Copyright Violations: Attention All CC Authors

[Ed]

As was said earlier, this happens everywhere to all sites. CC is not the exception. It doesn't matter if you're an individual blogger keeping a blog on a voluntary basis without pay or the New York Times. People will still find ways to steal your content. No one has foolproof ways to prevent stolen content.

I reject articles and suspend accounts from authors who steal content on a daily basis. They don't only steal it only from little sites. They steal it from all over. They steal it from CNN, they steal it from scholarly sources, they steal it from commercial sites' advertisments. It is not possible to offer a guarantee that content will not be stolen. Someone, somewhere, will always find a way to get content for "free," albeit unethically and unabashedly. Then they will lie about doing it, and either change their name or go elsewhere to reoffend.

That this happened does not come as a surprise. It is not something Constant Content is directly at fault over. It is just something that happens to everyone. Writers who write for the web have their content stolen. Photographers have their photos stolen. You do what you can and move on. If the offending content can be removed, it is a victory. Some companies, like Google, tend to protect their plagiarizers. Other companies have zero tolerance for this. If you can even get a real person to listen to you, that's something. This content is being removed, and the person who took the content has even shown his face. That's huge. Constant Content moved swiftly to address this issue, and will do so in the future, because original, unique content is what brings customers to this site. No one, to my knowledge, has suggested this will cost writers anything extra.

Ed

[HayleyWriter]

Hi Ed,

You are right - CC really did move swiftly and won a big victory for us all. I think some other sites may not have bothered. I guess it is part of the nature of the world, but it still hurts that our hard work can be stolen by unscrupulous people. At least this one has tendered an apology in the open. I am still concerned about the legal right to sell the rights licences. Can you rule on this Ed?

Hayley

[Ed]

I can't, but I think everything will be okay. It sounds as if nothing was indexed, and it also sounds like the content was taken recently before *too* much damage was done.

Personally, I've had content taken before - written content and images. It smarts. It's infuriating. But it is a risk anyone takes writing for the web. Constant Content will do its part (this I am sure of), and writers can also do theirs. This latest fiasco was a good example of how everyone can help each other. That's part of what makes this community worth being a part of. You aren't a lonely blogger who has to file your complaint solo, hoping someone will address your concerns.

Staff does not sit on its laurels. As with all good websites, it is continually being adapted to work within a constantly changing environment.

Ed

[HayleyWriter]

Thanks Ed,

I definitely felt that being part of the community here was helpful. I received supporting emails from a number of concerned authors over the past couple of days, which helped me to realise I wasn't alone in the frustration. I do like being part of community here at CC.

I guess we'll have to wait for the promised information from the owners of CC!

Kind regards,

Hayley

[jrichards]

We've been working through checking all the titles and links that people have sent us that were posted on the offending site. And as Barry mentioned, many of the articles have been removed. We are still in the process of checking all the titles that we have been notified were posted. We will be sending out an email to each person who sent us an email with some titles, we're going through and checking each one to make sure it has been taking down, which is a bit of a slow process.

Regarding Hayley's question about as to whether we allow these articles to be sold for fullrights. At this point, it doesn't appear that the content has been indexed by Google, which is our primary concern with selling articles for full or unique rights.

Therefore, at this point we will still be advertising the articles that were posted on the offending site as available for full and unique rights on Constant-Content. So there shouldn't be any loss of possible income from this incident.

We really appreciate your working with us in this, we do see the writers as the lifeblood of constant-content (although the customers are pretty important too!). We're all in this together. We'll keep you posted on the improved security features.

-jrichards
Support
Constant-Content

[HayleyWriter]

Thanks for the response and the update. It is a relief to know that we can still sell the articles as full rights or unique. Thanks for the fantastic response and support in getting the illegal downloads removed from the website so quickly that the search engines didn't have time to index the articles.

Hayley

[Gail Kavanagh]

Ed, you are absolutely right, content will get stolen. I have had penty of instances of this with non-CC content. Some people don't even know they are doing wrong, they just think it's OK becase it's on the Internet.
I will say this though - I have never encountered a site like CC before, that takes such good care of its authors and sorts out stolen content so quickly. You did it with the character who was putting articles on Associated Content, and you did it here. There have been other instances, I am sure, where you have acted quickly. So a heartfelt thank you from one writer who knows she isn't alone out there.
On top of that, you do all you can to balance security with accessibility and if you could do more without destroying the prpose and profitability of the site, I know you would. I will keep posting.
Plagiarism happens everywhere, in the print world as well as the web. It's not that world some of us remember where we could leave the house without locking the door.

Gail

[CRDonovan]

Thanks CC, for sorting this out quickly and decisively. Well done. And thanks too Barry Davidson, for alerting the rest of us to this situation. I support Celeste's ideas of brainstorming possible solutions to better secure our work; I do not support making this site less accessible. I think site owners have done a terrific job of creating a dynamic marketplace for our work. Let's not allow one bout of copyright theft (or, this latest bout) derail the whole structure. Any media in any form is in danger of being plagiarized. I'm thankful that we have the CC team taking care of business for us.

[dsletten]

This is for everyone - sorry to be the bearer of more bad news but I came upon another site that is using stolen articles by some of CC's authors. The site address is: http://acne-guidelines.blogspot.com/200 ... chive.html

I found two of my articles here and one that belongs to CC author Bozsi Rose and one that belongs to Haleywriter. I recognized others that belong to authors from CC. I did contact the site owner myself and he took off the first article I found immediately. I had to write to him again to take off another. He has his e-mail address right on the site. I would suggest everyone go through this site to see if their articles are on it too.

Hope this isn't as bad as the last one!

Deanna

[HayleyWriter]

Thanks Deanna for the notice! I did find two of my articles. I contacted the owner of the site via the email as you suggested, copied support here on it and emailed support too. These articles are focused on health, weight loss or acne so anyone who has written anything on these topics should immediately check it out and contact support to for help. Although this person has been smart enough to remove my by-line and "..more", it appears that the articles have been taken from the long summaries, as they are not complete.

Hayley

[dsletten]

You are welcome, Hayley. I am happy that he only had two of yours. The owner's name is Igor and he has e-mailed me again in response to my asking him to take off the second article. This is what he said:

"i deleted that one also,
and i don't know why you want to inform all other authors? i am responding to you nicely, i did not do anything illegaly, articles on constant-content are viewable to all internet users i don't know why they put it in such a way that everyone can copy them. i copied all this posts from another url which probably copied them from constant content.
please don't contact anyone and don't make me big problems, because if someone contact me i will remove the posts just like yours.
i am live person and i am also making my living from this blog.
please understand and feel free to contact anytime
Igor"

He apparently thinks he can just take anything that is on the Internet. What's scary is that he says he found these on another web site besides CC. He seems willing to take off any stolen articles if you e-mail him though. Still, it is very frustrating.
Deanna

[JD]

This is the response I've just received from Igor to my request to him to take down the articles of mine he has on his site:

>i removed them
sorry for this, i paid another person to write the posts for me, i did not know they are copied from another website.
i am checking constant-content website for other articles that are on my blog.

Igor<

Call me a cynic, but I'm not too sure I believe him about having paid someone else to write the posts for him. Nor would I leave it to him to voluntarily check CC and remove the plagiarized articles he has on his site!

Jane

[HayleyWriter]

Hi Jane,

I got a similar response. I have copied support here at Constant Content into my reply, which basically requested he purchase the articles anyway through the site, and told him to go to the source for quality, ORIGINAL articles in future by buying through Constant Content. It will be extremely interesting to see if he does!

Hayley

[dsletten]

I just received another reply from the site owner (Igor) saying the same thing - that he is going to take off articles that are from Constant-Content. I think Jane may be right, though. I think he is just saying that but will not take the time to look up each article and take it off. Everyone should still look at the site to see if any of their articles are on it and let support know. He did take off my two articles as he said he would but I doubt he will take off everything. What really bothers me is he said he purchased the articles from another person. If this is true, how many other sites has this person sold our articles to? Very frustrating.

[Ed]

They always have some excuse. It's the same with the writers who are caught plagiarizing. They always come up with some ridiculous excuse. I've about had it with people who "don't know" or who are "sorry."

You don't know? Now that you're caught you're sorry? It's too late, the damage has been done. We're supposed to feel sorry for Igor "trying to get by" by sitting on his duff and copy+pasting articles from people who spent the time to research and write aricles? I'm supposed to give people who just rewrite articles that others have spent the time to research and write, or those who pull information directly from other sources another chance? And then expect that it won't happen again? No way.