Content thieves make me very angry!
@RonElFran (1214)
Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
January 6, 2016 11:17pm CST
I publish most of my "serious" articles on HubPages. They provide a service of checking to see if hubs have been copied and posted elsewhere online. I just checked my listing and see that at least five of my hubs are showing the little copyright symbol that indicates they have been stolen. And I'm mad about it!
To steal somebody's content and post it as your own is no different from stealing their car and driving it as your own. Think of how frustrated you'd feel if your car was stolen again and again. That's how I'm feeling right now.
This is not a new issue for me. That's part of the frustration. I have to spend an inordinate amount of time notifying thieves of their violation of my copyright, demanding that they remove the articles from their sites, and filing DMCA notices with Google when they don't. It's exhausting! The thieves steal not only my content but my time as well.
Well, that's my rant for the day. I fully realize that if you write online, dealing with people who see nothing wrong with appropriating your hard work for their own profit goes with the territory.
But I don't have to like it.
13 people like this
11 responses
@topffer (42155)
• France
7 Jan 16
I understand you. I have had to deal with this kind of behavior and I know how frustrating it is. I hate plagiarists. I just reported one who copied/pasted several discussions of the same member from another site. This guy was 3 years old when the account was opened : some writers are precocious
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.5 people like this
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hu
@RonElFran (1214)
• Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
8 Jan 16
The problem is that you can't get rid of these leeches. There seems to be a never ending supply of them, people trying to make a fast buck off the work of others.
2 people like this
@RonElFran (1214)
• Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
8 Jan 16
You're right. As a writer I would be embarrassed to copy someone's work and present it as my own. I think I can do my own writing!
1 person likes this
@pgiblett (6524)
• Canada
8 Jan 16
@RonElFran Technically as a writer if you did take someone else's work at least you would re-craft it to look like your own, not that I am condoning such an action. I am simply saying you could make it an original piece again.
@RonElFran (1214)
• Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
8 Jan 16
Judy, I think the issue is that it does take work to write a good article. Research, writing, finding appropriate photos or graphics, editing - it all takes time and effort that thieves are unwilling to expend. So it's easier to just steal the fruits of someone else's labor instead.
) @pgiblett (6524)
• Canada
7 Jan 16
Your first action is to find where they have been posted, go to that site and request the offending material is taken down, but in doing so make sure it is a breach of your copyright.
I moderate on Wikinut and of of the greatest problems we encounter is people posting copies of other people's material, and what amazes me is that people think they can get away with it. Their picture is of a person who looks like a Chinese man, but the picture of the writer on the original site looks like a white woman and the user name is different.
Do they take us for fools? Of course they are refused. Despite the checks some things do get through.
1 person likes this
@pgiblett (6524)
• Canada
8 Jan 16
@RonElFran I would not be so sure I have seen so many plagiarised submissions that I no longer believe any of them are unwittingly doing it.
@RonElFran (1214)
• Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
8 Jan 16
Sometimes the copier is someone who doesn't know any better, and I try to be gentle with those. But what you are describing are people who steal deliberately, knowing exactly what they are doing. A plague on the whole tribe of them!
1 person likes this
@RonElFran (1214)
• Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
8 Jan 16
Thieves is exactly what they are. Intellectual property is no less property than your wallet!
@PatZAnthony (14749)
• Charlotte, North Carolina
8 Jan 16
It is a terrible thing and happens to all of us..our poems, books, photos. People just help themselves.
@RonElFran (1214)
• Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
8 Jan 16
Part of the frustration is that there's so little we can effectively do about it.
1 person likes this
