Go to Can You Believe This?
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- Go to A Personal Can You Believe This. Someones (Many) are Stealing My Work
Getting mad about plagiarism
I suspect this is going to happen more and more because it's so easy to lift stuff on the Net.
I'm also interested in your comments about Quazen and Constant Content. I've got a number of articles published with Triond (who sends them off to Quazen) but only one with Constant Content - who (I've just mentioned this in one of my latest posts) have just changed their site and seem to have lost our ability to access our personal account. I'm waiting to hear back from them, but I don't think I'm going to be leaving any more with them. There's been no interest whatsoever in my article so far. They don't seem to do all the promoting they talk about.
posted by
mcrowl
on January 20, 2007 at 1:11 AM
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terpgirl--
that is outrageous. I'm guessing it happens much more than people know simply because we don't go looking for it. But to have an attitude of "Oh well, great exposure," that is just plain idiotic!!
posted by
Julia.
on January 12, 2007 at 12:39 PM
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Dave
Thanks for the html info. That's an idea. Anything that slows the halfwit criminal down.
I have asked others on these sites to search for their names. I have thought of some sort of class action thing if it is wide reaching. Because I have wayyyy too much time on my hands. Not.
I'm a bulldog when it comes to this stuff, so I will follow it individually for fun as well as outcome. I'll keep you all posted as I think many writers are going to be affected in the long term.
posted by
terpgirl30
on January 11, 2007 at 12:20 PM
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As you say several times, this is plainly and simply stealing. It is theft, no two ways about it.
As to what you do about it, I think at the moment you can only continue with what you are doing: approach the thieves directly and complain to the sites that allow it.
I think that the law is falling behind the internet at the moment, but will one day catch up and start to deal better with this and other crimes that are committed in this new arena for criminal opportunity. We need some simple statutes that governments can adopt, I suppose.
And if it's happening to you, it'll be happening to countless others.
One small crumb for you: I don't know how to do it, but there is some html that you can put into the code of your writing which prevents simple copy-and-pasters. It probably wouldn't protect you from determined thieves, but it might give you one layer of protection. Might be worth looking into.
Regards. 
posted by
_dave_says_ack_
on January 11, 2007 at 12:59 AM
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Word
Yes, this has been completely disheartening. I just got an answer from Quazen. They said that they buy articles from people who present the work as if they have the copyright. They told me they will take my work down.
Well, these pieces appeared in Associated Content, Helium and here on blogit. I also put part of one on my myspace account. I rule them out as it's not all of the offending pieces. So that leaves the two. I will be having some talks with people today.
I'll keep you posted.
posted by
terpgirl30
on January 10, 2007 at 7:51 AM
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McRowl
I just got a job Monday after being out of work 7 months. I had been freelance most of my life, then took a normal job for the family. Then my husband moved when I went to work one day after I had secured health insurance. So, all of those years building up freelance was lost.
I've been doing online stuff, mainly recycyling my old material. I did a big search on paying sites last night. I've been at it a while, and talked about putting together a sort of database in my writing blog.
I found more last night than I'd even thought existed. My suspicion is that a lot of these are out of business. That's the thing that needs to be watched.
I haven't had great luck with contant content. I've had huge copyright debates with the editors. My sense is that most of these people are business people and know nothing about -- or care nothing about --- good articles other than as a way to make ads look good. They've picked up one article out of about 30 I've posted. I've had about 50 percent rejected for insane reasons. In my word count, for example, I had a comma. I had to redo the entire submission process---something like 15 minutes.
You're right about the foreign market stuff. Helium takes people from all over the word. You won't get paid outright. It gets paid for as people read it...very residual. I've been there since October. I have about 80 pieces up (and some are just me answering questions for people). I have a whopping $13. Still, the work is done.
I will speak of them in my comment to Word next.
posted by
terpgirl30
on January 10, 2007 at 7:49 AM
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Terpgirl,
To date, I have only seen links to one or two of my articles on other people's sites, but you seem to have had a wholesale movement of your stuff on to other people's site. I agree with you that you need to do what it takes to make them stop, especially since they are making income from your labour.
posted by
word.smith
on January 10, 2007 at 4:55 AM
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Taps, Afzal
The other side of it is how pathetic must someone be that they can't come up with a blog?! I look up all sorts of odd news that is reported through AP and Reuters and the various newspapers. Facts cannot be copyrighted. It is what it is. I feel odd doing this news stuff. I go so out of my way to make it all different.
A Content Manager at Associated Content didn't use the word plagiarize on a stupid criminals thing I did, but he said that it sounded like it came out of Reuters. (It was a 5 pt. thing, and he rejected this one.) Just the IMPLICATION of it all puts me on edge. In this case, all I could think (because this guy is a constant problem for people on this site) was 1) he's an idiot, 2)he's an arrogant idiot, and 3) If after about 25 years of making my living as a reporter/writer, if I DON'T write like someone who writes for Reuters, AP, etc. I need to get into a new line of work.
The question is what to do? This thing has mushroomed in terms of the content sites in just 6 months. I'm going to try and organize content writers who have a background in real writing and journalism. I don't mean to make it sound like I'm looking down on content writers. The ones I'm dealing with are only "writers" because the places are so desparate that they'll take horrible stuff from those who will give it to them for free. (Geez, I just re-read that description. It's more applicable than I thought.) Many of these sites are only interested in having black ink surrounding their ads.
I think we all have to be really watchful on this site. It's much more of an honor system. If something looks off, we should copy a block into google and see what comes up.
I went after a woman here pretty hard. She wrote nasty, nasty stuff. I got into an argument with her because she was a moralist who really wasn't. She made nasty generalizations about anyone but homeschooling moms.
Well, she was copying/pasting whole articles from the New York Times. She then PUT THE COPYRIGHT notice on the bottom. I told her she needed to stop and she bitched me out good. I told her why it wasn't allowed, and she was nasty again. I told her to give the NYT a call and ask if she could reprint it...especially on a site where she was making money (theoretically). I was still being nice to her regarding all of this. I was angry with her for her sweeping opinions, but there are lots of non-writers who think you can give a person credit, then copy a whole article. I told her to put the link as opposed to the article. She mumbled something about she would have to verify all this with her group's lawyers.
Then she changed it. It didn't have the same impact, and she wasn't about to write any words of her own. She deleted the whole blog.
I see that here with song lyrics. I've approached many people here, very nice bloggers who really, really didn't know. I love song lyrics, so I would love to see them, too, but the bloggers can get into hot water. We're not being nasty by alerting the bloggers that they really can't do it. Just do it in a nice way. You can tell who is a lazy thief, and who just doesn't understand.
posted by
terpgirl30
on January 9, 2007 at 9:25 PM
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terpgirl
That's too bad, in fact disgusting. I guess you know that a few times it has happened here that Blogit members have been caught copying from other sites, in full, and posting as there own. I don't think that any of them are here now.
posted by
TAPS.
on January 9, 2007 at 5:55 PM
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Plagiarism is a serious offence . I agree with you.
posted by
afzal50
on January 9, 2007 at 5:51 PM
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