My Article Was Copied Word For Word!
Today I was doing some research on back links to my website using SEMRUSH. I click on one of the links that was linking to my site and low and behold it brought me to an article that I wrote 2 years ago.
This scumbag copied my article word for word including my original images and they even used my author profile at the end of the article. What is wrong with people? That type of activity not only hurts my site but it doesn't do their site any good.
The offending website has hundreds of articles on it and I bet that they are probably all copied articles from other peoples sites. In my opinion this is not only theft but morally wrong.
My Course of Action
To remedy the situation I did a Whois search for the offending website. Of course, they had their identity hidden which most thieves tend to do. So I found out who the hosting company is for the website and turned in a copyright infringement ticket explaining the situation.
Time will tell if the article is taken down. I wasn't expecting this today and it wasted hours of my time that I could have been working on more important aspects of my business. But this type of thing needs to be nipped in the butt before it gets out of hand!
How to Keep Your Content Protected
Having this issue of copyright infringement happen has made me do some research on what I can do to help prevent this from happening again. The typical things you can do is have a copyright notice somewhere on your website usually in the footer of your site.
You can add terms of use page and you can register your website with the US Copyright Office - https://www.copyright.gov/registration/index.html
So their are some things you can do to keep your site content protected and safe from copying thieves.
I would like to know if you have had your content stolen and how you dealt with it?
Cheerz,
Cory Haasnoot
Recent Comments
132
Oh, that's terrible! I hope they will take down the post or site.
I had a similar experience with a scam publisher who stole two of my manuscripts. I got one back quickly but for the second one I had to get my lawyer involved and I wrote Amazon for months (the thief had published my work under his name there) until copyright infringement was finally proven and it was taken down.
Sorry to read that Cory, but thanks for sharing.
I am sure that it has happened to me already, maybe many times. I have recently the free version of the "WP Content Copy Protect & No Right Click" plugin and think it is great as people copying your content are not able to copy and paste it to their website, and are too lazy to just re-type it.
However, after reading all the comments in this discussion, it seems that someone can still copy and paste the source code, which means that the plugin is useless.
Also, some are suggesting that you should take that as a compliment, okay, but it hurts, right?
And @Jewelia also says that by using this plugin you are disabling the possibility to have your article Google translated, therefore losing readers: good point. She also suggests to watch Jay's latest webinar as he doesn't seem to be be keen about using this plugin.
So, after all that, I will watch Jay's webinar and will most likely disable the plugin.
One thing that I know and do every time I write a blog post is, before I upload it, I pass it through Copyscape to make sure that it is 100% unique, then immediately after uploading it I submit it to Google Search Console so that if someone copies it later, mine "should" be recorded as the original, and the thief might be penalized or at least his post might not be ranked.
Wishing you the very best Cory, and stay safe, stay at home and save lives, including your own!
John
Some excellent insights John! After hearing the discussion here I don't think I'm going to use the plugin that I mentioned.
I will just have to stay vigilant and address any copyrighting offenses as they come about.
Cory
Most content theft is pulled by scraper bots and some of those use exploits instead of right-clicking so you may still occasionally find your content elsewhere. The big thing, in this case, is they linked back too you. If they have a good spam score and authority this can be a good link and syndication is not a bad thing unless you don't choose for it to happen such as this case.
Also, make sure to go to Creative Commons and set up a Copyright message there so your content doesn't appear at any point under creative commons search and you have a message on your site that states this is not allowed through a known source.
If the site has a bad spam score or low authority you can go to Google Search Console and disavow the link so it doesn't affect you negatively.
Thanks for the advice, Andy. I will check out Creative Commons and take care of that issue.
UGH people are poop. Thanks for the tip! Def going to look into copyright and plug-in. Stealing my content is one of my biggest fears in general having social accounts online. As Mark Zuckerberg says, "Privacy is dead".
Did you read HeidiAnder3's last blog? The straw which led to her major retreat here on WA was finding out an AMBASSADOR plagiarized her work. Worst part: after idiot was confronted, idiot failed to own up to their faults and refused to apologize. AND kept her hard work posted on their site! Disgusting! I really wish I knew who it was so we can unfollow each other.
Under DMCA, the Digital Melinium Copyright Act they can be sued, they can lose their hosting account, and can lose their domain name. Why risk that of one good piece of content?
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Hello Corry,
Thank you for sharing your particular issue. I wonder if this has happened to many of us and yet we don't actually know?! I do hope you can get your copied article taken down, time will tell. I believe that the hosting company should do something about the issue.
Wishing you a great Sunday and great success.
Roy