WordPress, as we know is arguably the most popular blogging platform currently. One can either download the open source blog publishing application and self-host it on their server and domain or sign-up for an account on WordPress.com to get started with a pre-hosted / pre-installed blog publishing application.
What this means is, anyone with a bare minimum knowledge on hosting/domain registration etc can signup for an account and get started within few minutes. And many a times, people grossly misuse this facility by indulging in illegal and unethical activities. One of them is PLAGIARISM.
Plagiarism refers to “use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work”
There has been a steep increase in number of blogs hosted on WordPress.com and Blogger directly copying the posts in recent times. Last month I bumped across atleast 3 blogs (2 of them hosted on WordPress.com) who were copying the articles “as-is”. They were even hot-linking to the images hosted on my website.
How to handle Plagiarism on WordPress.com hosted blogs?
1. First of all, try to contact the blog author and let him know that you are aware of him copying your blog posts and warn him to either remove the posts or give a proper link back to the original posts. Many a times this works out.
2. If the author is stubborn or too dumb to understand the warnings, then contact WordPress.com directly. You can either open a thread in WordPress.com support forums or contact the support team directly. The forum moderators are pretty active and generally start replying within a day.
3. In my case, one of the blogs was copying almost every post. This was getting out of my hands and just when I was thinking about filing a DMCA complaint, I got to know about this page on Automattic. Yes! You can directly go ahead and file a DMCA complaint by mailing to dmca@automattic.com with relevant details as given in the article. I was pleasantly surprised to get a response from the WordPress team within half a day, informing me that the blog has been suspended from immediate effect.
Wonderful support and quick response from the Automattic (WordPress) team. I believe even Google has this provision of filing online DMCAs, but their response time is known to be pretty bad.
Image Courtesy: ericstoller & unsw
Google’s DMCA is pathetic as I have read somewhere. You need to file complaint through faxing them to get the result removed from google results for plagiarism / copyright infringement.
@Pavan,
ya, even I heard Google being super slow in acting upon, but faxing the complaint is no more mandatory. Online filing of DMCA is allowed from the link I have given in the post
Good blog. I had all my tutorials stolen by sixtuts.com. I’m still shaken to see all my work posted across the net by people other than me!
http://tutorialblog.org/10-quick-dirty-tricks-for-easy-custom-web-backgrounds/comment-page-1/#comment-27884
http://tutorialblog.org/10-places-to-download-awesome-wordpress-themes/
http://tutorialblog.org/15-sites-to-visit-for-logo-inspiration
How to file a compliant if a site is self hosted on wordpress.
I had a problem with site a called tothepc.co.cc
@Ramakanth,
That is a bigger issue. I guess Amit from labnol.org has written a detailed post on that. In brief
1) Leave a comment under the post which is copied
2) See if there is a contact form and mail the owner with a warning
3) If the issue still persists, check who the web host is and mail them in detail about the issue
Thanks for providing information,i will check out labnol.org
with your support today I all most won the situation without any DMCA .First I thought only one site,but there are 3 similar sites,sent copyright infringement complaint to all hosting providers,they responded very quickly and they assured me that they will remove the content or site within 4 hrs and I came here to give a big Thanks to Techpp and Labnol
@Ramakanth,
I am glad I could be of some help
It’s weird to see how many people that are using this method to get visitors. I recently decided to start blogging in English and within a day there were 3 sites stealing my content. Weird how fast it goes..
Great stuff, thank you so much
keep it up
Plagiarism has been always an issue from the beginning