Plagiarism
Plagiarism is one thing which is increasing in blogosphere and many good blogs have become target of this. Today while checking the incoming links to my blog, I found a new blog called- Ezygadget. Eager to know what content he has linked me to, I opened his blog and I was in for a shock! He has copied 10 posts (the last 10 posts on this blog) completely without even a word modification. He has even liked to images on my blog.
Funniest thing is that he has not even read the content before copying and I think he has done a copy of source code. His blog has even this post- Life Rocks! 2.0 is 6 months old. I couldn’t understand the intention of his blog. He has published 120 posts in September (10 from my blog) and I feel other contents could also be copied ones from other good blogs.
I have contacted the author to remove the content from his blog and waiting for his response. So friends, do check this blog for any stolen contents from your blogs.
Meanwhile I’m creating a mod_rewrite rule in my .htaccess file, so that he can’t hot link my images.
Update: This post is also been copied through feeds. The author of the blog has removed all the posts which he copied through my feeds.
Share & Enjoy
Sep 25th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
that’s really bad. How long are you giving the bastard to answer you?
you know you’re making his blog popular, now he has another link in technorati from your blog…
what’s the next step if he doesn’t answer?
well, anyway, you have your readers support so just tell us what to do
salut!
Sep 25th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Its sad to see your content is stolen without any credits. The content is copied from RSS feeds, i guess he might be running a plugin like autoblog to do this. I am examining his blog, he has copied posts lot of other blogs also.
Mean while you send him a email to remove the content and also send a DMCA notification to his host http://xcesshost.com/
He is a malaysian blogger, here is the info from whois data
Domain Name: EZYGADGET.COM
Registrant:
N/A
Violet One Enterprise
UEP Bandar Sunway
Subang Jaya
Selangor,47620
MY
Tel. +60.1224568
Creation Date: 20-Sep-2007
Expiration Date: 20-Sep-2008
Domain servers in listed order:
ns2.xcesshost.com
ns1.xcesshost.com
Administrative Contact:
N/A
Violet One Enterprise
UEP Bandar Sunway
Subang Jaya
Selangor,47620
MY
Tel. +60.1224568
Technical Contact:
N/A
Violet One Enterprise
UEP Bandar Sunway
Subang Jaya
Selangor,47620
MY
Tel. +60.1224568
Billing Contact:
N/A
Violet One Enterprise
UEP Bandar Sunway
Subang Jaya
Selangor,47620
MY
Tel. +60.1224568
Status:ACTIVE
Sep 25th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
@Ernesto Quezada,
I have added “nofollow” to the link to his blog. Lets see if he removes the content.
@Ram,
Thanks very much for the information. I’m contacting his host also.
Sep 25th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Am Also Facing the same problem with one of my Blog
. That guy is using my RSS feed to copy all those contents.
I also mailed him so many times, but didn,t get any response from his end. So kindly let me know what to do.
Sep 25th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
I would suggest you also add a copyright notice to your RSS feed, it won’t prevent people from using it but it helps in knowing how is copying the content
Sep 25th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
There is a hotlink protection plugin for wordpress that works wonderfully. No need to waste time modifying your .htaccess
Sep 25th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Nirmal,this is horrible. After reading your post, I ran my blog on Copyscape and find that a recent post on a real life incident has been lifted and hosted on ibibo. I have reported too and let’s see what action is taken. Meanwhile, you should not leave this guy and keep us posted on what happens, since this is something of great common interest.
Sep 25th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Atleast this means that Nirmaltv.com is getting popular, eh? Seriously though, wait for the replies from the person and also from the host before deciding your next course of action!
Sep 25th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
That’s really sad. Recetly, I was also into the same case, but I contacted the blog owner, warned him (even threatened him a bit :p) and he removed the post instantly
Sep 25th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
While you wait for the paper trail to go back and forth, why not create a post saying exactly what you think about this copycat and how he has lifted - without permission or credit - your work.
I presume he’s using your RSS feed,
so in all probability this ‘open-letter’ post will get displayed on his blog, about his blog!
Sep 25th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
@Ram,
Thanks for that info.
@Sharique,
I think with that plugin sometimes images are blocked in feeds also.
@Rajesh,
I will surely keep posted about the happenings.
@Vijay,
I’m waiting for his response.
@Harris,
A bit of threatening is good.
@RJ,
I will compose a post if he still keeps all my posts. I too think he is using my feeds to copy the posts.
Sep 25th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Nirmal - feel good! Why?
1. Plagiarism is the best way of flattery.
2. You get free links
3. Your content is good and popular.
4. No need to worry abt the readers leaving your site or SERPs as well.
Sep 25th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
This thing is spreading . I hope your gets solved soon .
Sep 25th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Nirmal-
He is using adsense on his site so write to adsense team also. If his account his banned he will be hit hard and the very purpose of content stealing will come to an end.
Sep 25th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
The best thing to do if he _doesn’t respond_ would be to contact the host.
Do check this site - http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/ - it’s got loads of resources to help you out
Sep 25th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
plagiarism is like piracy that never stop,but as Ashwin says it shows how popular your content.
but as shivranjan says google soon find it as duplicate content so he gotcha very soon
Sep 25th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Hi Nirmal,
I am facing the exact same problem and it is from multiple such sites, one such site has even higher SERP than me and I have already informed Google Webmasters but am not sure if it will help or not.
Keith
Sep 25th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
@Ashwin,
It may be good as long as you have better SERP than the copied content, otherwise it could be harmful.
@Shivaranjan,
I’m planning to contact adsense team also, let me see if it works out.
@Shankar,
Thanks for that link, I’ll check it.
@Keith,
Looks like plagiarism is on a rise in blogosphere. Lots of good blogs are being copied.
Sep 25th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
I am going to go against the rest of the guys here - but I think this is just something you have to accept. Its like spam - you hate it - but there is nothing much you can do about it. You can take down one scrapper - but ten rises to take its place.
You found the site because it had a link to you - most scrapping site don’t have a link back.
The only thing you can do is make your feeds partial - and I am really against that.
Sep 25th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
ignore him….The worst thing is stealing your bandwidth by hotlinking…so take action on that immediately…
Sep 25th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
I’ve seen that autoblog thing a few times. I hope you get everything settled buddy.
Sep 26th, 2007 at 1:53 am
Once, someone copied my whole site (my other PR5 site, not my JoeTech.com) and put it on Tripod. They didn’t fix anything to link to images or anything. It looked like crap and was up for months before I got Tripod to remove it. Good luck.
Sep 26th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Hey Nirmal, i noticed even this post in that website…very funny…But I have seen several sites doing this earlier with full feeds.This is one of the biggest risks in allowing full feeds.I have even seen some sites aggregating full feeds from various blogs….
Sep 26th, 2007 at 10:57 am
It really bad that someone copies content from others hard work and that too using auto blog feature. This post is also updated in his blog.
Thanks everyone for your support.
@Indyankk,
Yea this post is also visible on his blog. Full feeds has this risk!
Sep 26th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Hi Nirmal,
It’s frustrating to see our content plagiarised.Search engines still have no clue of content source.It may affect visitor traffic via search engines.Please inform google adsense and they will block his ads
Sep 26th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
just wait..i will remove the content immediately!but if you allowed i will give credit to your post..so you get free backlinks..
Sep 26th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
these are becoming more n more common in the blogosphere these days. i’m also been facing alot of such problems lately, but don’t hv a solution yet.
Sep 28th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
sorry for the tragedy nirmal. some malaysians are like that. they don’t respect copyrights.
Oct 2nd, 2007 at 1:02 pm
This has happened to my tips site about 2 years ago. It was indeed stressful!
Oct 2nd, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Give a BIG Kick to his ASS !!!
Oct 3rd, 2007 at 1:05 am
Very sad and shameful thing
Trackbacks to this post