Had your content copied – complain to google adsense
70A lot of online writers make a substantial portion of their income from google adsense. I know there are alternatives, but I suspect many have been burned – either by not getting paid or discovering hidden rules in the terms of service of other contextual ad providers. I certainly have, naming no names. KONTERA. Oops☺
One of the ways people make money from google adsense is to use content copied from other writers. I have had this happen to me on numerous occasions and I suspect many of the writers here also have. I used to take it as a compliment – now I am just pissed off. I spend a lot of time researching subjects and writing what I consider to be witty, well-informed opinions on a variety of subjects and having some so and so steal it to make a few bucks with adsense is at best annoying.
I know it is possible to complain to certain popular sites that often have copied content such as google blogger, but that has stopped being enough for me. I prefer to hit them where it hurts (the wallet) and get their adsense account closed if possible.
Unfortunately – google require a written complaint rather than an emailed complaint. I am not sure why exactly – perhaps to prevent spurious malicious claims of copyright infringement. Who knows? I doubt google would tell me if I asked. You can either fax or mail the complaint to google. I don’t have a fax machine (does anyone) so I usually write a letter and have had several accounts closed. Of course – this does not make you very popular in certain quarters.
It is rather satisfying to see the website that has copied your content with no adsense ads – but it is a pain in the ass to do. You need to provide Mr. Google with details of where the work was originally published, a link to where it has been copied, contact information and sign a piece of paper stating "I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials as described above is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law." As well as this statement - "I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."
And then send the complaint to:
Google, Inc.
Attn: Google Legal Support, AdSense DMCA Complaints
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
Or fax it to:
(650) 618-8507, Attn: Google AdSense Support, DMCA complaints
The google help page describing the process is here:
http://www.google.com/adsense_dmca.html
This is now my preferred way of dealing with copied content, although I will be saving them up and doing them in bulk in future, instead of rabidly writing off to them for every infringement as I used to do.
EDIT - YOU CAN NOW DO THIS ONLINE:
http://www.google.com/dmca.html#notification
Good luck ☺
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Well, there is nothing you can do about that - but I am pretty sure google adsense is the best contextual ad provider and they will have gone to some pains to find something else. I know there is a lot of there, but I bet they are not making much money off it.
Excellent information and thank you!
Copyright infringement is just about as tacky as it gets. Thanks for the info and I will be saving this for future needs. Thanks.
This is a great way to stop people copying your work, but I am interested in how you find the sites that have done it. There must be some pretty serious stealth work involved in doing that.
Here on hubpages there is a program running that warns you - for my own sites I periodicallty check using google searches for specific terms.
useful information thanks.
What program on Hubpages warns you if your content has been copied on another website? How will it warn you? :O
Yeah Mark, what program? Great hub by the way! At least you are not turning into a Hubweed!
It is on your account page. You should see a red circle if hubpages have identified a copy of your hub elsewhere and then you should see a link to it on the hub itself.
I have two hubs copied recently. The other one removed it from his blog after I left several comments on his blog asking him to remove it. But there is still one hub with that red circle thingy in my account of hubs. The website doesn't have any email address so I could write the website owner. :( But he wrote "source" and linked it back to my hub.
yes we have to be aware and be wise facing the cheater.
A lot of them are not contactable. I don't mind if there is a link back although I would prefer it if they just used a snippet. You can still complain to google adsense if there are ads on the page.
I've just followed this advice for three counts of copied content. I checked the other content on one of the sites -- and all the blogs look like plagiarized content, so they really do need to be shut down.
Good for you. At least it stops them permanently rather than just having it taken down and then another page copied instead.
I personally hope this never happens to me, however, I am not naive and realize that it most likely will. Thank you very much for arming me (and others like me) with the information to take care of this.
Any time Wesley. :)
wonderful information Mark, I wonder if you could point us in the direction as to how you actually found out your information was copied in the first place? There is nothing I can't stand more than plagiarism!
Hi Temperance - hubpages has a piece of software running that lets you know. Also, I often add internal links on my other sites and if some one copies my work - they are usually too lazy to strip the links out and I get notified.
This is a helpful hub and good info, thanks.
OK, honestly? It's not all THAT helpful but it isn't your fault! lol! What I mean is, at some point filing these reports becomes a case of diminishing returns. At first I'd have a couple hubs stolen each week, which pissed me off but oh well. It's the internet, it happens.
But today I see SEVEN thefts of my single highest earning hub, and theft of my hubs has been increasing as my ad revenue increases. I'm gonna try Misha's advice to stuff the hubs with backlinks so I at least get traffic out of some of these thefts, and I'm focusing on other venues. Not that easy but I do think it's how it is right now--keep moving, keep trying new stuff because as soon as you get good at a thing, someone comes and takes it. At least, that's how it's been for me online. Thanks Mark.
Hey I'm back.
I've also been thinking a lot lately that publishing online is the path of least resistance for me so that's what I do, but maybe I need to find a way around that, or at least get off these kind of sites--or move away from them. Use them but just for fun, which is how I started. I know print media is murder to break into right now but I'm considering putting my effort into that. CJ Stone manages, and few others here. It's worth a try.
The whole thing is a pain in the ass - I am now writing almost exclusively for money. No fun (well apart from the occasional rant).
I have basically doubled my adsense income since becoming more aggresive in the last few months. I expect to make close to $2000 from affiliates income this month and my target is $10K Read this -
http://markpknowles.com/how-to-make-money-blogging
If you can find $500 - and you follow these instructions I guarantee you can make decent money.
Thanks Mark--I will definitely look at that. I've been avoiding affiliate sites because my technical skills are bad, but I may yet end up there. You and Lissie seem to be the most successful people here financially, and that is the direction both of you have taken it.
I don't like writing for money either, but it's better than sitting in a cubicle with a headset on, listening to abuse for 8-10 hours each day. Not that I could get one of those jobs either at this point--so it's lucky I don't want one! lol! Thanks and good luck!
LOL
I have zero technical skills - which is why I wrote that post. Seriously - I wasted 18 months pissing around not really doing things properly because I lacked them. Oh well - you live and learn.
Great info, thank you for the advice.
I think hubpage is shit look there is people name there and you can put any name you like in bad or good
Uninvited Writer Level 4 Commenter 3 years ago
It worked for me...until they got a new ad provider and put the content back up :)