Talk about Gross violation

[Acers]

A user on my site today reported a copied content violation on another site. I thought this was one more case of 1 thread copied, only to find the whole site is running on copied content of our forums. :D
Check my site home page: http://www.funenclave.com/

and then see this: http://www.stepheniansonline.com/forum/home.php?
http://s2.supload.com/thumbs/default/homepage.jpg (http://s2.supload.com/free/homepage.jpg/view/)
^^rather an innovative style choice and use of title. I know imitation is best form of flattery but there should be some limits :)

It doesn't stop there. The fellow seems to be using some kind of a scraper to put our content on his site(His site (http://www.stepheniansonline.com/forum/index.php) and our site (http://www.funenclave.com/forums.html)). I find whole forums running on stuff from our site. Ok anyway point is not to crib about that, our site is pretty big but what i wanna know is couple of things

1) I have warned the guy to stop copy pasting stuff from my site and he atm says he won't. Can anyone tell what do i do about the duplicate content created thus far. Google ain't gonna like my whole forum running on a new site copied word to word. :mad: I am worried his antics will cost us critical positions in rankings.

2) The tool he is using to copy stuff is this: (Ico Content (http://www.icomotion.com/ico-content/index.html))(https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=148590&highlight=ico-content)
Can't a protest be lodged against that company. I don't think any forum owner allows or will allow his content to be scraped like this. And thats what the tool does do(apart from copying yahoo answers).

Any ideas on how to tackle this situation? Top it all i am terribly busy these days and didn't even notice this thing going on.

[StrifeX]

Spam the sh*t out of his forum with posts saying the site is ripped :)

[Acers]

lol.. its a new forum, I will only be wasting my own time. Its the google that worries me ;)

[StrifeX]

:o I have an idea... How about you edit the postbit / postbit_legacy template, and add text that says "posted on yoursitename.com" and set the text color to the same color as your alt1/alt2 (so that when it's posted on his site it will be seen, but on your site it will look invisible :).) Also, change your alt1/2slightly since his is the same, and use this code around the text: <if condition="!$GLOBALS['FIRSTPOSTID']"></if>

In conclusion, if anyone is led to his site by google, they will see they are a fake site that ripped from you, and that might make them want to come back to you :p.

[Acers]

correct,
depends on what is the procedure thats used for ripping though. I think the software automatically replaces the main site name. I still can't believe what honest use can be of that software. Legitimate copying can be done via direct DB callback's also if the aim is to maintain same content on two different forums.

Here is from the FAQ
http://www.icomotion.com/ico-content/faq.html#G14
Technically this will indeed result in what may be called 'duplicate content'. Particularly people concerned with boosting page count for SEO reasons may find this a limitation. However, remember that ICO-Content is not designed to be an SEO tool. It serves to help you get your forum going. Having said that, if your forum features a unique template, chances are this will not result in being duplicate content at all. The surrounding content will make the page unique (enough), and it only takes you posting one reply to each ICo-Content generated topic/thread for it to be truly unique. Read the opinions of a vBulletin expert on this matter here. Another point to remember is that if you set ICo-Content to run regularly, say every 5 minutes, chances are that the search engine spiders find the content on your forum before they do so on Yahoo! or elsewhere. At the end of the day, ICo-Content is designed to be a community booster, not a page count inflation tool!
Community Booster, more of a rip someone else to boost a new one. lol

[Ohiosweetheart]

:o I have an idea... How about you edit the postbit / postbit_legacy template, and add text that says "posted on yoursitename.com" and set the text color to the same color as your alt1/alt2 (so that when it's posted on his site it will be seen, but on your site it will look invisible :).) Also, change your alt1/2slightly since his is the same, and use this code around the text: <if condition="!$GLOBALS['FIRSTPOSTID']"></if>

In conclusion, if anyone is led to his site by google, they will see they are a fake site that ripped from you, and that might make them want to come back to you :p.
Good idea!!

[G0F0RBR0KE]

*sniff*

What do I smell? A lawsuit, that right, a lawsuit for taking your content and having a duplicate without your permission.

You can always ask your host provider for tips.

Copyright infrigment ;D

[nexialys]

error #1, that site CAN'T use ico-content to grab the content of your forum and bring it on his site... if they do, they completely rebuilt it, so it is not ico-content anymore.

ico-content is used to grab content from Answers.yahoo.com ONLY... you can't accuse a software to do a job it is not doing. if you put a protest against that company, i'm the one who will handle it, so give me legals about this before doing so.

error #2: your full forum is opened to RSS leech... any moron can grab your content from the RSS you let active, so don't call it if you do not want your content to be seeded... close that feature.

error #3: did you check if someone could have access your database?!

[Acers]

error #1, that site CAN'T use ico-content to grab the content of your forum and bring it on his site... if they do, they completely rebuilt it, so it is not ico-content anymore.
ahh ok. The guy actually told me this when i confronted him:
CopyCat says:
this time i am 99% not at fault : ICo-Content - Instant Community Content
CopyCat says:
this is wat i`m using
Looking at the features again, you are right its only grabbing yahoo feeds by default. So maybe he did modify it.

The RSS is open but thats more cos our userbase reads most of the stuff on rss readers at work. Obviously that does open the site up for leeching but you don't expect a complete site rip. Thanks though, i think its time to rethink the rss feeds part.

error #3: did you check if someone could have access your database?!
Yes, Thats safe.

What do I smell? A lawsuit, that right, a lawsuit for taking your content and having a duplicate without your permission.
Lol No way. More than the actual copied stuff, its the duplicate content thats the issue here.

[nexialys]

ahh ok. The guy actually told me this when i confronted him:

Looking at the features again, you are right its only grabbing yahoo feeds by default. So maybe he did modify it.

actually, ico-content does not only grab yahoo feeds by defaults, but it can't do it with anyother feed right now, because it is grabbing the content from the developpers site, not the feeds themselves, so to ensure the content is actually grabbed from yahoo, we use the secure way, and the ico-content engine is not built to read anyother kind of rss feed...

i suppose the guy told you about ico-content because it's safe passage to piracy to have an excuse...

if you really think he pirated ico-content to make his piracy, you can contact us:
http://www.catnine.net/forum/showthread.php?t=199

[Acers]

actually, ico-content does not only grab yahoo feeds by defaults, but it can't do it with anyother feed right now, because it is grabbing the content from the developpers site, not the feeds themselves, so to ensure the content is actually grabbed from yahoo, we use the secure way, and the ico-content engine is not built to read anyother kind of rss feed...

i suppose the guy told you about ico-content because it's safe passage to piracy to have an excuse...

if you really think he pirated ico-content to make his piracy, you can contact us:
http://www.catnine.net/forum/showthread.php?t=199
hmm ok. I will send you the details.

Actually my fault also. I wasn't expecting someone to use the rss feeds to start posting them en masse on his site without any linkbacks. Our memberbase is gonna be annoyed but can't be helped.

Btw out of curiosity, does yahoo allows you to copy their content(yahoo answers) on forums?

[Marco van Herwaarden]

It does not matter what tools they use, they are just tools and you can not blame the manufactor of a tool because it is abused by someone. The only one responsible is the one that copies the content.

[nexialys]

Btw out of curiosity, does yahoo allows you to copy their content(yahoo answers) on forums?

If you follow the Developpers License, sure, that's the goal of the dev engine actually... http://developer.yahoo.net/

[StrifeX]

correct,
depends on what is the procedure thats used for ripping though. I think the software automatically replaces the main site name. I still can't believe what honest use can be of that software. Legitimate copying can be done via direct DB callback's also if the aim is to maintain same content on two different forums.

Here is from the FAQ
http://www.icomotion.com/ico-content/faq.html#G14

Community Booster, more of a rip someone else to boost a new one. lol Lol, well when people want to get active sites, one of the first things they look for is good posts to attract people. They do this any way they can, even if they have to mess up someone else's forum :(

Good idea!! Thanks :p

[Acers]

Btw nexialys am sorry for any bad publicity of your software though. It was unintentional :)

[nexialys]

Btw nexialys am sorry for any bad publicity of your software though. It was unintentional :)

it is not bad publicity, it's just a comment about the use of it as you thought it was... you did not try to flame the script... :)

and btw, like we always say in french "parlez-en en bien ou en mal, mais parlez-en!"... better way to advertise it is to talk about it, pros and cons!

it is not "my" product actually, i'm not even involved in its development.. i'm just the grumpy old guy of the project...;) you always need a grumpy old man in projects like that to have someone else's opinion (even the devil's advocacy!)

oh, and btw, if the guy actually use ico-content and recoded it or have a hacked version to really grab websites content, a simple action will be made... his site have a dedicated license of ico-content, and he did not follow the rules... tada!

[bobster65]

Well dang.. that dude is asking me for help with something (unrelated to this topic) and now that I see that he is causing problems with a fellow coder/community member, Im not going to support his wants and needs. Thanks for pointing this out.

[Acers]

it is not "my" product actually, i'm not even involved in its development.. i'm just the grumpy old guy of the project... you always need a grumpy old man in projects like that to have someone else's opinion (even the devil's advocacy!)
haha. true ;)

Btw he doesn't need any tool to copy anyway(so he might be bluffing about ico-content). As you rightly pointed out, he can do pretty well just by using the vb's own rss feed poster.

Moral of the Story: Never leave the full rss feeds open however pressing the reason.

[iogames]

Spam the sh*t out of his forum with posts saying the site is ripped :)

2 wrongs doesn't make 1 right :p

I was so busy reading the jokes that what was the thread about? :D

[EnIgMa1234]

Btw nexialys am sorry for any bad publicity of your software though. It was unintentional :)
Bad publicity is publicity all the same.

(c)2007 EnIgMa1234

:p

[Alfa1]

Did you trace the person and look up http://www.ststephenschandigarh.com/ (linked at the bottom of each page)?
Why not call the head of that school?

[Brad]

Block his IP address/domain name?

It doesn't matter what software he's using to read your RSS feeds, just block him at the server level and he can't do it anymore.

Of course he could always get around it but the point is to make copying your content more trouble than it's worth. ;)

Also send a take down notice to his host. :p

[Acers]

Did you trace the person and look up http://www.ststephenschandigarh.com/ (linked at the bottom of each page)?
Why not call the head of that school?
I did a check on him and he is not a school going kid. He just runs a site for them(maybe the school is his alma mater.)
Block his IP address/domain name?

yep first thing i did. Set a server side firewall ignore rule :p

Also send a take down notice to his host. :p
I have given him a 24 hour notice to remove my sites content. If he doesn't am gonna send one. From a whois it looks like he is hosted with godaddy.

[Zate]

lots of options.. null route his IP, see if his scraper has a custom User Agent and deny that in Robots.txt .. usemod_rewrite to rewrite urls with his domain as the referrer to nasty places.. etc etc etc.

Get creative :) (there is an awesome writeup on using mod_rewrite and image magik to flip all the graphics when its retrieved, he'll be scraping all your content upside down.. LOL)

[StrifeX]

Damn, this thread is starting to get interesting :)

Zate, could you hook me up with that mod_rewrite script :D

[Alfa1]

I did a check on him and he is not a school going kid. He just runs a site for them(maybe the school is his alma mater.)

From a whois it looks like he is hosted with godaddy.
Did you:
- google his name and email address?
- do a whois on several whois sites to see if anything more comes up?
- call the board of the school to apply pressure there?
- do a reverse lookup on his name (if you have that)?

[Tigga]

Send their host a DMCA complaint demanding that all content that was gathered from your site be removed.

[Code Monkey]

I wouldn't worry about Google too much. They don't put much value in forum content to begin with. They will see your sites content as the older original and then they will devalue that sites duplicate content. Especially if there is no link back to the source.

[RichieBoy67]

Just ignore it. Google is on the ball and is not going to penalize you on duplicate content for this. Go read Matt Cutts blog because there was some great info on duplicate content not long ago....

I would just let the guy do what he is doing and not worry about it. You might actually even be getting some publicity out of it...

The last thing I have to say is that I can't believe what I am hearing hear from grown adults. Someone does something stupid and cheats and people are saying to do the same thing in return? No offence but that sounds childish at least...

Best of luck..... I don't think that site could damage your site if it was his lifelong goal to do so...

Thanks,

Rich

[ZatroX]

Dude, dont even bother with all taht stuff, just contact his host and let them know, they delete his account for sure, if not say you will contact authorities and file a lawsuit, this isnt a joke man dont play around with him. Just be straight on, if u need help contacting his host just tell me, ive dealt with people like this before