Some do it unknowingly, and on being confronted with it, blame a third party and remove the content. They usually apologize and remove the photos/write ups. But there is this particular site, Kerals.com which is different.
Kerals.com have one of my recipe photos on their site (check here)published there without any permission from me. This from a so called "reputed" site. This is just one of the many copied content. There are other bloggers too whose content has been copied without permission.
Screen shot from the Kerals website
My own post on OlanSo should we complain about it to them? Sure, if we don't mind being vulnerable to threats, abuses,and hate mail totally inappropriate to the matter of plagiarism at hand. We will most probably be cyber stalked and told to shut down our website instead of them taking down the copied content.
Sarcasm apart, this is what another blogger, injipennu is undergoing right now. Injipennu of Ginger and Mango complained about photos being copied and has been subject to virtual abuse of the worst kind from the support people of that website. Read all the details about it here. She has been fighting them and I would like to express my support for her in this fight. I personally have not received any hate mails as yet but only since I haven't written to the great team there at Kerals.
They are behaving like street henchmen, called "goondas" in Hindi, threatening her, trying to set up fake websites and email addresses under Inji Pennus name, discrediting her and asking her to close her blog. Today it's her, tomorrow it could be any of us. So lets protest about it the way we can.. thru our posts. Publicize this as much as you can through your posts and words.
hopefully this would be helpful but one thing you could do is copyright your pictures. a good example is arabic bites blogspot. they had the same problem. It really is such a shame when people like yourself, work so hard on this and someone else steals it. hope you find a solution soon.
ReplyDeleteblatant plagiarism and not giving credit to the blog is something so mean and this website is doing it all,reading abt inji's experince was chilling.i have my full support to inji and you mallugirl!!!
ReplyDeleteSome people think that everything in Internet is free. Thank you for writing about it and spreading the awareness.
ReplyDeleteShaheen,
ReplyDeleteDont think that these people are innocent in anyway.They do it intentional.Please try something to protect the site and belongings.But,we all have to protest this idiocracy.Both have to go hand in hand.Please dont be unassuming and modest calling them "reputed".See,I know many established sites from kerala those are having people they employ to scrap from other sites.Its not a joke.And if they react so barbarious,dont play Gandhism back.WE are all here to support you and Injippennu.
Thats really worse case!...its mean that ppl do these things!...we should all join to fight against these people!
ReplyDeleteAs you let me know, they do have my Idicakka Thoran photo too! I tried to contact them y'day but just couldn't locate the e mail! They are so clever that it's impossible to let them know!
ReplyDeleteIt's really frustrating. I found a new blogger posting my photo with her recipe but she took it out quickly once I requested her to do so, which was big a relief. Wish everyone did that!
If they don't have conscience, it doesn't bother them what we say or do unfortunately!
Please dont think of closing your website also.It will leave a whole lot of us stranded.Lets fight them out.
ReplyDeleteWhy not have the Malabar spices tag in water mark in the middle of the snap ?I am just thinking of ways of somehow stopping people from stealing blogs.I read the ost on injipennu's site.It is very scary also.
ReplyDeleteThis is very scary malabar....:)
ReplyDeletei hope things get solved soon. Anyone who has copyrighted their snaps please guide how we can do it too.. please... it will be great help to learn more abpout protecting our work..:)
Hope someone post something about this... explaining how we can copyright our stuff.
Malabar...
ReplyDeletecheck this site..
Copyscape.com
I know u must be knowing about it.. regeister there.. Guess it will help..:) I hope ur contents are removed soon dear... I feel so bad about this plagarism.
Hi Reshma,
ReplyDeleteDo you think just adding a watermark will stop these people?
No way. They just don't know how much energy it takes to write something of their own. They know very well that lifting from others is "No energy spent". My posts have been taken too. I will be writing about this in my blog soon. One small suggestions would be to use interlinks of your previous posts in your new/current ones. I am planning on explaining how to protect our contents in my blog.
Regards,
Priya.
Oh thats too bad,It is truely an act of Goondaism and feels utterly frustrating when someone blatantly copies ours effort.
ReplyDeleteAs a first step lets report the infringement to Google. Benefits of doing this are:
ReplyDelete1. Google will disable kerals.com adsense (impact to their revenue)
2. Google can demote kerals.com pagerank to zero (so that they do not appear in the search results)
3. as a last step, send a direct mail to Google India, reporting their infringement.
Kerals.com will be gone, by this time.
Hi, Shaheen,
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to hear you're going through this too. I suspect most folks with fabulous blogs and photos (the real draw, I think!) will eventually experience some sort of plagarism.
It's not right, it's not nice, and it's not ethical. However, it's difficult to stop. I guess the only thing to do is to keep standing up for your rights, protect your content as best you can, but above all keep on blogging. If you stop because of the potential for plagarism, that's when they really win.
use the "Google Report a policy Violation". Click the link here https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py?search_ask=1&subtopic=&contact=report_violoation&main_topic=other&contact_type=11&contact_topic=Report+a+policy+violation&Action.Search=Continue
ReplyDeleteOh my god to my shock I saw my own rceipe and my contents being stolen and published in a website that is submitted by a great user name.I am really agitated and angry by this acts.Have a look.http://friendseat.com/recipes/32461/Chenna%20Poda and this is my link in my website http://pearlsofeast.blogspot.com/2008/01/chenna-poda-cottage-cheese-cake.html
ReplyDeletei just read inji;s post and i am amazed! this is so unfair..
ReplyDeletethis is terrible....and so shameless on the part of kerals....it is downright disgusting and also very upsetting that anyone's hard work can so blatantly be stolen....
ReplyDeleteProbably all of us can log complain against kerals.com in "google report a violation' form.There is an option called 'This site is distribting somebody else's copyrighted material without permission' and site examples of what happened to Shaheen and injipennu.
ReplyDeleteI dont think we should let these people go scotfree after this sort of plagiarism and the manner in which they are absing people instead of accepting their mistake.
umm,how did the arabic bites copyright their picture? my photo has a watermark on it but if u click on the keral sie photo, u can see the green on one side..they haven't bothered removing it..just reduced the size so its not clear.
ReplyDeleteThanks to all of u for your support..hope u too don't get ur content copied.
ReplyDeletepearls, did u try writin to that site?it is indeed ur post as it is.shocking...
srivalli, ann, ...u are right. these people should not get away.they are fully aware of the copyrights.
asha, they don't care.
maybe we should think of something together.
reshma, like i said earlier, i do have a watermark..
shubha, i do have copyscape too but does it help?no..it just lets u know if ur content is copied.
priya, esy fast money..however the means..thats what these companies want.
looking forward to ur post on it. what do u mean interlinks?
linda..thanks for the words of encouragemnet..its demoralising to be helpless.
ReplyDeleteanon, thanks.. i didn't know abt adsense complaint. will try that.
Shaheen,
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post, i went to that site and was surprised to see my picture in one of the chicken recipes.It is very frustrating...
hi shaheen,
ReplyDeleteafter reading urs and inji's experience, it was really shocking..i think we all shld do something to protect from plaigiarism.
Hi Shaheen,
ReplyDeleteFrom your comments above, it is apparent that the "Lifters" don't want to spend their energy even on removing the links or watermarks from the "Lifted" contents. That is the theory that all of the authors who write about content theft talk about. To answer your question on what is meant by Interlinking, it is referring to your previous posts in your current post as needed. For example, if you read my post about Manipuri Ooti you will notice a link/reference to Manipuri Khichdi. This linking or referencing to your own earlier post is called Inter Linking. This is jus tone way of protecting your content. Please do this interlinking as much as possible in each and every post.
Regards,
Priya
priya, how does the interlinking protect the content?the "lifters" just copy past with or without the links. see, these are the cheaper sites who do this..they just want to fill their site with data, making it look busy and hence look successful..its not about quality with them.
ReplyDeleteWhat a disgusting act by those shamefulppl!!!
ReplyDelete..Count us in for the protest!..Let's join our hands and do the needful..
The "Lifters" are so lazy to remove the hyperlinks in a post. SO, though they copy the content, the hyperlinks will be pointing to your post. This will help to prove the content is yours. (audience who click the link will come to your site)
ReplyDeletePlease find some useful points in the below URL.
http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/04/10/what-do-you-do-when-someone-steals-your-content/
Regards,
Priya.
Absolutely unbelievable what these idiots have done!! Inji's experience with these guys is simply mind blowing. The way they've treated her makes me sick. Now it's you... Who's next?? You both have my full support!
ReplyDeletepriya, thanks alot. that makes sense. but still working on how to prevent photos from being copied.if u can make a watermark, it can be erased too.
ReplyDeletekalai, i have no hate mails coming in coz i have not written to them as yet. but thot i should publicize inji's situation.
That's so bad Mallugirl. We need to find a solution to prevent content theft. I had a post of mine copied and title re-named by a blogger some months ago. I wrote a couple of strong emails asking to remove the content - which she finally did.
ReplyDeleteShaheen, it just makes you want to grab them and give a good shake. The anonymity of the internet make people do what they want and that is just sad.
ReplyDeleteoh...this looks bad!!!
ReplyDeletewas readin the email inji recd..
looks scary.
be careful.
with u
ki
kerala.com is a large enterpreneur. i advise you to check your local laws and submit a legal threat to them. they're not an anonymous blog user.
ReplyDeleteI am in the same circumstance, shaheen. My recipes and pictures have been copied and used without my permission. Not sure what to do about this.
ReplyDeletehi shaheen,
ReplyDeletefirst time on your blog. Its shocking to learn about plagiarism. Inji's story was totally upsetting. did you try logging your complain to google?
I also suffer from blog plagiarism, another site stole my entire post and has no contact information. I know their blog is hosted by blogger.com is there any way to complain to blogger.com about it?
ReplyDelete