People using your Ezine Articles without crediting your site

7 replies
One of my articles is being used on a few sites (word for word) but none of them have credited my site. Instead they have put in a link to their own website / squeeze page.

I've contacted 2 out of 3 of the blog owners, but have had no reply.

Anything else I can do?
#articles #crediting #ezine #people #site
  • Profile picture of the author TeamGlobal
    Hello,

    Here's a thread about dealing with stolen content that may assist you.

    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...pires-com.html

    Hope that helps.

    All The Very Best,

    Tony
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    • Profile picture of the author RayWhittaker
      The thread that TeamGlobal posted is good information but it relates to the theft of a website not plagearism of an article.

      Unfortunately, we post articles with the idea that people should copy them. They are supposed to put a link back to you but many don't.

      I've even had my articles spun by someone else using autospinning software. In many cases the culprits don't speak English as a first language, if they speak it at all.

      Unfortunately, you might not have any comeback against these people. It depends where they are. Some countries don't even recognize copyright laws. Having said that Google is getting better at finding the originator of duplicate content and promoting only that original. So plagearists should start to find their efforts are wasted more and more.

      Of course you still want the backlinks. What I've done in these circumstances is post a comment on the article pointing out that it was originated by me and placing a backlink to the original. There's no guarantee that won't be trashed by the site owner but it's worth a shot.
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  • Profile picture of the author clever7
    When I was a newbie I used to care after seeing someone using one of my ezine articles without my resource box. I hated seeing also many of my articles being distorted by many thieves who added other words and made a mess…

    In the beginning I tried to complain, but I saw that there is no way you can keep following each one, and nothing happens in the end; you only waste your time with this matter.

    Never mind, keep writing your articles, and forget the thieves.


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  • Profile picture of the author Rough Outline
    Make your messages hard hitting, most people will ignore messages that ask you to take the content down or add links.

    But a lot of webmasters will respond to legal threats (at least legal threats you're entitled to dish out), because content theft is exactly that, theft.
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  • Profile picture of the author adamv
    Not only have I had people steal my EZA articles, I've even found the content of the home page for one of my sites on someone else's site. You could send a DMCA to their web host.

    I don't go around checking to see if anyone is stealing my content because it could turn into a full time job just searching the internet for stolen copies of things you've written.

    I don't put my best content on article directories and anything that I put on my site I backlink to enough to make sure I'm ranking for the term. If someone is going to steal my content they sure as hell are not going to out rank me with it.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      My aim, when people do this, isn't to get the content removed: it's to get my backlinks added.

      I want my articles to be syndicated as widely as possible from article directories (that's exactly why I'm submitting them there, after all - and exactly the reason for which article directories exist!) so it would hardly help me to start by serving a DMCA notice on them.

      I keep two standard, pre-written, fill-in-the-blanks emails to send to people who do this.

      The first is to thank them for re-publishing the article, explain to them that they seem to have made a mistake not printing the resource-box, adding it in the email, and inviting them please to be kind enough to add it back on. And offering them other articles and being friendly and chatty, because of course one wants to get articles syndicated. This sometimes works. (Sometimes it's a genuine mistake, that their outsourcee webmaster has done "for them").

      If it doesn't, after about a week, only then the second is a standard, fill-in-the-blanks DMCA notice, also sent to them, informing them that they have to remove the content which is in breach of copyright. And this one gets a copy sent to their host, their registrar, and Google, so that they can see those copies have been sent with it (no "BCC's"!). One way or another, this gets the offending content removed about 99% of the time. And the remaining 1% you just ignore and forget about, because it isn't really doing you any harm anyway.

      There's another issue here, too. Sometimes. You need to write resource-boxes that people don't want to remove when they syndicate articles. That's explained in this post.

      There are, of course, some people who feel a bit "incensed" by that and think "I should be able to write any damn resource-box I like without worrying about this". And as "right" as that is, those are people who'll have frequent "issues" over this.

      The downside's very limited, though. Usually no real harm's done.

      The thing is to deal with this quickly and efficiently, taking up the minimum amount of time and effort possible over it. Once you get used to it, it's a 2-minute business, when it happens. And then one can focus one's time and attention on more positive, constructive things.

      You do need those 2 standard, pre-written emails, though.

      If you can't find their email address on their site, just send it to "admin" and "info" and "support" at theirdomain.com. That will usually find them.
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    • Profile picture of the author grandstar
      Originally Posted by adamv View Post

      Not only have I had people steal my EZA articles, I've even found the content of the home page for one of my sites on someone else's site. You could send a DMCA to their web host.

      I don't go around checking to see if anyone is stealing my content because it could turn into a full time job just searching the internet for stolen copies of things you've written.

      I don't put my best content on article directories and anything that I put on my site I backlink to enough to make sure I'm ranking for the term. If someone is going to steal my content they sure as hell are not going to out rank me with it.
      This just answered your question-honestly.

      You have to face up to the reality of the internet.

      The music industry woke up late thinking that they could police the internet like they do the offline world. Sorry, illegal dpownloads are here to stay. Instead find a sensible means to profit despite it.

      Whether or not your article is stolen should not be an issue. Just make sure you gain the most from it. Let the thieves take the remnant.
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