Thursday 4 June 2015

Progress on Plagiarised Posts


You can probably imagine my surprise/shock when I stumbled across one of my posts, complete with a very old photograph of George and I,  on someone else's blog,  no permission requested, no acknowledgement of where the words and photographs had been taken from.

I began to dig a little deeper and it got worse, much worse.   There are many dozens of my posts which have been used by (to date) six other blogs.   There may be more.    They seem to be part of a ring of approx 30 blogs, connected in some way and which have advertisements linked to them.

It galls me that while I dig and delve through their contents, checking for my original posts,  they are probably raking up a profit!

It is impossible for me to say whether there is any genuine content on the blogs; they may be entirely composed of work stolen from other, genuine, blogspots.

To date I have not seen any of your posts in there, I would immediately inform you if I came across one.

Time-lines have been messed about, events which I posted about sometimes show up in these other blogs as having occurred several years previously - say, 2007, which is before I even thought of having a blog.  

I am attempting to go through formal channels right now, so I won't name and shame at this point.  Should the formal complaints not work, then I will post the blog names here.
Meantime, I may have to republish some of my old posts (currently in draft form) in order to establish that they are mine...so you may wish to remove all my blogs from your reading lists, it could get messy if they show up as newly published.

Thanks to all of you for your support and comments through the years.    I have delighted in 'meeting' so many wonderful people.

xxx

ps  I posted my first formal complaints yesterday and have already received confirmation that the contents will be removed.   Now to work through the rest.

10 comments:

  1. If your old posts reappear I will read them with the same delight as the first time.
    And in the meantime, I'm so sorry you have to go raking about to find the problems.

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  2. Elaine it sounds so similar to what happened to my Mollygolver blog site 3 years ago. I got on to Google and made a formal complaint. I sussed what was happening to mine when I typed Molly Golver' into the search engine. It's horrible. The worst of it was that 'they' were posting disgusting pictures along with chunks of my blog and my friends comments. I took the only course of action I could think of and got rid of my blog. I'm so sorry that this is happening to you.

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  3. Oh Elaine this is so dreadful. It's pure theft for SEO and no other reason. I'm glad you're getting it sorted. It did happen to a group of us food bloggers a few years back and the person claimed innocence but took the posts down after receiving an email from us as a group. Keep blogging though. X

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  4. glad you have progress.

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  5. Is there anything, I mean ANYTHING, that people won't steal? They steal your very persona--the beautiful person you are--and try to pass it off as themselves? How most pathetic and sad would one have to be to do that? It sounds like you're handling it very well.

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  6. Thanks everyone, I really appreciate your wonderful comments. I am looking into ways in which I can protect any future posts - a learning curve for me, I am a dinosaur when it comes to anything more complicated than creating a post. I still haven't come across plagiarised posts from anyone I know, but I have been able to let another blogger know about some of her posts being used in this way. She has taken immediate action, I guess that two of us working together may achieve more than just one chipping away on her own.x

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  7. Hi Elaine,
    Thanks for the heads-up that some of my posts were included in this wholesale content theft. Today, June 7th, marks 9 years since I first began my Transplantable Rose blog and fake blogs using my swiped posts has been a plague for most of those nine years. I realize that it's not personal since most of the other Austin gardenbloggers have had the same problems, but having to deal with the never-ending attacks by scrapers and reposters is a main reason I seldom bother to post anything new.

    Good luck!

    Annie in Austin, Texas

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    Replies
    1. Hi Annie, Thanks for getting back to me. Years of this must certainly wear you down. Erin and I are continuing with our legal avenues to have the blogs removed, although I am sure there will always be others who rush to fill the void! Regards, Elaine

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  8. Dear Elaine,
    I am so sorry and hurting for you, that someone has the gaul to copy your posts.
    I would be horrified if someone took my hard work and made it into their own.
    All my posts are my own. I might (by courtesy of wikipedia..put a photo relating to a subject that i am working on) never ever have i thought to use images from the kind lovely friends that i blog with.
    I do hope that they find these people.. and that you can publish who they are.
    good luck..
    I must say, i do check who wants to befriend me on my blog. I have turned away a good few, as they are advertisers, or selling or just sound fishy. I keep my friends to a minimum.. its enough..
    good luck
    Val x

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  9. Dear Elaine,
    that is absolutely awful - and there must be a legal possibility to stop it (I always wondered, looking at my stats, why certain persons/countries where reading or "reading" my posts, often with strange blog-addresses - but what you found out might be an explanation, who knows). What I saw, more than once, is that they steal my photographs - and that makes me very angry.
    But whole posts as in your case: that tops it by far. I wish that you will have success in fighting them!
    Britta x

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Your comments are much appreciated and greatly enjoyed. x