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Today’s post does NOT contain a challenge, instead, it is a notification, a warning to each of you that thieves and rogues are still out there in Blogosphere and stealthily stealing our writings. The thefts are carried out with neither our permission nor our knowledge.
How do I know this?
Last June I published an article named ‘The Chemist Shop’ on my Nan’s Farm site, the article was written in response to one of GC’s prompts here on Weekly Prompts and therefore included the usual pingback.
Today the pingback from ‘The Chemist Shop‘ popped up on our ‘Recent Pingbacks list’! Naturally, I investigated, and it led me to this site http://it101.cc/17608/ Which is where I found a full copy (not a reblog) of my article.
It looks as though the site owner hadn’t read my complete article otherwise s/he would have noticed both my pingback and the copyright notice that is always included at the end of my articles.
Others writers weren’t quite as lucky as there were no clues as to the owners of the other articles.
I contacted WordPress, but as suspected because the site is hosted by godaddy.com, there’s nothing WordPress can do, apart from advising me to complain directly to the site owner and also to godaddy.com
My next step will be to contact both, and to reach a wider audience I will re-blog this on Nan’s Farm, please feel free to do the same.
Updates will be issued when I have more information to pass on. In the meantime you may be interested in the following WordPress site.
https://en.support.wordpress.com/prevent-content-theft/
(C) Site owners – GC, themainaisle.com – SueW, nansfarm.net 2020
gc
SueW
Weekly Prompts 
Wow, Sue. And how shameful is this. People forming comradery with others and someone comes along and steals your writings? Why? I will never understand this. I think it is both lucky and fortunate that you caught this. I look forward to seeing what else you find. You know–it seems that WP is able to help us less and less these days so kudos to for keeping on.
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Thank you very much, Lois. It’s really annoying.
Unfortunately, WordPress have no jurisdiction with sites that are not WordPress.
Perhaps we should all include a pingback to our sites on all our articles, at least that way we can keep track… I think! Thanks, Lois
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Reblogged this on Nan's Farm-Inside Out and commented:
Bloggers Beware!
In an effort to reach a wider audience I am re-blogging an article that should be of interest to every blogger who cares about Internet theft, ie. having their work published elsewhere without their knowledge.
I wrote the article today on GC and my site Weekly Prompts.
The article speaks for itself. Thank you for reading.
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What is wrong with people? Even though I don’t blog, I fully understand your frustration, and I’m sure a healthy dose of anger, to find someone has claimed your blog as their own….if I’m understanding this right.
Clearly, every blog I follow is hosted by a talented, creative, imaginative writer who has spent countless hours, months, years even, cultivating a following based on THEIR gift as wordsmiths. I can’t imagine that any of you put all that effort and time into your posts just so some idiot can try to lay claim to it.
Good for you to catch this. I have no doubt you will follow through and I hope you will have a successful conclusion.
🐾Ginger 🐾
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Oh, Ginger, I so agree with you. Yes, It is frustrating. You understand it perfectly. And I thank you for that.
I will follow through tomorrow.
Thank you, Ginger 🙂
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I just don’t understand why someone would write something as if it’s their own when it’s not.. I’m glad he was caught out..
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I’m with you, Lisa. What is wrong with people? I shall confront tomorrow. Thank you for commenting, it’s appreciated.
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This is so dishonest and sneaky. I haven’t worked how to copyright my photos, but maybe I should.😡
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Mostly its easy to remove a copyright notice from some of our photographs, but not all, even I could attempt to do that. We just have to accept that the moment we press the Publish Button, everything is out there and the Internet is a hunting ground. These despicable people just take what they want.
I leave a copyright notice at the end of all my posts, but in reality it doesn’t prevent anyone from copying everything I have published. You’re right Sylvia, they’re dishonest and sneaky. Thank you for comment 🙂
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Yes it’s an unfortunate part of internet blogging….. you might remember my site(and many others) were being pilfered by a “mob” in Mumbai … … in the end “we” had the dishonest site shamed into stopping their activities……
Thanks for sharing Sue….
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You’re right, it is frustrating. This could easily be the same people using another name. I can’t help wondering if there’s more to this than meets the eye. Thank you Ivor. 🙂
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I can imagine the pain and frustration on finding your work passed off as someone else and worse, the recourse to correct is hazy but thank you for sharing it. There is much I still don’t understand but now I’m a wee bit better informed about adding the copyright notice to the posts. I wish you all the best and hope this mess is speedily resolved in your favour.
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Hello Sheetal,
Contacting the site is proving tough. The only way to leave a comment is to type my e-mail address and my WordPress password. If I do that I would be giving the site full access to my own sites!
This morning I will attempt to contact GoDaddy. I ran out of time yesterday.
Thank you for commenting, it is appreciated. 🙂
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This is indeed shameful, Sue. Immoral, unethical and criminal theft. A copyright notice doesn’t provide much protection as you say. One day, maybe, WordPress will work out a way to protect our sites.
Meanwhile, I’ve been locked out of my site because somehow a Wordfence plugin I didn’t add zealously blocked me out and no one seems to know how i can get back in. The trials of blogging!
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Oh, Maureen, I’m sorry you’ve been locked out. Your site is self-hosted isn’t it and not WordPress.com. I hope you manage to gain access very soon.
You’re right it is deplorable and unfair. I cannot why anyone would want a piece of my simple writing.
Also on the site was a piece of stolen writing that was written by a young woman whose premature twins had died. She tells how difficult it was when she donated her frozen breast milk to the milk bank to help other prem babies.
I felt more angry for this young bereaved mother than I did for myself. How dare they steal her writing. Thank you, Maureen. Best of luck with the lockout!
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For what it’s worth, I can’t find any evidence of my stuff getting used. Which doesn’t mean it hasn’t been. People steal photographs all the time and I’ve given up trying to keep track of it. But nothing pops on Google and my links don’t show anything either. It’s late, I’m tired. I’ll look again tomorrow. But thank you very much for keeping your eyes alert and watching out for us. I really appreciate it!
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Thank you very much for your comment, Marilyn, I appreciate it.
I’ve always taken the view that I have nothing worth stealing. I wouldn’t have known anything about it if it hadn’t been for the pingback between my two sites popping up again on Weekly Prompts.
I just have a sneaky feeling that there’s a little more involved than meets the eye. Thank you 🙂
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Smh…some people…I just don’t get it. Sorry this has happened to you and thanks for spreading awareness.
I’ve had something similar happen to me years ago. I made a lot of photoshop collages and they were blatantly used on other sites, claimed as their own, with my handle on it!
Boggles the mind!
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Hi San.
I’m sorry you’ve had your work stolen, horrible and frustrating isn’t it?!
In this awful culture of spying and scams, I suppose we should expect theft, but it’s a difficult one to accept. Thank you, San, I appreciate your comment. 🙂
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Thanks. It sucks and indeed, very frustrating. And I just checked…it’s still up, after 15 years! Not just my work, but also the work of many my internet buddies at the time. I see no way to be able to remove that now, so I’ve decided to let it go. But it’s still annoying as heck!
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😦
I’m so sorry to hear this happens, keeps happening, and is happening again to you and other bloggers.
Why can’t people just be respectful and ask if they can reblog another author’s post/story,etc. ???
So sad and frustrating.
Thank you for warning everyone and for that link from WP.
(((HUGS)))
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This morning I found a poem on the site that included the original blogger’s name. Eventually, I managed to trace her site and have left a message. Hopefully, she won’t think I’m some random nutter!
Thank you, Carolyn I appreciate your input 🙂
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Hopefully you can teach her and others like her.
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I found her and we’re now in touch. She left clues to her identify, but others don’t. I think we all need to include our site name in the body of our articles, it’s the only way for us as the writers to be traced
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Thank you for helping to teach us all…I had no idea about any of this. 😦 I’m so WP “illiterate” and naive. 😦
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I’m beginning to feel I’m no further ahead than when I started!
I recognised the other blogger’s name, we’ve communicated before but I could not remember the name of her site. Happily, thanks to Facebook I got there in the end and found her.
We can’t prevent theft no matter what we do, but with a few measures we might become aware. So frustrating, Carolyn! Thank you 😴
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I often wonder if any of my photos have been used by someone else but this world is so big I would never know
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I agree, how would we ever know?
The only reason I found out is because the pingback popped up here nine months after writing the article.
I can understand why they steal photographs even though I don’t agree with it, but why on earth would they steal a run of the mill long-winded post like mine? I’ve had a busy morning and I’m about to write an update -coming up shortly. thank you, Brian 🙂
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I hope you get satisfaction Sue 🙂 I never find you posts run of the mill
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Brian, thank you for your lovely comment . 🙂
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I received that pingback a few days ago and when I looked at the date I thought there must have been a flaw in WP’s delivery system. Thank you Susan for taking the initiative in investigating this act of plagiarism. I think the Go Daddy is equally culpable in this action. They provide the platform to publish a person’s work and do not verify that the person submitting the article is the actual writer. They did it for the money and not the morality of it all.
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I’m like a dog with a bone and my Miss Marple inquiries are still ongoing, but probably not a surprise to you!
I think they published the article on Thursday, but you as the writer of our Weekly Prompts post received the notification before me. I didn’t notice it until yesterday! I ought to have told you that I was following through! 🙂
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Thank you from all of us for your perseverance. Good luck with Go Daddy.
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I have an update on this. Go Daddy have done an about turn and are now saying it is not one of their sites.WordPress says it is! It’s too late in my day to do anything more, I’m too tired. I’ll continue tomorrow, but by then you will be asleep, hey ho!
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