Unauthorized wiki mirror

[Refiner]

As a wiki author and admin, I was disheartened when I saw the content of the wiki I oversee directly posted on another website. I have been a long-time admin and author for the original wiki and I have a diligent staff who work to keep the content current and accurate.

The content was copied exactly as it appeared over 70 days ago and has not been modified on that site since. I have sent messages to the website owner regarding the content with no response and the unauthorized copy persists. I have even gone to the Wikia host to ask for guidance in resolution.

It is not a question about ownership. The wiki I admininsterr owns the content and it has been in existence nearly as long as the game for which it is named (longer than the companion game also covered in the wiki). I laid the groundwork for this wiki and spent many months as sole contributor before other authors began joining me and helped make major milestones for the wiki.

How would you feel if you were a wiki author or admin and you found your content directly posted on another website by people you do not know or recognize? Would you want to pursue means to have the other website taken down and how far would you be willing to go?

[claybutler]

As a wiki author and admin, I was disheartened when I saw the content of the wiki I oversee directly posted on another website. I have been a long-time admin and author for the original wiki and I have a diligent staff who work to keep the content current and accurate.

The content was copied exactly as it appeared over 70 days ago and has not been modified on that site since. I have sent messages to the website owner regarding the content with no response and the unauthorized copy persists. I have even gone to the Wikia host to ask for guidance in resolution.

It is not a question about ownership. The wiki I admininsterr owns the content and it has been in existence nearly as long as the game for which it is named (longer than the companion game also covered in the wiki). I laid the groundwork for this wiki and spent many months as sole contributor before other authors began joining me and helped make major milestones for the wiki.

How would you feel if you were a wiki author or admin and you found your content directly posted on another website by people you do not know or recognize? Would you want to pursue means to have the other website taken down and how far would you be willing to go?

I would go all the way. File the the proper DMCA papers, go after their hosting company, get them delisted in Google, publicly humiliate them. I have to continually chase down designers who steal my bio. I'm pretty ruthless. The ones that don't cooperate at first go on my plagiarism post (http://www.claytowne.com/beats-diggi...y-popular-bio/). When they see their name popping up in the SERPs as a plagiarist they get off their ass and take down the stolen content. That usually does the trick.

[LD]

When they see their name popping up in the SERPs as a plagiarist they get off their ass and take down the stolen content. That usually does the trick.

I may give you a shout if we need any reputation managment services.

[morestar]

Clay I'm still rather shocked that you're still dealing with these theives...it's one thing to snag and edit someone's bio to be somewhat original but to take the whole thing is rather ruthless...

[claybutler]

Clay I'm still rather shocked that you're still dealing with these theives...it's one thing to snag and edit someone's bio to be somewhat original but to take the whole thing is rather ruthless...

It's endless. I probably average 3 take down notices per month. If they use it on Blogger, Google will delete right away (but they don't cancel their account). Wordpress will delete the offenders account outright. LinkedIn is pretty useless, so I use shame and angry emails to get justice (yes, people steal my bio for their LinkedIn profile...unbelievable). A couple of months ago I inadvertently got two designers fired from their firms (two different firms) after I wrote the company to complain. Yes, these designers had actually swiped my bio to use on the firm's "meet the team" page. Shockingly stupid.

And that's just the copy and paste people. I don't even bother with the "inspired by" crowd who basically follow my exact format but use synonyms.

There are so many lazy, stupid, inconsiderate, careless, arrogant people in this industry it makes me sick. No wonder my clients never leave me. I wouldn't want to wade through all the thieves and wannabes that have the nerve to call themselves designers... or worse "original" or "creative".

On another note, one company took one of my blog posts and posted as their own on their company blog. Apparently they have some "social media expert" maintaining their blog and all she does is copy and paste entire articles from other sites and then posts them as their own. Dozens of them, and from the biggest names in the industry.

I told her what she was doing was against federal copyright laws and I told the guy who hired her that her practices will not only get them in trouble, but will hurt their reputation in the industry. Guess what? She's still working for them and she's still stealing articles.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

[Refiner]

Thank you for the advice Clay. It was not a simple stealing of copyrighted material, it was theft of all the original templates I wrote for the wiki without any modifications. Also they had used my personal in-game screenshots.

I filed a DMCA takedown 2 days ago with their host's agent and the unauthorized site is gone. I listed 148 out of the 2253 offending pages in the request, stating that all subesections and templates were also in copyright violation.

[claybutler]

Thank you for the advice Clay. It was not a simple stealing of copyrighted material, it was theft of all the original templates I wrote for the wiki without any modifications. Also they had used my personal in-game screenshots.

I filed a DMCA takedown 2 days ago with their host's agent and the unauthorized site is gone. I listed 148 out of the 2253 offending pages in the request, stating that all subesections and templates were also in copyright violation.

Yipee! More people should do what you did. It's not that difficult and the DMCA notice get's people's attention fast. Basically it works like this - third parties are generally protected from being liable from what content their users post - UNLESS, they are notified of the infringement and then do nothing. Then they can be liable. That's why YouTube spends millions a year policing content. They make money from ads, therefore they are profiting from copyright infringement. And that's a hard position to defend. So they have to put a good faith effort to police the content and respond to DMCA complaints.