Copyright Violations: Attention All CC Authors

[BarryDavidson]

Recently I was doing a search for an article I sold usage rights to, and came upon a website who had at least four of my articles published there. I'd only sold one of them for usage rights, so I got to looking.

The site in question is http://www.m6n8.com, and I have to file a DCMA report with the hosting company. Thing is, the articles aren't posted in full. It's only the parts which I put up here so that customers could review them.

I also searched some of the other titles posted there on the main CC page, and came up with articles by audrabianca and Celeste Stewart. The entire articles aren't posted there as far as I can tell (unless you're putting the entire articles there) - just the "Content Details" section we post.

I'll post the reply I got back from that site's host.

[BarryDavidson]

Thank you for contacting our Abuse Department. We are not in the position to determine or validate who owns the intellectual property rights related to the content in question. However, per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, copyright claimants are only required to substantially provide the following information when making a copyright infringement claim:
1. Identification of the material that you are claiming that is being infringing, with information about its location, reasonably specific to permit us to locate the materialDescription of Infringement: _________________________
Location of Infringement:Your URL or Web Address: ________________
Infringing URL or Web Address: _______________________________

2. Please fill in the following statement:I _______________________________, have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. 3. Please fill in the following statement:I _______________________________, swear under penalty of perjury, that the above information in this notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or are authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf.

4. The infringement reporter or authorized persons:Name: ___________________Addresses: __________________Telephone Number: _______________Email Address ______________

5. The electronic/typed or physical signature of the owner of the copyright or the person authorized to act on the owner's behalf.

Once we receive the above notice we are required by law to remove the material in question.

**Note: If a Counter DMCA is submitted, the site will be reactivated & it will be up to the two parties to pursue legal action.

Abuse Department
1215 N. Research Way Suite Q-3500| Orem, UT 84097
V: (888) 401-HOST | F: 801-765-1992

[Ed]

What was the response from CC Support? Did you get one yet?

[BarryDavidson]

Not yet. I figured getting us all in on shutting down that site would be a good thing.

[HayleyWriter]

Hi Barry,

Thanks for the heads up
I found at least one of my articles, and I recognised MANY titles of articles here.
You said "The site in question is http://www.m6n8.com, and I have to file a DCMA report with the hosting company. Thing is, the articles aren't posted in full. It's only the parts which I put up here so that customers could review them." Not only that, but when I have put (...more) to indicate more writing is not included in the summary, that is there too, and it finishes with "For the full article, please purchase the rights", which I always put on the bottom of the summaries here on CC. This website is definitely ripping us off!

I'm contacting our support about it now!

Hayley

[Celeste Stewart]

They have at least one of my full articles.

What's worse or at least annoying, is that when going to their website, my Internet security software (Trend Micro PC-Cillin) flags me that this is a "dangerous" website that contains spyware. Nice. So, run your spyware scans folks. Not only are they ripping us off, but possibly adding harmful programs to our computers.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

[dsletten]

Hi Barry,
Thanks for the heads up on the website. I found 7 of my articles there and none of them were purchased. Only one had been sold for Use rights in the past but they are only using a portion of that article too so I'm sure they aren't the ones who bought it. I will contact support about these articles. I also saw many articles on the site that I have seen at Constant in the past. Very frustrating!

[Whisp]

Thanks for the heads up on this. One of my articles was also used by this rip-off site. I have contacted support.

[HayleyWriter]

I found 15 of my articles there - most of which had not been sold. I recognised most of the titles as being from CC, including articles from the premium section. The entire website has stolen articles from all of us! There are articles from almost every author on that site.

[CRDonovan]

I see three of my articles there - including one that has been recently sold for full rights. This not only rips off writers, this rips off customers who have bought rights to articles. Count me in on any group action to redress this.

[CRDonovan]

I'm confused. I thought that CC had put some kind of filter - for lack of better word- that prohibited anyone from cutting and pasting from the long summary portion of uploaded content. I always post my entire article, but am now rethinking that again. Advice?

[Celeste Stewart]

Even people who posted portions of their articles got ripped off.

It's my understanding that there are ways around the copy and paste restrictions. These restrictions will stop the casual person who cuts and pastes but the professional plagiarists have their methods. I wouldn't be surprised if they use some sort of web robots that go in and automatically harvest selected sites.

Is there a way to post images of articles rather than text? For example, in MS Word, you can cut your text and then create a jpeg image of the text. Just a thought. It would be a pain but might be worth doing.

[CRDonovan]

I would be fine with a more laborious method to upload if it helped safeguard our work. Of course, I have no idea what you are talking about when you say jpeg, but I suppose it's all part of the learning curve. Question is, how does this affect work that is for sale for full rights? Or work that is already sold? I am seriously gnashing my teeth over this.

[Constant]

Hi Guys-
First off, I totally understand the frustration, and believe me, we are as upset as anyone. This is what we have done up to this point today:
1. Uncovered the personal address of site's owner and sent a cease and desist letter to him.
2. Contacted wordpress.com in case they have any pull over the site (though it is likely that the site has simply used their platform and is not being hosted by wordpress)
3. Prepared the DMCA paperwork in case we don't see any action from the site in the next 24hrs.

If the content continues to be displayed tomorrow we will file the paperwork and begin gather evidence to demonstrate the initial posting dates for all the articles that have been ripped off. I know that some of you have already started sending me the articles names that been stolen, but in the interest of keeping this whole thing tidy and organized I would ask anyone who has had an article stolen to please send me the following email to support@constant-content.com:

Subject line: Content Theft
Message: 1) your pen name or email address associated with your account -then- 2) List article names as they appears on constant-content so we can track them easily.

This will help us compile the necessary information to provide google. This will ensure our best shot at having the site taken down quickly.

I appreciate everyone's cooperation, in helping us resolve this matter as quickly as possible.

David Kool
Product & Content Manager
www.Constant-Content.com

[Celeste Stewart]

CR Donovan,

I suspect the site will be shut down eventually which will solve our immediate problem. I found out about my article because I use CopySentry to monitor several of my articles for this scenario. Each week, I get a report about whether my articles appear elsewhere. I just recieved the notice the other day, so it makes me think that this is a relatively new theft (and hopefully won't affect our customers so long as the offending site is forced off soon).

JPEG is an image file type. For example, in Word, you can cut your text and then use Copy Special to reinsert the text as a picture image. Once converted, you can then copy this image into Paint and save it as a JPEG or BMP (or other picture) file. If we could then post the image instead of the text, the customers would be able to read the sample (if quality is good enough) and text thieves woudn't want it. Not a perfect solution at all like I say. But??

Thanks David, just saw your response. You're the best.