I always say… You know you’ve made it when people begin copying your work.
And thanks to services like www.copyscape.com it’s much easier to spot offenders these days.
Plagiarizing used to really bother me, especially when the search engines weren’t as smart as they are today. It used to be much easier for thieves to steal your rankings.
However, since the engines value quality inbound links more these days, it’s a little harder for thieves to benefit from stealing your work.
Of course, that doesn’t mean people aren’t going to try.
I normally don’t let copycatters bother me too much. They usually get what’s coming to them in the form of search engine penalties or simply lack of success. (I do believe in Karma!)
Besides, if I spent my time chasing these spineless people, it would be counterproductive for my business. So I usually ignore them.
But once and a while I’ll find a person who has gone too far.
The most recent offender not only stole my content word for word, but he stole my pictures (even the photos of me.)
And what angered me even more is the fact he’s an AdSense member and was attempting to make money off the content he stole from me.
Since he is an AdSense publisher, I figured Google would be more proactive about taking action. So I submitted a copyright infringement claim (under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act).
After only 3 days of faxing the claim, his AdSense ads were disabled and the copyrighted content was deleted from the Web server.
Because I didn’t press charges, the offender was allowed back into AdSense after 7 days. But at least he knows I’m watching and was forced to remove the copyrighted content.
So I was somewhat pleased with the overall results. I have to admit, though, I was a little shocked Google didn’t remove him from AdSense completely. I’m pretty sure that was a violation of the AdSense T&C’s.
What Should You Do?
If you find an AdSense Publisher (or any site that appears in Google) copying your content, here’s what you do…
1. Immediately print out all pages from the offender’s site that contain plagiarized content.
2. Print out the pages on your site that contain the copyrighted content.
3. Try contacting the offender first and ask them to remove the content. In my case, there was no contact information on the site (imagine that?) so I wasn’t able to do this.
4. Complete the claim and mail (or fax) the claim to Google. (Faxing is much faster.)
You may have noticed I didn’t mention looking up their domain name records and contacting them and/or their web host.
In my experience, if the person does not have a contact form on their site, they usually have a bogus email in their domain records or never reply to my emails.
I’ve also had horrible luck with contacting Web hosts. After all, these are their customers so they are often reluctant to do anything. So I decided to go straight to Google.
It only took Google a few days to contact the offender and the AdSense ads were disabled immediately.
This procedure will probably work even if the person doesn’t belong to AdSense, but you better believe Google is especially interested in AdSense Publishers who steal content.
Their AdWords advertisers are their primary concern, so they want to make sure the AdSense program is as “clean” as possible.
A Note to Thieves…
It may be quick and easy to steal someone’s content, but I believe you’ll always get what’s coming to you in the end. So is it really worth it?
Copyright infringement is illegal, even if it’s online. And if you steal from the wrong person, you could end up in a world of trouble should they decide to take legal action against you.
Try publishing your own work for a change. Yes, I know… that requires you to do real work and use your brain. Life’s tough, huh?
Great Resource
Jessica Hupp wrote a very useful and comprehensive article on various ways to combat plagiarism. I’d highly recommend you bookmark this blog post.
It’s still annoying to me because the thieves tend to rank better than me for some stupid reason.
Just came across one very impressive example of somebody who has several blogs and publishes masses of articles every day – every one of which is stolen from various other websites. And all with Adsense.
The thief must be a retard. He stole even your picture? *Laughing*.
Thanks for the info Lisa. I’ve just had a “competitor” copy the wording off my site word-for-word, but not only that he even had the nerve to leave a poor rating (1) on my Google Places listing in an attemp at sabotage! But he wasn’t smart enough to cover his tracks!
Sandy;
I hear you and I am with you all the way. However, if you give up, then you’re a part of the problem and not a part of the solution. I hate to be harsh, but that’s an unfortunate truism that you should examine. You have to fight back.
I am going to paste in 2 links here to articles I recently wrote about how to take fast action. Google has changed their policies recently, and you can now make reports over the web VERY fast. I have seen Google take action on web-submitted reports SAME DAY. No joke.
Even if all you do is report cases of plagiarism on my site, that WILL help everyone. By having a public record of offenders that will get indexed and returned in search results by Google, Bing, or Yahoo, we’ll be fighting back. So far the site is being indexed within 12 hours of new material being posted.
So, let’s say that you get plagiarized by the same guy who plagiarizes my work regularly, Marvin Gibbs. If you and me and other users create reports and post them to the site, any time someone enters his name, website, or other information into a search engine, they are going to see plagiarism reports at the top of search results.
The way I see it is like this: we are all content developers, so let’s use what we do best to our advantage and create content that damages the thieves and publicly exposes them. If we build a large enough following, we’ll finally be able to push for better legislation and faster action on the part of the search engines and domain hosts.
Ultimately, if you stop developing content, and I stop, and everyone else who is sick of plagiarism stops, then we’ll have no high quality unique content on the web, and the whole user experience will die. It’s unfortunate that the only people who truly understand how big this problem is is content developers. That’s why it’s up to all of us to do something about it.
Check out these two articles, I think you’ll find them useful. There are more articles on my Ezine account and on http://www.reportplagiarismnow.com
Here you go:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Report-Plagiarism-Now:-5-Fast-Ways-to-Report-Plagiarism&id=5939397
and
http://ezinearticles.com/?Report-Plagiarism-Now:-Report-Plagiarism-to-Google-in-3-Easy-Steps&id=5938829
Thanks everyone!
Russ
What do you do when someone steals your work, and then reports you as the offender for stealing theirs. I know publish dates can help with that, but ….
I had a static website for over a decade, since the late 1990s. I recently decided to replace that site with a blog. Same domain name and I copied/updated a lot of my original content to the blog. So they have new publish dates. Someone is claiming a page on my site that I’ve had since around 2004 is a direct copy of their site. It’s not of course. But they reported me to google. What recourse do I have for submitting a complaint to their report? Is there such a thing?
Russ, I do think there is a need to make this public. My concern is that the search engines know it is going on and they can’t even tell who is copying who. But why does the problem seem to be getting worse instead of better if the search engines know of the problem.
Here is what I want to know. How will this affect the building of websites in general and will people loose interest in websites as a source of credible information.
I’m at a phase where I’m a beginner with a website and I’m really scared that I am totally wasting time because of this issue. I have yet to find anyone make a cogent argument to continue in the website development field despite the plagiarism. All I get is the proverbial “don’t worry about it”, “consider its flattery”, “I just ignore it”.
I want a convincing argument to support staying in the web development and content creation business.
That is awesome Russell. I’m spreading the word over at eHow. There are a lot of writers who will be interested in this.
I produce a great deal of original content and at one time I required a full time staff member just to pursue plagiarism cases. Most of the time, if I publish an article today, there will be multiple cases of plagiarism and copyright infringement of that piece by the morning of the next day. I put more resources into chasing content thieves than I did into producing work!
What is especially damaging is when these people steal your work, put it through a spinner that chops it into barely recognizable English, and then leaves it credited to your name and website! This is a serious reputation issue for me, because my success has come about by only producing the very highest quality content.
Anyway, I decided to do something about it. I have created a website that will allow people to report plagiarism permanently in a public format. This can be used to put pressure on thieves and for leverage to press search engines and web hosts (and later, government agencies) to take action when plagiarism is reported.
It’s a free site and I think there is a monstrous need for this. If any of you are interested, please stop by and report the offenders who have affected you the most. If there are multiple reports of the same offenders, we will use the information and evidence collected to initiate a class action lawsuit.
I’d greatly appreciate some help with getting this off the ground, and I know it can be used as a valuable weapon against plagiarism if people are united in this cause.
Thank you! http://www.reportplagiarismnow.com
Russ Barnstein
Editor-in-Chief
Content for Conversions
Founder
Report Plagiarism Now
Any time my earnings and views drop, I look for plagiarism. I also bypass the emails and domain look up. I’ve had my content stolen several times and it’s very frustrating. Since I write for several revenue share sites along with a blog and my own niche website, it’s a constant battle. It’s pretty easy to tell who is making an error and copying, but “citing” your content and who is straight stealing it to make quick money. I had one article stolen and replicated seven times by seven duplicate websites with zero original content, but lots of affiliate selling and ads. Crazy.
I’ve heard several writers say they don’t mind if someone steals their content as long as they get a backlink. I disagree. I’ll give someone permission to republish enough content for us both to benefit, if I get asked, but a backlink from a spam site isn’t what I want. Google chooses the ranking, not me, so these content thieves often benefit, and sometimes raise above original content in the SE.
Google spam reports seem to take a long time. I’m hoping that Google’s latest algorithm change will penalize them. It’s just
I know this is a common place occurence; but it is bothersome because what if the person stealing is outranking you in the search engines.
Although it is said much can’t be done; I still feel that to just chuck this up to being online is fostering this type of behavior.
I think those who are new to the internet marketing and do not have prominence in the search engines would be more bothered with this, rightfully so, and I think in general this type of theft is going to make people look at other ways to sell info products online and offline.
I wish I could just ignore it; but maybe because it bothers me so, it is an indication that I may be pursuing some online venture which is not close to my heart. These violations cause me to feel like I need to move faster and make many more websites so I can stay ahead of the theft.
Unfortunately, I don’t want a business where I’m driven by the avoidance of theives. So I’m looking into other avenues of making money withought doing the majority of marketing online through content marketing.
Over time my gut tells me that the search engines may just become more obsolete for marketing purposes; I think people will loose trust as they don’t know who is behind these websites and they will seek to connect via social media(twitter, facebook) and then make offline connections and you can then send them via other avenues proof of your existence.
I’m really uncomfortable with the amount of theft I see, particularly for those who are not that experienced and not already making money online.
I’m having this problem right now. And the thing angers me the most is the fact that the one who stole my content reported my blog to Google as being a spammer which resulted in the deletion of my articles. He/she thinks he/she smarter than me by stealing my content and getting my blog removed when I’m not a spammer at all. I hope he/she knows what’s coming to him/her
.-= Ziki´s last blog … Online Marketing Lesson 4 – Make Money Online with Domain Parking =-.
Ziki, I don’t understand why you are using a free blogging system? If you own your own domain name, you can then prove when you registered the site, as compared to the thief or thieves who have stole your content.
When you create your content, take screen shots and save them with the date for this reason. If the content thief can’t provide proof like you can, then it’s obviously your true content.
.-= MJ – Lisa Fan´s last blog … Baby Sign Language Signs – Teach Your Infant or Toddler Signing | Babies and Sign Language Website =-.
thanx for this post.
i have a blog and there’s this vietnamese who copy my posts word for word even putting watermarks on the pics i have uploaded. and one of my blog got deleted because i was the one who was said to be spamming. i hope you can help me.
his webiste is celebrity.ohfree and he copies all his posts from other sites too. he copied also from gutteruncensored and i will also report him to the blog owners
This is great information. I find my articles on the Internet all the time. At first I was excited that other people like my information enough to share. Once I learned that hosting articles without permission was wrong, I was no longer flattered. When I started to see my articles with my name removed and no link back to my site that really upset me. I am not a professional writer and I am just starting out. I wonder why people don’t try to write their own original content instead of stealing information from other people.
I will be signing up to receive your updates and I have shared your blog with several people already. Thanks!
I wrote a blog post recently that I wrote a basic summary on a creditable author’s article, but I made sure to say it wasn’t mine and I put a link to the original post. Did I violate a copyright?
I hope you don’t mind if I put a backlink to this blog page in my Group on eHow.com. Many of us writers on eHow have been finding our articles stolen, all over the web. I started the group to try to combat this crime and this blog post is exactly the information we need. Thank you for the clear instructions and the great links to forms and other resources.
Not a problem at all, Diane. Thanks for asking!
Thank you so much for the info! This is what I need. Apparently somebody has stolen the content (copy past exactly the same post title, same picture and same content) from my one-month-old-blog. That’s annoying. And the thief’s site is putting up Google Adsense too.
Thank you Lisa for taking time out to respond to my post. Inactivity and procrastination are not feelings I want to experience anymore…
Sandra, preventing theft 100% is pretty much impossible, especially when people see your site has some success. So rather than letting it deter you from starting, just know your options and understand the search engines are so savvy that most thieves realize that it’s no way to get traffic and they either get penalized or never get any traffic so they quit and give up. So I certainly wouldn’t let these thieves prevent you from starting. I believe in Karma and in my experience, most of my copycatters have gotten what’s comin’ to them in the end.
Funny…this has been one of my major reasons for not starting. I once had a blog and someone was stealing my content and ideas, thus, I got discouraged. I felt like why spend years building up a website only to have someone stealing your stuff and getting credit. But after reading what you did, perhaps I can now move on. It really bothers me that someone used your picture as well. Seems like their should be some way to control that also.
Im pretty surprised, I heard when google adsense boots you, they boot your butt for good. lol. I also HATE content theives. I have a ton of original content online, and nothing irks me more than dirtbags making money off of other peoples hard work!
Great advice here by the way.
Correction to my previous post: “ea, we know we’ve come a long way when someone takes the ‘time’ to copy us, but indeed do I take this as any form of flattery.”
I certainly meant to say “but indeed do I NOT take this as any form of flattery”. 😉
The laziness and scummy-ness on parts of these types of people just really make me scratch and shake my head!
Lisa, thank you for this! I’ve just had this happen to where someone used my information word-for-word on their Squiddo lens. And yep, she had no contact info anywhere on the page, nor on any of the OTHER websites she listed on her Squiddo page.
Gosh it’s infuriating, but you are right that when you take appropriate action, AND then leave the rest to Karma, you get a much better night’s sleep for sure.
It is harder to fight this if they aren’t using any Adsense or ads that can lead you to the owner(s) of those said ads.
Yea, we know we’ve come a long way when someone takes the ‘time’ to copy us, but indeed do I take this as any form of flattery.
And yes, rarely the webhosts do anything about it, shame.
Thank you again for the info on how to act when something happens.
I also plan to copyright my entire website, as well as including copies of my site(s) using the waybackmachine, which I believe is like $35 or so for the gov to give copyright. SO WORTH IT.
I hate it when business sites have no email as a contact form lol.
Any images that have a copyright notice I rightly stay away. Otherwise I couldn’t sleep at night if ya know what I mean.
As for content I’m totally original!:)
I recently found a scraper of my content. It is sad when people can’t write their own content and rely on the hardwork of others.
That is awful! I hope that you can get that taken care of soon. Even though my content may not be ” theft worthy”, I still may have to check out ” copyscape”. Best Wishes!
Oh yes, like I said… I’d go bonkers if I tried to go after everyone. It’s just not worth it. That just comes with the territory, unfortunately.
Great post. though i had read similar kind of article before.
lisa..i did use copyscape for ur site to see..is there any duplicate content??? ouch i have found many…lol.