How does WP handle plagiarism of its blogs?
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Can WordPress block sites that are plagiarizing WordPress blogs? My post today was plagiarized in full by a site that is selling ads against it. I went to the site to complain and found you can’t leave comments. But the “recent posts” list on the site shows that it has also plagiarized other WordPress blogs. The site has “fu.org” in its URL, so it’s not just plagiarizing us but mocking us.
I have asked Technorati to de-list posts by this site and also reported the copyright violation to WP support. But I realized that I don’t know WP policy on this. When WordPress gets a report of plagiarism one of its blogs, will it block the plagiarist? Can it do anything else? Thanks for any clarification you can give.
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http://wordpress.com/complaints/
This post has information and links https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=17307
HTH :) -
If a blog at wordpress.com is copying something of yours, you send a report in with full urls to your posts and the copied ones. Just saying “They copied me” is of no use.
I then check the report. I will either suspend the blog OR leave them a warning to get in touch. The result is your work disappears from their blog, or if you have specified that you want full credit that will be applied by the original blogger.If the blog is not at wordpress.com (that is the footer of the blog has no link to wordpress.com) then I cannot do anything. A search of this forum for DMCA and WHOIS will help in that circumstance.
As with most support issues, this is one where it just is not possible to send too much detail. Send lots of details.
[Note – please check your CC licensing. I have had people say their content has been copied when it conformed perfectly with the CC license being used by the original blogger]
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Thank, Mark. Checking “Whois” is a good suggestion. I’m not sure how to check the CC licensing but will search the Forums for this. I have sent support a link the plagiarized post and also the names of other WP blogs that seem to be ripping off WP.
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You can see what I did on one of my blogs here: http://thesacredpath.wordpress.com/legal/ it’s short and to the point. This is of course, not legal advice as I am not a copyright lawyer.
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Um, no disrespect intended but it’s kind of ironic that you’re hotlinking images from Project Gutenberg and stealing their bandwidth. I do hope that that is an oversight and you will fix it asap.
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Information_About_Linking_to_our_Pages
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@sacredpath.
Thanks for the link to your post. But my understanding is that copyright exists from the moment you create material. So I wonder why it’s necessary to have such a post at all?
What’s ‘Creative Commons’?
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@rosclarke
G’day
Copyright does indeed exist without the posting of a notice of any kind when it comes to original work. As sploggers chasing advertising income have become so prevalent many bloggers are now posting copyright notices, although they are not required. Creative commons has various kinds of licenses and I wrote a post on this that you may like to read or not What to do about copyright
HTH :) -
Um, mark, those pages seem to suggest that what I said about copyright is correct. Writing and images do NOT need to be marked as copyrighted in order to be copyrighted. And if you don’t want to share material, then the Creative Commons isn’t relevant either, is it?
Am I missing your point somewhere?
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Timethief, thank you! So if I were to be plagiarised (which as far as I know, I’m not) WordPress would still act even without a copyright notice? And since I don’t have a Creative Commons licence, the implication is that the material is not to be shared?
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@rosclarke
may I suggest that you lick the Creative Commons link Mark provided above and read the different kinds of licenses and attribution requirements that are posted there. -
edit:
Sheesh I see a typo above. And, I assure you that I meant “click” the link and not “lick” the link … lol :D -
In the interstices between the law and generally accepted practice, a copyright notice is something that everyone but deliberate criminals respects. I take images from all over the web (attributed) but when I see a copyright notice I abide by it, and I think all of us are the same. Now that the AP is claiming that not even excerpting their work is acceptable, you’ll see people referring to Reuters more, etc.
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/nod to rain
A copyright notice posted on your blog is, in my opinion, a good idea. Yes, the stuff you create is copyrighted from the moment you create it, but it’s simply an added step that is good evidence of your intent, should you be plagiarized or scraped – which will in high likelihood eventually happen. -
Also, some people are freer with their rights than the all-encompassing copyright, and they need to let people know.
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Here’s a fascinating article concerning Fair Use and Copyright and Google and University Libraries — it really gets juicy — but fair and polite — in the comments:
http://www.googlizationofeverything.com/2007/11/paul_courant_of_michigan_addre.php
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@timethief. Yup, I read them but I’m still not getting what you’re saying. Is your point that I should have a Creative Commons ‘All Rights Reserved’ license because that will give me some protection I don’t automatically have, and if so, what? Or just that it would be a nice thing to have to make it easier to defend my rights if it comes to it?
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It won’t bestow legal protection greater than you have; it will make explicit the fact that you don’t accept generally accepted “borrowing” practice and thus will draw people’s attention and they may be more inclined to respect it. It also might help you in court, since you can prove you went to some effort to assert copyright.
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