster fails to take your contact seriously, you can hurt them in the pocketbook…
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  • Profile picture of the author dexterfulton
    Here's the best advice I can give. Put your best content on your own blog. Pirates aren't going away, so don't provide them with your best info.

    Scraping article directories is second-nature to many marketers. That's why I never put my best content in an article directory. Try spinning the article and then submitting the spinned version. Don't submit crap, but never your best content.
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  • Profile picture of the author RustyF
    I heard back from the hosting company. They told me to file the complaint with to a different email within their hosting. Total BS. Since I quit smoking a few hours ago, I'm not in the best of moods. It is 2am or I'd probably be smoking so don't congratulate me on quiting. haha Naww not because of those bozos just because I'm a idiot for loving cigarettes.
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