Blog Plagiarism – web infringement!

What happens when someone steals entire content of your blog, actually steals unauthorized mirror of the blog, and the thief injected Google ads on it, breaking intellectual property, copyrights, etc, plus profiting from this noncommercial blog?

This is something that happened to me and let this be loud shame for such an act. It is detected where the stealer comes from, as well as I reported abuse email on their host, and to the Google removals. Thanks to Mirko and to Darren, and here is what you should do if something similar happens to you :

First find out on WHOIS the stealer, report directly to their host, if they abused and/or add ad-sense and making profit of your intellectual property. Report to Google ad-sense support as well as to Google removals. Do not forget, in the case of web infringement to report and send by email or fax to Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Also, report to your friend, colleagues and readers on this, as I realise that my RSS is changed and many of readers decreased. By the way, in my case, when entire blog is copied (not article, but total plagiarism and legal infringement) the Copyscape tool is not working for me. This is direct exposing the thieves URL and you should know this, on today’s day (if it comes to removals).Do not click on their ad-sense.

Below is the photo I copied from their URL and blog plagiarism with ad-senses on the header. If any legal expert can help in my case, every comment, suggestion and direct help is welcomed.

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Comments

  1. snapo says:

    I’m an artist, a creator, painter, musician and it could arrive to everyone of us.
    It’s a very important violation of the right. Now The legal and lawyers should be involved in this. We must protect ourselves against this threat. Intellectual Property is not only a word. And violation of this is punished

  2. danicar says:

    This site seems has already mirrored my latest posting, this thieves are running a web proxy server and inserting ads, and is. however, violating…something, by redistributing content. It appears that his ISP has already gotten mad at at him for doing this
    http://www.jaylee.cn/?p=284, but who knows.
    The same thing to this: http://www.jaylee.cn/wikipedia/index.php?q=aHR0cDovL2Rlc2lnbmVyLWRhaWx5LmNvbS8%3D
    and this:
    Adobe:
    http://www.jaylee.cn/wikipedia/index.php?q=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5hZG9iZS5jb20%3D

  3. Stephen says:

    Actually…
    This guy is not copying content. He is running a web proxy and inserting ads into to the pages that are displayed. As soon as I post this comment, it will be viewable from that link above. If I posted the comment from that link, it woudl show up on this site (but the posting IP address would be recorded, most likely, as his server IP address, not mine (anonymizer, anyone?)
    I guess at some point, something he was proxying must have lead to your blog and so the link you were given will always point to a proxy for your blog.
    look: Adobe’s website via “jaylee”! http://www.jaylee.cn/wikipedia/index.php?q=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5hZG9iZS5jb20%3D

    He is proxying wikipedia primarily ( http://www.jaylee.cn/wikipedia/ ) and from there an unsuspecting user might not realize what was going on.

    Is it plargiarism? Probably not. Is it wrong? I believe so. Is it illegal? I have no idea, but I suspect that it may violate Goggle’s terms of use for use of their Ad injection. Again, I have no idea, as I am not a lawer and don’t involve myself in these things… I’m just commenting on what I see as an engineer…

    Speaking of what I see, it appears that his ISP has sent him a nasty note as his proxying activities are crashing their web server (ya think?): http://www.jaylee.cn/?p=284

    Anyone read Chinese? If I could read what his(her?) actual blog contained, maybe we’d have a clue as to what the real intent is….

    S

  4. tonynovak says:

    I sypathize, but regret to pass on this bad news. For more than ten years I have had this same problem with others copying my free business advice columns published on legitimate advisory sites for their own commercial Web sites. I’ve been told over and over by well-informed people that, as a practical matter, there is nothing I can do to stop it.

  5. vlidi says:

    hm, a copycat guy mirroring you @cn? try putting this in the headlines and tags, “6-4”, “Tiananmen Square massacre”, “Falungong”, “Tibet Independence”, “Taiwan”. maybe it might even work like this, just put in the comments…

  6. Yan says:

    Stephen is right. What he did is setting up a proxy for people in mainland China to access wikipedia, technorati, and wordpress. You know the GFW block these websites.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China

    So blame him for the ads, and blame GFW at the same time.

  7. danicar says:

    Thank you for your constructive suggestions.
    Stephen, thank you on engineering view of this problem and detecting how this goes.
    Tonynovak, I think there is and htere must be something to do about it, if we let such people use the work as whole entity, than why do we need digital rights and CC’s?
    vlidi, thanks on humorous suggestion, I will see what will CC licence do about it, as you mentioned in our CC ibliblio listserv this example|:
    http://www.jaylee.cn/wikipedia/index.php?q=aHR0cDovL2NyZWF0aXZlY29tbW9ucy5vcmcvbGljZW5zZXMvYnktbmQvMi41Lw%3D%3D

    very interesting indeed! : )

    yan, i got email this morning from the Dreamhost (provoder of this net criminal), and their abuse section told me ” submit a formal notification of claimed infringement as described in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (512(c)(3)(A)(i-vi)). ”

    Huh, I have sent this to Google, ot is this some other document? Anybody famliar with this?

  8. Yan says:

    Somehow the link I gave didn’t show up completely. GFW is great firewall of China. Google it, and you will know what I was talking.

  9. bernarda says:

    Here is another serious blogger who has problems. Jim Zwick’s very informative site on Mark Twain and other stuff has basically been shut down.

    http://www.boondocksnet.com/site_news.html

    “All sections of the BoondocksNet.com site that were primarily textual have been permanently removed from the site. The only sections that are still online are the Historical Graphics Gallery, Political Cartoons and Cartoonists, and Stereoscopic Visions of War and Empire. Those materials may also be moved to a different domain at some point in the future.

    The removal of the materials from the site is the result of the site being banned from both Google and the Microsoft Live search engine, which I believe is the result of their inability to deal with a well-documented problem with page hijacking using 302 redirects. A 302 redirect is supposed to be used to tell a web browser that a page has been temporarily moved to a new location. The browser is supposed to automatically go to that URL instead of generating a “page not found” error. Google and other search engines (except Yahoo) interpret these links to mean that the page linked to really belongs at the linking site, and it lists it under that domain instead of the domain where the page is housed.

    Since 2003, people have been using 302 redirect links to inflate their rankings at Google, making it appear that they own content that is actually online at other sites. There are now hundreds of sites claiming to be the real location of pages at BoondocksNet.com. Google lists many of their links to this site while excluding all pages at BoondocksNet.com from its index.”

    He gives many more details. Maybe someone can help him. It is far beyond my knowledge.

  10. I have developed a plagiarism detection tool called DOC Cop that helps bloggers determine if their site has been posted else where on the web. DOC Cop is on the web at http://www.doccop.com – DOC Cop does not take copyright or ownership of material submitted for investigation and processing is free of charge (donations appreciated).

  11. Stephen says:

    Thanks Yan

    I figured it was something like that… poo poo on him for inserting ads, but nothing is free…

  12. raf says:

    I really can’t help you because all this staff is like chinese for me, well, sorry, in fact i’m using internet since less than one year. Hard to understand cyberfights of cyberpeople in cyberculture with cyberlaws :))
    Just a real support to give you.. hope everything will be allright ! 🙂

  13. danicar says:

    @ Yan, thanks for link, but still things are not resolved

    @bernarda i am sorry for the web site you are writing about, but this case won’t be let per se, just like that, it is not anymore about me , but also other sites

    @mark, thanks, but now we need legal help!
    someone from Digital Millenium Copyright Act,

    and Thanks to Bora who reacted on this Alert on this URL: http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/05/blog_plagiarism_alert.php

    I expect some of the legal experts to comment and help in this case. I am stopping with blogging until the things get straight!

  14. […] Danicar 发现她的 blog 出现在李杰的域名下,非常愤怒,直呼剽窃,要采取一些行动。我稍微解释了一下,GFW 之类,但是李杰真不该放 Ads 啊。 […]

  15. greensmile says:

    Danica: I put up a few ideas on Bora Zivkovics Science blog.

    Vlidi: ah! cultural engineering! Very devious. I like it.

    my own solution is to write worthless junk nobody would steal 🙁

    In the end all the solutinos amount to “you have to do your work PLUS you then have to do more work to protect your work than the thief is willing to do to unprotect it….a very disappointing prospect.

  16. danicar says:

    Thanks Greensmile,
    I just read it, very constructive suggestions and tips for those who have their blogs at some of the servers and not using web WordPress. Also, wordpress version I use have limited html , css options: (
    Everything you wrote is great and it stands as the right sollution (in the future for me and others to have in mind).
    You mentioned important issue of CC, I write my blog under Creative Commons licence from the beginning – I made it recently much severe (you may see at the end of the right side widgets bar CC code).
    But as you can see it doesn’t help, the guy copied and mirrored entire site…

  17. danicar says:

    Okey, I’ve read three different documents,, and I need legal help or help of someone who have experience in this and DMCA
    I can do 2 ways, this is my non -expert legal view, correct me if I am wrong:

    1. to submit a formal notification of claimed infringement as described in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (512(c)(3)(A)(i-vi)) to the Host (big company where this criminal holds all domains), so they would :”Upon receipt of a valid DMCA Notification, we will commence with the removal of such content in an expeditious manner.”
    vague…
    and the other way, which includes real Digital Guru’s
    2. to process my request of infringement here (“the file a notice of infringement with us – read: Google, you must provide a written communication”):
    http://www.google.com/dmca.html#notification
    and this way has a much much heavier and broader notice.

    What do you think?
    Any experts?

  18. raincoaster says:

    You need a lawyer’s advice.

    This particular case has been discussed in the forum quite extensively and the general consensus is that it’s a workaround to make sure that the contents of our blogs are made available to people in China and other countries where WordPress is banned, rather than a targetted attempt at piracy or theft of intellectual property.

    You’re right, though, Adsense is very bad form. VERY bad, and it shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

    At this point you get to make a choice: if you see this as a creative way to get your blog past the censorship hurdles that China puts up, then you would leave things. It’s posting my blog too, and I’m just going to leave it because it’s important to me that my blog be read all over the world, even in countries where the governments try to block it.

    If you still want to pursue this, the only real choice is the way that Dreamhost, the company you’re dealing with, has requested, which is your choice #1 in that list you’ve just posted.

    It’s entirely up to you.

  19. danicar says:

    I know I need lawyers, legals, experts on Cyberlaw, and copyrights help.
    I’ve sent email to professor Lawrence Lessig who is an expert, beside CC lead, on Copyright Law, Intellectual Property (Patents, Trademarks, Copyright), as well as in Internet and Cyberlaw!
    Also, I gave a notice to Cory Doctorow. from EFF.
    I won’t give up on this, maybe after this case closure the best policy is to protect intelectual property in many ways (beside creative Commons licences which I did, but obviously do not help), but until – this cyber criminal needs to be sanctioned!

  20. raincoaster says:

    What I mean is, you need to HIRE a lawyer. The EFF is a great resource, but they’re not a legal aid group; they’re lobbyists and activists.

    Remember, too, that it’s US Copyright that you’re operating under, because you published it on a WordPress.com blog and that’s the terms of service. But the blog you’re fighting may or may not be hosted in a country that recognizes that law. China certainly doesn’t.

  21. Danica says:

    Thanks on your comments raincoatser,
    I am having lot of experts and different opinions, though, on iCommons listserv. We’re analysing this issue and trying to get solution.

  22. danicar says:

    Great discussion on this issue can be found on iCoomons listserv: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/icommons
    Lot of legals, and experts from the field are exposing different opinions and thoughts on this mirroring/adSense infringement problem.

  23. […] je »ugrabitelj s Kitajske). O tej svoji zgodbi je objavila tudi zanimiv prispevek z naslovom Blog Plagiarism – web infringement!. Debata se v osnovi odvija na dveh koncih palice; del blogerjev meni, da naj se bori za svoje […]

  24. […] листата на iCommons почна да крева галама како некој и го „крадел“ блогот и го прикажувал како негов. Побара совет на […]

  25. Michele says:

    I feel your pain!

    I’ve been having similar issues with a well known industry news site stealing my articles and reposting them verbatim as their own:

    http://www.mneylon.com/blog/archives/2007/05/26/content-theft-what-to-do/

    I didn’t want to name and shame at first, but I eventually did, as their response was so pathetic:
    http://www.mneylon.com/blog/archives/2007/05/31/domainnewscom-steal-other-sites-content/

  26. danicar says:

    Michele,
    the case is rested.
    No pain, no gain: )

    Check your licences, which CC are you using, contact your Host, and read the useful suggestions, commenst of the people on this post.

    I hope you will get your situation solved.
    best,
    danica

  27. […] Danicar 发现她的 blog 出现在李杰的域名下,非常愤怒,直呼剽窃,要采取一些行动。我稍微解释了一下,G~F.W 之类,但是李杰真不该放 Ads 啊。 […]

  28. Dongsheng says:

    I got your comment and I see that you copied my entry. It is actually a copy from another blog (http://yanfeng.org/blog/1118/trackback/) as I pointed out in my entry. If this offends you or violates any copy right in anyway, I will remove it. Otherwise, I hope you don’t mind that I keep it there so that Chinese people can benefit from it.

  29. danicar says:

    It is ok Dongsheng.
    best,
    danica

  30. […] Update: Via Bora, here are some guidelines on what to do if your content is being stolen. […]

  31. […] her blog, Danica has posted a step-by-step instruction to help others dealing with the same issue: Let this be loud shame for […]

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