Professional Plagiarism or Copyright Infringement? You Be the Judge
November 27, 2007 · Written by Melissa Donovan
Today, The Writer’s Resource Center reported that another web site has been stealing its content:
The rats at procopywriters.com/blog have been stealing my content, apparently for quite some time. They make it a practice to rerun other people’s blog posts in their entirety without permission.
-John Hewitt
In addition, John says, material has been lifted from Freelance Switch, Copyblogger, and many others.
My initial impression was that this was a case of splogging. My own articles have been excerpted, posted on splogs, and attributed to other authors numerous times. However, these are just excerpts and always include a link back to my own site. I’ve considered sending them cease and desist letters, with an option for them to simply include a correct attribution.
This is not what’s happening over at the Pro Copywriters blog. They are copying posts from other blogs (including mine!) in their entirety and posting them without permission, although they do seem to be including correct attribution. They do include any links and URLs that are embedded within the original article, but do not link to the original author or web site (unless a link to the source site happens to exist in the content of the posts). They provide a list of their “contributors” but link to RSS feeds instead of to the actual blogs.
One of the basic rules of web etiquette is that whenever you review, quote, or republish a work, you always include a link to the source site (not its feed), and any writer will tell you that it is both unethical and illegal to publish an author’s original material without their permission.
What has ensued is a heated debate at The Writer’s Resource Center in the comments section of “Procopywriters.com Steals its Content,” which even drew the president of Pro Copywriters, Jon Castleman, who had this to say:
First…ProCopywriters [sic] is almost three years old, however, we started the blog YESTERDAY!!! It is true that the content comes from other web sites around the Internet. NO content is stolen from a web site - it is collected through the sites [sic] RSS feed… We do NOT edit the content or change ANY of the embedded links. We do use a contextual advertising technology that adds advertising links where none existed (Kontera, for those interested)… I though [sic] that if you were a little more educated as to what we were doing, you would see that there is benefit to both of us.
In short, Pro Copywriters is using RSS technology to lift content from other (copyrighted) web sites and they feel that this is ethical and mutually beneficial. But how do their actions benefit the writers and bloggers whose work is being harvested?
In short:
- Pro Copywriters is obtaining its blog content illegally. By failing to seek permission from authors, they are in violation of copyright laws.
- Their blog was started yesterday but they already have over 102 posts.
- Although the site includes links to the original bloggers’ RSS feeds, these links have little to no benefit for those bloggers. Links are desirable because they increase Technorati and Google rankings, and generally increase the flow of traffic to a site. By linking to RSS feeds instead of to the actual web sites, Pro Copywriters is failing to provide a proper and beneficial link.
- In addition, because there is no link to the source blogs, those blogs will not receive a pingback notifying them of the link. This is actually helpful to Pro Copywriters because without the pingback, most of the writers whose material they are publishing will remain oblivious to the fact that their work is being lifted.
- By posting duplicate content, they are endangering the original bloggers’ Google listing. When Google discovers two sites with the same content, they flag one of the sites as the canonical source. The other is removed from Google.
- They do not pay for the usage of these articles, or offer any form of compensation (at least they haven’t offered me any).
- They do, however, insert ads into the posts, in an obvious effort to reap monetary gain from the work of others.
I sent Pro Copywriters a letter via their contact form requesting that they immediately remove all of my material from their site. I explained that they were more than welcome to post excerpts with adequate links, and I also let them know that in the future they will need to contact me for permission prior to publishing my work. I also included a reprimand of sorts, making it clear that they should be offering payment to writers whose work they are using in order to earn revenue. They responded almost immediately and I am happy to report they obliged, though with persistent claims that they were doing nothing wrong.
Performancing.com offers the article, What To Do When People Steal Your Blog Content, which covers the legalities and provides a host of resources for bloggers who are faced with this dilemma.
Let me know your thoughts on this issue. Have Pro Copywriters lifted any of your material? If they have, or if they do in the future, would you take any action or just let it slide? Are they violating the law or a code of ethics in their practices?
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Sorry to hear he got you too. I hope you get the content removed. Thanks for adding to the discussion on my site.
Hi Melissa,
Just wanted to say thank you again for notifying me that I was on Pro Copywriters’ list of “contributors.” I combed through their site and didn’t see any of my posts up on theirs, luckily. But I still would rather not be referred to as a “contributor” if I haven’t been asked to write a post specifically for them (and this is a service I’d normally charge for). I sent the company an email outlining what they may do (link to me under a general blogroll, quote me in their posts with a link back to my site) and what they may not do (link to me as a contributor; post articles from my own blog in their entirety) and I will be keeping an eye on them. Thanks again for your vigilance.
Thanks so much for letting me know about this.
What they are doing is stealing, plain and simple.
If they weren’t just after the traffic and the contextual advertising, then they would have posted proper backlinks and let us benefit from the traffic.
Oh my gosh. I am outraged on your behalf. Stealing your content is despicable enough, but then talking about how you added advertising . . . unbelievable!
This is insane! I commend you, Melissa, for sharing this information and taking action yourself. I can’t believe people actually do this. It’s so dumb and immoral…
Thanks for the heads up. Our content is being used over at the site. Needless to say, I need some coffee and a clear head before dealing with this.
I mentioned this over at Courtknee’s blog, too, but thought I’d mention it here:
I just checked out the site, and noticed that the titles of each post and clickable, as are the comments, both of which lead back to the original blog post from whence they came.
It doesn’t make it kosher, but I thought I’d mention my findings. Basically, he’s still linking to each post, but it’s not as obvious as it would be if he was giving deliberate credit in each post.
It’s also disturbing that he lists the blogs he’s scraping as “Contributors” in the left-hand column.
The titles are clickable but the links actually take you to the RSS feed, not the actual blog URLs. The problem with this is that it won’t help with Technorati or Google rankings, and it’s less likely to result in traffic than a standard link.
By linking to the RSS instead of the actual site, blog owners will not receive a pingback and in many cases, remain unaware of the fact that their material is being published on the site.
I did send a note via the contact form at Pro Copywriters and within minutes, my content was removed. I expect in the coming days, the Contributors list will diminish considerably.
-Melissa
First off, I am sorry that this has happened to you and I know well the frustrations. My heart goes out to you and to the other commenters who have been lifted.
Fortunately, this situation is very easy to resolve. I did a little research and they are hosted on ThePlanet. I’ve worked with them many times on copyright issues and they have a stellar track record.
All that has to happen is that someone who has had their content misused needs to file a DMCA notice with the host. You can find a template for that on my site, or many other sites, and email it to copyright at theplanet dot com.
They should handle it in the space of a few hours or a day at the longest.
If you have any questions or need any specific guidance, just ask or send me an email. I’m here if I can help!
Melissa, I linked to this post over at my blog to warn my readers.
Good for you! This is plagiarism, no matter how they want to dance around it. Unfortunately, it is very easy to plagiarize on the Internet.
The “blog” portion of procopywriters.com appears to have been taken down. I don’t know what they plan to replace it with, if anything, but lets hope that it is a legitimate blog written by a real person (preferably paid for their efforts). Whatever the case, I hope that puts an end to this issue.
That’s good to hear, John. Hopefully they’ve learned a valuable lesson about both copyright and content. It would be nice if they started paying writers to contribute!