Please Get MY Article off your Site

When I discovered that somebody had taken one of my HubPages articles and republished it on their own site without my permission, I was angry. At the bottom of MY article on their site, I left the following comment:

Please get MY article off your site. I gave you no permission to use it. Teresa Schultz.

This was less than an hour ago and the comment is awaiting moderation.

In the first paragraph above I said that I was angry, but I'm already feeling a bit better having started this hub. That's what writing sometimes does for me - and I think for many other writers too. I can calm down while writing and I can work things out while writing.

I find it quite interesting that my article that was republished on somebody else's site was about making money from an article in more than just one way, by republishing it on various sites.

If it wasn't clear before, let me make it clear now:

Republishing an article should apply to only your own article, not somebody else's article, and especially not if you do not have their permission to use that article.

Republishing your article on various sites doesn't mean just do it, unless the sites are all your own sites. Read the terms and conditions of sites you join, and do not republish articles on those sites if it is not allowed.

Choosing to republish your articles on a variety of sites (that allow you to do so) is up to you. I have republished some articles on my own sites or on Constant Content (offering usage rights only) that I first published on Factoidz. I have never republished any of my articles that are on HubPages, and have never published an article on HubPages that first appeared elsewhere online. HubPages does not allow its writers to publish articles that are already appearing elsewhere online, and also does not allow its writers to republish their HubPages articles on other sites after they first appeared on HubPages. I stick to the rules.

The first published original article is usually given the best natural search result in search engines. Wherever else you republish your article - on sites that allow you to do so - may not get a good search result at all, for the same search terms, but if you have a large following on those sites, or if you are spending a lot of time marketing those articles your articles can still get attention, and still stand the chance of making you some money.

Search Engines seem to accept that articles will often be republished, but do not necessarily give those republished articles a good search result. If Search Engines didn't accept it, places like Ezine Articles and Constant Content would likely be shut down.

People can take your articles on Ezine Articles and publish them on their own sites as long as they leave your author box intact - which is great as your Ezine Articles author box often contains your webiste link, and you and your site could get quite a bit of exposure if many people use your article - your article that they obtained from Ezine Articles.

On Constant Content, you can not only sell your articles with full rights, but with usage rights if you want to.

You cannot sell your article on Constant Content with both full rights and usage rights.

If you want, and your full rights article is not selling after having been on Constant Content for a while, you can change your full rights offer to usage rights, drop your price, and hope to sell your article a few times, but it is not advised to change your usage rights only article to full rights only, because somebody may have already bought the article with usage rights only, and used it on their site, thus making a full rights sale invalid (or, because of the usage rights only, you may even have the article on one of your own sites too) - somebody buying a full rights article doesn't want that article to be already appearing elsewhere.

Since many writers often have their articles taken and republished elsewhere, as much as copied articles all over the Internet is not acceptable, it almost becomes exactly that. Acceptable.

My article copied by this particular site owner and republished on his site is not just an article on one of my own sites, although of course if that happened it should upset me too, but this particular article is one of my articles on HubPages.

What's the difference?

I recently read a hub where the hubber was saying she was leaving HubPages due to having many of her hubs removed from HubPages due to them also appearing elsewhere on the Internet. And I understand her dilemma. What is a person supposed to do if other people don't care about copyright and just take your articles and republish them as they please?

Writers are often a struggling bunch - I know I am - and writers cannot afford to hire Internet dectectives to scour the entire Internet looking for duplicate content. And what then? What would the original writer do when the Internet dectective reports back on what he has found?

Sue the person who took and republished the article?

Writers are often a struggling bunch...

And it's not worth the effort. That time could be better spent on writing more articles.

But the articles get taken and republished without their permission. It's not what HubPages, hubbers, or any writer wants...

Catch 22.

Genuine writers are not only often a struggling bunch, but they are also honest. Genuine writers work hard and are nice people, but this doesn't mean they don't get upset when people abuse their hard work.

Why should an article that a writer put hard work into get taken for free, benefit somebody else, and, because it now appears elsewhere online, get the writer into trouble with HubPages? It shouldn't.

Of course HubPages wants the best for its writers, and thus needs to keep HubPages free of duplicate content. I understand that, but how is it actually possible unless writers could log into the sites of people who have taken their articles and delete those copied articles themselves?

When somebody has taken your article and republished it without your permission, not even giving you credit for the article, what kind of morals does that person have? Leaving a comment on their site or emailing them to ask them to remove the article is at least making an effort to not only help yourself, but to help HubPages too. However, if these article stealers don't have the energy or morals to even write their own articles, will they really have the energy or morals to remove your article, just because you asked them to?

The HubPages hub in question had a link going to a related article on one of my own WordPress sites. The person who took and republshed my HubPages hub on their own WordPress site not only failed to credit the article to me, but also failed to remove the links in the article. My WordPress site article received a pingback from their site's page where my article had been republished.

The pingback (comment) included a few words in it which I recognized as my own words. I went to visit the site from which the pingback came, and found my article.

The page title meta tag is word-for-word the same as my hub's title on HubPages, but the site owner wrote a slightly different title for the blog post.

My hub (and meta title of the article on this person's site): 14 ways to make money from just one article

The title of the blog post on this person's site: 14 ways to making money from a article

What if this person got my hub from somewhere else, and didn't know it was a copied article? If I knew this was true then I cannot call him an article stealer, and if it is true, then I take my name-calling back.

But if this person got or bought an article he thought was previously unpublished, he also jumped to conclusions.

I've never had to use Copyscape because I write my own articles, and if writing an article for a client who says they are going to use Copyscape to check the article's originality, I never worry, because I write original articles for clients too. I don't mind when clients say they are going to use Copyscape to check the originality of my article, because it's their choice to do the check - and it's a good check to do, to help keep duplicate content off the Internet. Good for you, if you buy articles and check them in Copyscape before publishing them.

Conclusion

If you buy articles for your site, first check them in Copyscape before paying the provider or using the article.

And the conclusion for what to do about your articles appearing elsewhere online without your permission?

Genuine writers are not only a struggling bunch, they are honest too. I don't know what to do.

I'm not sure that HubPages knows what to do about duplicate content issues either. They want to help their writers, but they also can't log into other people's sites and delete the duplicate content.

It's sad that some people not only make it difficult for writers to just do what they do best - write - but that these people also make it difficult for HubPages to run their site as best they can.