My Most Stolen Article --This is RIDICULOUS!!

[Dan C. Rinnert]

Originally Posted by cballi

If you submit your content to an article directory, do they now own the article and free to sell it as PLR?

Not any article directory that I'm aware of, but be sure to read the TOS before submitting to a directory.

What likely happened is that people either didn't understand what they could do with articles from article directories or they just didn't care, and grabbed articles and sold them as PLR. They may have stripped out the resource box or they may have kept it in, depending on whether they thought it was okay to do, they knew they were stealing or they just didn't care.

Then, those PLR packs get sold, mixed up, bundled, resold, rinsed, washed, bundled, sold again, mixed up, resold, sold again and so on until who knows where it came from anymore.

PLR is a good idea, but can be a nightmare when you throw into the mix people that don't know or care about copyrights and add copyrighted content into PLR packs that get passed along.

[Allen Graves]

Originally Posted by raynman

would you do this in all of your articles?

Absolutely

[TeamGlobal]

Hi Ray,

Sorry that happened to you. It is unfortunate that it is becoming more and more common.

You are right in thinking it would be tedious to go after all of them to have your correct resource box added. I would definitely contact a few of them and simply have them remove the article rather than trusting them to include your resource box. Although you would get more traffic if some of the sites permanently included your resource box it would be tedious to have to "police" the inclusion of your resource box on these sites.

All The Best,


Tony

[thadley]

I don't know why you can't just re-write it with the same content. People do that all the time. There are untold courses out there to teach people how to do that. I haven't written any articles yet but now I know to submit them to EZineArticles first.

[neddag]

Originally Posted by neddag

This is very common unfortunately. I recently purchased a huge package of PLR here. I ran a quick check on about 25 of the articles and 10 of them were published at EZA.

Sad really. I don't think the seller knew this (giving the benefit of the doubt), but he simply repackaged all the PLR he had on his hard drive. He probably purchased it as PLR at one time as well. Who knows how far back it got started.

I should clarify to say that the PLR pack was not purchased as a WSO but through the Classifieds section. Therefore I knew obviously that the seller was not the original author. That's why I checked to see if any of them were in EZA.

As Dan mentioned, it's always best to buy from the original author when possible.

Ned

[JoeCool]

Originally Posted by Raydal

What I was surprised about was the number of 'respectable' sites where the owners had their name as the author of the article.

These are not 'spam blogs' for adsense.

These are no 'newbies', these are people who have been marketing
for years online. I just thought they should know better.

-Ray Edwards

Ray,

Like a previous poster implied, all it would have taken was one person to originally rip off your article and include it in a PLR package that they sold or gave away to hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

These respected site owners that have you surprised may have thought they bought (or were given) the PLR rights legally, and had no problem publishing them under their own name.

Too late to monitor an article you did seven years ago, but maybe this lesson will help you keep a close eye on any new ones you publish.

~JoeCool

[Raydal]

I'm coming to realize myself that a lot of posters bought this article
as a PLR product. What is strange is that most reputable article
sellers know that their articles have to pass the Copyscape test.
so if you are selling or buying PLR products you can find out how
original they are the same way EA finds out.

And I don't agree with those who say "it happens to everyone, just
move on". Evil persists sometimes not because of evil men but
because good men do nothing.

Part of doing something is building awareness through this post.

About 6 years ago an author called me and threatened legal action
because I used 2 words from his book--Yes, 2 words. As far as he
was concerned the concept was his. He wasn't satisfied that I even
quoted my source.

Read my blog and you'll see that I don't write crap. I put time and
effort into my articles. Sorry, but I just can't look the other way.

-Ray Edwards

[Raydal]

UPDATE: I've been contacting ezine directories and also the
marketer who (allegedly) has been selling this article as part
of a PLR product for the WSO.

One article directory has responded and is taking some action.
But part of the strategy suggested here was to 'strike back'
by writing another article. So here's a blog post I made about
this.

Copywriting Tips And Tricks 7 Secrets To Building Your Online Credibility -Stolen Article

Hopefully it would get some more people's attention.

-Ray Edwards

[dearaewi]

I've been a "collector" of PLR for a few years and love to use it on a number of ways, sometimes just to kick off ideas, other time to rewrite, etc. After I read this post I did a check and sure enough, yup, I had the very same article in a package of PLR I got a while back. I did dump off the hard drive.

Ray, I think you did the right thing is giving some fight. Writers put their time and heart into their words and work and it's a damn shame to have it ripped off. Maybe nothing will come of it but you stood up for yourself and what's right and that deserves support and respect.

I write a lot of articles for my main site and often find them all over the place. Up until now I've just blown it off as being too busy to do anything about it and also being a very non-confrontational person but maybe I'll step up next time and stand up for everyone who pours out their heart and passion into their writing.

Kudos to you for standing up for the principal!

Deanna