29 replies to this topic

[mcanerin]

The problem is that if you "buy" stolen goods, no ownership rights* convey, since the person selling them never had the right to convey them in the first place. You can't sell what isn't yours.

Just because you buy the London Bridge or the moon from some guy on the street, doesn't mean you can claim it as your own just because you paid money for it. And relying on stolen property for your income does not excuse you from the law - or from what's right, for that matter.

Reliance on your part does not create an obligation on my part. This type of thinking is common (and false) in this industry, where people will claim that Google or some other search engine "owes" them something because they have decided to base their entire livelihood on it. That is simply not reasonable. No action or decision that a third person makes can create an obligation on me towards them or remove my rights to my property. It's their issue, not mine.

You also can't just take the copyrighted originals and change words in order to remove the copyright. Copyright law is more robust than that. If you paint a mustache on someones painting, it's not suddenly your painting. The changes would have to be so extreme that it's a completely different article.

However, if the OP used those papers as research to create new content, that's fine.

Ian

*Not completely true. In the common law, enough of a property right conveys to allow you to prevent someone other than the proper owner from in turn taking it from you, and you have the obligation to prevent it. By selling the content, the seller in this case violated this rule, as well.

So, you can't steal something, then give or sell it to a friend or stranger and then claim that since it wasn't yours you couldn't stop them from taking it. You have an obligation to protect it until the real owner either abandons it or claims it.

[Jill]

Thanks for clearing that up, Ian!

[Big Bill]

This forum allows members to post their own ideas, which remain their own properly, and are fully attributed to the member.
If somebody makes a living through an illegal activity, that's no excuse.

No excuse for what? For coming here, admitting he's been conned and asking for help? The OP doesn't seem to be the bad guy! Why treat him as if he is, how does that help anybody? Except yourselves of course by making you look all goody-goody, I suppose - is that your real intention? Perhaps you should bear in mind this forum is dependent upon people populating it for its prominence. If word gets around that when you find yourself, through no fault of your own, in potential trouble, coming here to ask for practical advice just gets you hectored and lectured, how long do you think it will last?
Perhaps you should remember where you're coming from, maybe?

BB

[Jill]

You must be reading different posts than we are. Because I don't see anyone calling him the bad guy. Just telling him to get rid of the stolen content and do it quickly. Which is good advice.

[Big Bill]

You must be reading different posts than we are. Because I don't see anyone calling him the bad guy. Just telling him to get rid of the stolen content and do it quickly. Which is good advice.

Are you awake late or me early? :-)

He says he needs content, just telling him to dump what he has and leaving it at that doesn't help him. It makes you appear like you're morally superior but in doing that it doesn't seem to help anybody but you. If that's the point of the exercise, of course.

BB

[BobetteKyle]

CODE

He says he needs content, just telling him to dump what he has and leaving it at that doesn't help him.

That isn't what's happened here. There's some good, specific advice about how to replace the content. To reiterate:

- Check to make sure the content wasn't copied from his site (instead of other way around)
- Rewrite the articles himself (buying Karon's book if he's not certain how)
- Hire a copywriter to rewrite the work.
- Rewrite, then hire a copywriter to polish the work.

Several sound -- and legal -- options for Adrian to consider.

[rolf]

BB, I don't think anyone is hectoring OP, I think they're hectoring your suggestion that it's perfectly OK to take someone elses work and change it just enough to not be recognisable to copyscape. Is it legal? Possibly, just about - is it morally reprehensible? Definitely!

OP, sorry to hear you (may) have been duped, this is not your fault, but it's not the original writer's fault either. If you find that the content is stolen then you're going to HAVE to do something about it sooner or later, might as well be sooner.

[mcanerin]

BB, I don't think anyone is hectoring OP, I think they're hectoring your suggestion that it's perfectly OK to take someone elses work and change it just enough to not be recognisable to copyscape.

That's my take on it, and certainly fits the defensive and aggressive tone of BB's posts. you'll notice the OP isn't the one whining about being picked on here. I'm not sure where the whole "moral" and "ethical" etc statements come from - I don't see any posts regarding that except from BB.

All I see are posts telling someone to stop doing something illegal (which the OP admits) and replace it with something that is legal, which is common sense and good risk management. The only one seeming to take some sort of moral high ground here is BB, in his accusations that we are picking on the OP because we don't like BB's idea of not fixing the legal issues, and only addressing the smaller and less important search issue.

Seems to me that's a mixed up priority and a bad business decision. Fix the source of the problem, not the symptom. I've personally had people's websites removed from search engines and ISP's by filing a DMCA on them, and BB's suggestion about changing words to pass a filter certainly would not have stopped me from doing it. That's good business on my part, by protecting my investment, rankings and reputation. It's bad business to put those things at risk.

The OP's site is at risk of removal from the search engines - that is the issue, not the rankings.

Ian

[St0n3y]

If you made your living stealing stuff from people and you suddenly realized that what you were doing was wrong, do you go on stealing until you can find a new way to make a living? No, don't think so. You stop what you're doing and find a legitimate way to make money.

If the content is stolen then it needs to be removed now not at some later point after legitimate copy has been created to replace it. Nobody is blaming OP and he did the right thing coming here to ask for advice. Seems that the advice is clear, remove the stolen content ASAP. As long as its up, its still stolen content that can negatively effect his business.

[Comtrad]

There is probably no way to tell if he stole the content or if the content was stolen from him. The only person to know would be the copywriter.

At least this guy is trying to find a solution and answer. Stop jumping all over him.

[Scottie]

LOL- who's jumping all over him?

[Big Bill]

LOL- who's jumping all over him?

Sadly nobody; I'd probably be too happily occupied to post if they were!

BB :-(

Seems to me that's a mixed up priority and a bad business decision. Fix the source of the problem, not the symptom. I've personally had people's websites removed from search engines and ISP's by filing a DMCA on them, and BB's suggestion about changing words to pass a filter certainly would not have stopped me from doing it. That's good business on my part, by protecting my investment, rankings and reputation. It's bad business to put those things at risk.

The OP's site is at risk of removal from the search engines - that is the issue, not the rankings.

Ian

Of course it would have stopped you from having the site removed, if the content were altered sufficiently you wouldn't have had any grounds for complaint. You'd quite possibly never have known.

I agree about the OP's site being at risk being the issue, this seems to be his concern also. He says he depends on it. (One might digress here into observations about people being dependant upon their site maybe checking out the source of the content they elect to put on it, but that's for another time). If he alters the text to make it unrecognisable he has a fighting chance of keeping his site up till he can, if he so chooses, get some from a reputable source. Like, he can write it himself, maybe. Or he can throw up his hands in surrender, shut down his site, and give up his livelihood altogether. That would seem to be a little harsh to me, given he's arguably been dumb, not intentionally criminal.

BB

If you made your living stealing stuff from people and you suddenly realized that what you were doing was wrong, do you go on stealing until you can find a new way to make a living? No, don't think so. You stop what you're doing and find a legitimate way to make money.

If the content is stolen then it needs to be removed now not at some later point after legitimate copy has been created to replace it. Nobody is blaming OP and he did the right thing coming here to ask for advice. Seems that the advice is clear, remove the stolen content ASAP. As long as its up, its still stolen content that can negatively effect his business.

No-one's suggesting the OP makes his living stealing stuff from other people. Subject creep or what??

If he removes the material now this minute, he's out of business. What if he's got kids etc? You want to support them from your taxes when they go on welfare? If he re-writes the content then he has a fighting chance, and hopefully he'll have learned a lesson from this. If he closes the site he's beaten already. Why do that? What would be in any way constructive about it?

BB

[St0n3y]

No-one's suggesting the OP makes his living stealing stuff from other people.

It seems that you are, in fact, suggesting that:

If he removes the material now this minute, he's out of business.

If he doesn't remove it then he IS making money off stolen property. It may not have been intentional but once it is determined that the content is not legitimately his then its on him to remove it immediately. I'm not suggesting BB is a thief, but failure to remove known stolen content makes him compliant in the theft.

Nobody isn't suggesting that this isn't a tough spot to be in, but there is only one clear correct decision in this. And no, it's not to keep using stolen content until he gets around to swapping it out. Heck, in the time we've been discussing all this dozens of pages of stolen content could have been removed and replaced with fresh new content. Why are we still talking about this?

[Ron Carnell]

Of course it would have stopped you from having the site removed, if the content were altered sufficiently you wouldn't have had any grounds for complaint. You'd quite possibly never have known.

Sigh. You can paint my car and change the upholstery, but that still isn't ever going to make it your car.

Seemingly, you just can't understand that this is not acceptable to most people. And until you do, you'll never see why so few here will agree with your recommendations. We're concerned with stealing. You seem to only be concerned with getting caught.

There's a difference.

[webexplore]

I don't think you should necessarily jump to the conclusion that your copy isn't original. Isn't it just as possible that the content on the other sites was stolen from YOUR site? You might want to try to determine publication dates (static pages usually have a date stamp, for example, or archive.org might help) and see who was published first. Or confront your original copyrighter to see if he confesses. I agree with everyone else that you should get rid of any plagiarized material immediately, but I also think you should make sure it IS actually plagiarized before you panic. The Internet is a bit like that old audio tape commercial ("Is it live or is it Memorex?") in that the line between original and copy can easily become blurred.

I appreciate the thought of Ron Carnell. really it is happened, so you need to check firstly publication date.
After that if you found dupicacy than, dont give full payment to your writer and hire a group of writers and write those articles again. You should be aware about dupicacy, so have a person who can check articles regularly through copyscape.