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Being plagiarized on EZA

by PowerGTD
24 replies
I am literally about to go postal. I have over 1,100 articles on EZA and almost every day I find an instance (or several) on there of others ripping off my content and passing it off as their own. These people are profiting off of MY work.

What is worse is that EZA, despite what they say in their form-generated responses, does not seem to be serious about cracking down on this problem. At best, they just "remove the article in question" instead of deleting the person's account and banning them. Last week, I reported one "author" at least five times. Every article he was cranking out was plagiarized from me. He is still an active author there.

I reported another offender yesterday who was BLATANTLY ripping off my work and got a response from EZA to the effect of "although the content is similar, we do not feel this is plagiarism." The guy had taken HALF A PARAGRAPH word-for-word from one of my articles.

Is there any other way I can take action against this, since EZA isn't being much help? I seriously hate the idea of anyone profiting off of work that I have done.
#eza #plagiarized
  • Profile picture of the author AndyBlackSEO
    The problem is that people will always take credit or benefit from other peoples work. It is just the nature of the internet. I sympaphise with you, but trying to keep on top of this activity can be draining and you'd be better putting that time into producing more work that essentially will benefit your own business.
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  • Profile picture of the author yves
    [quote=PowerGTD;741913]I am literally about to go postal. quote]

    That cracked me up for about 5 minutes, never heard that saying before.

    I too have had articles of mine "rewritten" word for word almost and I agree it is soul destroying, but I don't think there is much you can do.

    I noticed on my EZA account I have a subscriber and I am quite suspicious that they are just subscribing to get lots of new content to rip off. Maybe I'm wrong, I hope so but there are crazily similar articles flying around that clearly get accepted without bother.

    Sorry to hear your hard work is getting swiped but I don't think there is much else you can do
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  • Profile picture of the author PowerGTD
    Thanks for the responses. Anyone have any idea why EZA is so laissez-faire about this? Also, what about the possibility of taking legal action? I mean, there is money involved here. Specifically, money going into others' pockets that rightfully should be going into mine.
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  • Profile picture of the author yves
    I think I remember seeing something in the T&C's about you submit your articles at your own risk or words to that effect. However, I totally am with you here that these articles shouldn't be allowed.

    Funny thing was, I rewrote one of my own articles I submitted to Quizzila and it got declined on the basis that it was too similar to something else under a different name, the quizzila user name was the keyword. I admit I could've made it more original but it was well within the class of the plagiarizers. I wish they had been that tough on the rip offs we experience.
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    • Profile picture of the author PowerGTD
      Originally Posted by yves View Post

      I think I remember seeing something in the T&C's about you submit your articles at your own risk or words to that effect. However, I totally am with you here that these articles shouldn't be allowed.
      I always took that to mean that there is always a possibility that content could be ripped off and posted elsewhere on the web. That has also happened to me frequently, and I understand that EZA has no control over that. However, what irks me is when they refuse to do anything about blatantly plagiarized content submitted to THEIR OWN SITE.

      I think they just don't want to lose authors. They know that people like me will grit my teeth and keep submitting, because they are a proven source of traffic. As far as they're concerned, the more authors they have, the more money they make. This, along with the Adsense thing brought up in another thread, is proof that they just don't care about their authors as much as they should.
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      • Profile picture of the author Guitarnut
        Unfortunately, this is an ongoing problem for writers but it's not just on EZA. It's everywhere. The fact is, you can drive yourself crazy worrying about it or you can just take it on the chin and crank out more articles. You won't stop it. It is what it is.*sigh*

        Sure you may be able to stop one here and there but it will still continue, especially if you're a good writer.

        My advice is to not get caught up in the negativity of it. It's way too draining on your energy and will take away from your production time IMHO.
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      • Profile picture of the author Kay King
        Last week, I reported one "author" at least five times. Every article he was cranking out was plagiarized from me. He is still an active author there.
        Were the articles rewritten? It still violates copyright but may be the different for EZA between removing the article and banning the author.

        I think it makes a better case to do serious research before filing a complaint so you can have all the facts and comparison article links in one email to EZA. I have had writers banned for submitting exact copies of articles they had no right to submit.

        But - I also think you should contact the authors yourself to let them know you have filed a complaint and know what they are up to.

        There are still people on this forum who think it's ok to take an article from a directory, move the info around and call it a "rewrite" and submit it. Every time it comes up, some idiot will post that "it's OK" - and it isn't.

        kay
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        • Profile picture of the author PowerGTD
          Originally Posted by Kay King View Post

          There are still people on this forum who think it's ok to take an article from a directory, move the info around and call it a "rewrite" and submit it. Every time it comes up, some idiot will post that "it's OK" - and it isn't.
          You should replace "people" with "morons" in this scenario. Anyone who thinks plagiarism has to be word-for-word obviously hasn't passed a 9th grade English class. Taking content from a single source, "re-writing" it, and passing it off as your own work without citing your source is illegal, plain and simple. I just wish EZA cared more about the integrity of its authors than the sheer number of them.
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          • Profile picture of the author aj113
            Originally Posted by PowerGTD View Post

            ....... I just wish EZA cared more about the integrity of its authors than the sheer number of them.
            But seeing as they don't, you could always consider joining them instead of trying to beat them
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            • Profile picture of the author PowerGTD
              Originally Posted by aj113 View Post

              But seeing as they don't, you could always consider joining them instead of trying to beat them
              No thanks, I prefer being able to sleep at night and hold my head high.
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  • Profile picture of the author aj113
    Me too, but that's more to do with paying the bills and feeding my family.
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    • Profile picture of the author PowerGTD
      Originally Posted by aj113 View Post

      Me too, but that's more to do with paying the bills and feeding my family.
      If you can't do that without ripping off other people's content, maybe you need a JOB.
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  • Profile picture of the author dvduval
    This is one of the reasons I only do limited article marketing. I prefer to build content on my own site, rather than post it in places where plagiarists will be likely to grab it and rewrite it.
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  • Profile picture of the author cashcow
    Was the article(s) totally rewritten (so as to pass copyscape) but obviously taken from yours because the basic outline was the same?

    The reason I ask is because I do a lot of outsourcing and once I just happened to notice that an article I got was just like another one I had seen before. The person had just used all the information in the article and rewritten it totally. Passed copyscape and all the "words" were different but every paragraph matched the info in the paragraph of the "copied" article.

    I take a dim view of that, but I could see how people submitting outsourced articles might not even notice because if I had not read the original article just a few days earlier I would have had no idea as it passed copyscape!

    Lee
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    • Profile picture of the author Yogini
      Originally Posted by cashcow View Post

      Was the article(s) totally rewritten (so as to pass copyscape) but obviously taken from yours because the basic outline was the same?

      The reason I ask is because I do a lot of outsourcing and once I just happened to notice that an article I got was just like another one I had seen before. The person had just used all the information in the article and rewritten it totally. Passed copyscape and all the "words" were different but every paragraph matched the info in the paragraph of the "copied" article.

      I take a dim view of that, but I could see how people submitting outsourced articles might not even notice because if I had not read the original article just a few days earlier I would have had no idea as it passed copyscape!

      Lee

      I bought 5 articles from someone (a warrior actually) that were supposed to be original. I used an article checker and found that one of them turned out to be a re-write of an ezinearticles article. It basically would pass copyscape because words were changed regularly but it was the same article in content. Obviously, I can't use it (nor will I use any of them as I suspect they are all done that way). Sadly, it seems some of the article writers are involved in just re-writing one article to get their original article. This is very frustrating.

      Debbie
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    • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
      Originally Posted by cashcow View Post

      The person had just used all the information in the article and rewritten it totally. Passed copyscape and all the "words" were different but every paragraph matched the info in the paragraph of the "copied" article.
      Maybe they both used the same original source, for example, Wikipedia or a public domain government report. I've seen a lot of Wikipedia based, Copyscape passing, rewrites around.
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  • Profile picture of the author artwebster
    I think there is a major problem with EZA and it is not only in their inconsistencies. I have had my account suspended for ten days now and it seems that EZA are determined to prove that they are in the right (I already got them to accept that the article in question was my own original work) - here is my latest response to their arrogant accusations:-

    I can see that what ever I do, my own work will be treated by EZA as not original. Let me assure you that I have exclusive rights to ALL my written work and I owe none of it to anybody else. Indeed, I find the accusation in your email very offensive and totally unfounded. I hope that you can back it up!

    You have now found two articles that you claim are the same as mine and presumably this second one was discovered AFTER the article you compared it with before 21st April.

    With such a specific topic there are inevitably going to be similarities between articles but are you trying to tell me that EZA will only accept one article per topic?

    I notice that there are 4,234 articles in your data base under the heading of Customer Service - are you really telling me that you have 4,234 unique and totally dissimilar articles on such a narrow topic? If necessary I will examine every article in this database and find out how many authors also could be accused of plagiarism because their article structure is similar to that of somebody else's.

    Maybe you should also go through the article banks to see how many other articles you have that are similar to the three that are in question.

    I appreciate that you have to try to keep the article archives free of blatant copies but you cannot do that by simply accusing people like myself in the crass and disrespectful way that you did.

    Webster

    The last thing I need to do is copy someone else's work!
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  • Profile picture of the author rgenterprise
    I'm starting article marketing soon. Thats definitely something that
    I need to be on the lookout for!
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Kelsall
    If someone is just paraphrasing your work and you are putting a ton of effort into reporting them...you are for the most part wasting your time.

    People are going to do it and simply taking your ideas is not plagerism.

    Does it suck? uh-huh

    Is it worth an hour of your day reporting instances of someone jacking your thoughts? Probably not
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  • Profile picture of the author Gabe77
    I had EZA articles that were copied verbatim, almost. The guy changed a few words and passed it off as his own. I usually do a random check for previously submitted articles for plagiarism.

    I don't submit to EZA anymore. Rather publish it in my own site. But that in itself would not prevent plagiarism. Well just have to live it I guess.
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