Wordpress.com takes plagiarism issue very seriously. [Thanks Wordpress]
Last year, I wrote a tutorial about using ‘Proxy in Firefox‘ on my old blog. Today I was doing a bit research on same topic (Yes I am planning to write another informative tutorial on the same topic).
While googling the things out, I found an excat copy of my old post on a blog hosted on wordpress.com. That blogpost was a complete ripoff of my original post. Even screenshots used in that posts were hotlinked from my blogger account. No attribution or linkback was provided to my blog or blogpost.
Without a delay, I contacted the wordpress.com support and opened a thread in their support forum.
And I was surprised to see official responses rolling in in couple of minutes. The forum moderator Bubel responded in my thread, and with in 15 minutes, I got an email from wordpress support team stating that duplicate post is removed from that wordpress.com hosted blog.
Seems like Wordpress.com takes plagiarism very seriously.
I appreciate their support and quick response.
Note: If you have any such issue with blogs hosted on wordpress.com, please notify them using the procedure mentioned here.
Another good read in this regard is: How to Deal with Online Plagiarism at DI.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:19 am
I too have had nothing but good encounters with the support staff at WordPress.com on such matters. They are a great team and have worked to help me dozens of times. They are also very dedicated to stopping their members from being ripped off and actively help them worth with other hosts that have users putting up their content.
A great company all around.
September 24th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
That offending blog was using the old trick of writing his first sentence himself, but then pasting in the rest of the content from elsewhere; you could tell by reading a few lines of the posts. I spent some time looking around and reported the whole blog as spam and now it’s gone.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Actually you got lucky. The only reason why Automattic responded was because you made a fuss in their support forums. My content was ripped off by an Automattic employee over a year ago and to this day, they refuse to even respond to the complaint with the exception of making light of my physical handicaps. They also have a history of not dealing with splog reports unless you kick up a fuss or blog about complaints going unanswered.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Thanks raincoaster for the support and bringing the other copied posts from that blog to light.
Dr. Mike try to register your complaint using the procedure mentioned here
http://automattic.com/dmca/
September 25th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Already have. Again you only got a response because you raised a fuss in the support forums. If you search the forums (and if Automattic hasn’t removed the threads) you’ll see a number of folks complaining about DMCAs and complaints being ignored.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Dr. Mike
That blog is re-opened.
There is an ongoing discussion on wordpress support forums
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/my-blogpost-is-copied-at-wordpresscom-plagiarism-issue
Lets see what further steps wordpress takes in this regard.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Better be careful. If you complain too long, they will ToS your account.
October 1st, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Lookie, the blog is still up and running. Complete with rapidshare links and all. They got caught promoting links to rapidshare.com awhile back and removed the links only to have them reappear later on.
I guess we know how important plagiarism is to Automattic.
October 28th, 2008 at 9:58 am
This is good, I hate getting my content stolen.
May 9th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Choosing An Online Plagiarism Detector To Check For Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a growing problem in academia and the work place. The internet has made it easy for nearly anyone to copy written material and pass it off as their own work. Because of the legal and ethical dilemmas associated with plagiarism, plagiarism checking software is now readily available. With so many online plagiarism detectors, choosing one may seem like an overwhelming task, but it can be easy if you know what you’re looking for.
Extensive Plagiarism Checking Software
An online service that can check for plagiarism is a good place to start. A good plagiarism service won’t just run through a few well-known plagiarism sites looking for copied work. Instead, the better plagiarism checking software programs will also compare work published through magazines, academic journals, books and billions of academic papers. The most advanced programs will also check message boards, blogs and other forms of casual internet communication.
Because not all plagiarism is copied word for word, a service that compares sentence structure and searches for papers with different synonyms is important. This means that someone submitting a paper as their own won’t be able to simply use a thesaurus to change a few key words.
You can also find more details and services about plagiarism at here:
In depth plagiarism checking service
Thanks
June 29th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Thanks for this post is is really helpful. I have tried three times to contact the blogger who has plagiarized my work to no avail. I have given them until tomorrow to remove or properly site the article. After that, I will contact Wordpress, their blog host. It just amazes me what some people will try.