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Articles being ripped off

by PatMil
8 replies
I'm new to article writing and following up on some of my articles to see how they're doing (why I don't seem to be getting that many links) I find that they are being spun (horribly!!) or just used with no bio box or reference back to my site.

Is this to be expected and is there any action to take?
#articles #ripped
  • Profile picture of the author peter gibson
    Send the offending site a cease and desist letter along with a notification they have violated DMCA. Explain that you can take action against them by notifying their service provider, and that you can CC the offense to any advertising companies they are currently using on their site. Basically, politely and professionally let them know you can really muck up their day if there is no action taken - action to either add your links and show you as author or take the article(s) down.

    Once you've sent the letter, wait a reasonable amount of time and then follow through on your threats if it's worth it to you. You can find cease and desist letter templates using google. I've included one below for ya, cuz I hate online thievery

    Most often people ignore it when this happens and just write it off, it depends on how much offense you take. I personally hate it when it happens to me and always hit the offenders with the quickness, aggressively.

    Dear Sir or Madam,
    You are using a work that I own the copyright of. The name of the work involved is "<<WORK NAME>>". It appears on a site operated by you at <<INFRINGING LINK>>. I have reserved all rights to this work, which was first published on <<ORIGINAL LINK>> in <<YEAR OR DATE OF PUBLICATION>>.
    Your copying and or use of my work, which appear at the link above, is unauthorized. You neither asked for nor received permission to use the piece nor to make or distribute copies of them in the manner you have. Furthermore, you have taken credit for my work and caused confusion as to whom the original author of the work is. Therefore, I believe you have willfully infringed my rights under 17 USC §101, et seq. and could be liable for statutory damages as high as $100,000. Further, such copyright infringement is a direct violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and International Copyright Law.
    I demand that you immediately cease the use and distribution of the work and all copies of it, that you remove any further works you may have stolen and that you desist from this or any other infringement of my rights in the future. Furthermore, I demand that you post an apology on the site clarifying who the real author is and that you inform others that might have been misled by your misuse of the works' origins.
    If I have not received proof of compliance from you within 72 hours, I shall consider taking the full legal remedies available to rectify this situation including contacting my lawyer and/or your site's administrators.
    Sincerely,
    <<YOUR NAME>>
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    • Profile picture of the author PatMil
      Originally Posted by peter gibson View Post

      Send the offending site a cease and desist letter along with a notification they have violated DMCA. Explain that you can take action against them by notifying their service provider, and that you can CC the offense to any advertising companies they are currently using on their site. Basically, politely and professionally let them know you can really muck up their day if there is no action taken - action to either add your links and show you as author or take the article(s) down.

      Once you've sent the letter, wait a reasonable amount of time and then follow through on your threats if it's worth it to you. You can find cease and desist letter templates using google. I've included one below for ya, cuz I hate online thievery

      Most often people ignore it when this happens and just write it off, it depends on how much offense you take. I personally hate it when it happens to me and always hit the offenders with the quickness, aggressively.
      Thanks Peter - I'm definitely going to follow this through especially if the site looks as if it has some credibility
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      • Profile picture of the author AlexNeill
        Thanks for the template to use, I have not experience this yet,
        but it sounds like it's pretty common!

        Alex.
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  • Profile picture of the author tommen
    I get a lot of my blog posts scraped via RSS feed and automatically pasted on the spammers blog.I don´t mind because I get a few more links back to my blog.There will always be dishonest people no matter what you do.As long as the original post is on your blog first, it does not matter if other people uses it.
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    BestOnlineBusinessTraining.com [Visit My blog]
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    • Profile picture of the author peter gibson
      Originally Posted by tommen View Post

      I get a lot of my blog posts scraped via RSS feed and automatically pasted on the spammers blog.I don´t mind because I get a few more links back to my blog.There will always be dishonest people no matter what you do.As long as the original post is on your blog first, it does not matter if other people uses it.
      I just caught this reply. Are you nuts mate? It certainly does matter that someone is thieving intellectual property. They are not talking about the content being scraped btw. You did read the part about how their own links were stripped and author status removed/changed? That's blatant outright theft, worse even because it's effectively taking that author's work and proclaiming that someone else penned the material. At this point they are using it to gain SERP and sell their crap over an honest person and otherwise hurt the decent person's rank and position. It's disgusting, shameful, and not something to ignore. It definitely matters.

      Of course there are dishonest people out here. There's also a chance you'll run across them from time to time. There's a chance I may die in a fire, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't put a fresh battery in my smoke alarm. And if someone tries to steal the watch off my wrist I'm not gonna give it to him and say "oh well, never mind, there's dishonest people in the world". I'll rip his own arm off and beat him with it, because it's my frikin watch.

      If someone stole from your home you would file a police report, yes? Likewise online, one should never just accept this as par for the course and think "it doesn't matter". File reports with DMCA, look them up, find them and tear them a new butt hole if at all possible. Get their site banned from their provider, contact their advertisers and tell them what a scumbag they have as a publisher, find out who they are and shame the buggers on social sites. Stalk them and make firing up their computer an exercise in torment UNTIL they offer an apology. In the end, no one wants to associate with thieves, even other thieves.

      No one deserves to be the victim of theft in any form, and if enough people take steps to combat content theft it won't be so unnecessarily easy for these bloody idiots to do it and get away with it.

      You know, I have one particular article that - since June - has made me almost 3600.00 in affiliate sales. That's 1 article only, but one written with painstaking attention and learned copywriting skills. If someone had taken that article, claimed themselves as the author, outranked my position and used it for their own product I'd be out cash money today. Now if someone reached in my pocket and took 3600.00 out in wouldn't end well for them, guaranteed. Why should someone treat the situation any differently online? That is exactly what content theft online can be, and no one should just open up, display their property and say "have at it, I don't care".

      /end rant
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  • Profile picture of the author EmilyToo
    Thank you Peter for your helpful 'cease and desist' template; I just experienced exactly the same as PatMil - it sucks. My article almost word for word and no credit or link back. Unfortunately I can't see where or how to contact the site owner - there's no such information, not even a contact page, on this site. (And the sod is ranking higher than me... grrr).
    Any tips on how to get this information?

    thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author webapex
      If whois doesn't do it the next step id contacting their hosting service, they could be shut down in serious cases...
      Signature

      “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field” Niels Bohr

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    • Profile picture of the author peter gibson
      Originally Posted by EmilyToo View Post

      Thank you Peter for your helpful 'cease and desist' template; I just experienced exactly the same as PatMil - it sucks. My article almost word for word and no credit or link back. Unfortunately I can't see where or how to contact the site owner - there's no such information, not even a contact page, on this site. (And the sod is ranking higher than me... grrr).
      Any tips on how to get this information?

      thanks
      Yep look up their site on whois. If that falls short, find out the service provider of that domain and contact their customer support.

      To find out the service provider open a command prompt in your computer by selecting start/run/ then type open command prompt (On Vista and Windows 7, open start and type "command prompt" in the search bar).

      In command prompt simply type ping and then enter the offending site address (don't enter http://, just www.scumbagsite.com)

      The info that comes back will look something like this:
      Reply from xx.xxx.xx.xxx: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=51
      Reply from xx.xxx.xx.xxx: bytes=32 time=25ms TTL=51
      Reply from xx.xxx.xx.xxx: bytes=32 time=25ms TTL=51

      Ping statistics for xx.xxx.xx.xxx:
      Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
      Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
      Minimum = 24ms, Maximum = 25ms, Average = 24ms


      Obviously the x's will be numbers, and that repeated number is the IP of the website. Take that number and go back to whois and that should show you who is hosting - and may even have an abuse contact form.


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