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I don’t normally do this, but it is necessary to alert my readers and fellow bloggers of a site that is stealing content to use on their site for their benefit.
The site in question is called the Scandal Shack and they claim to “share sexy scandals” but they are, in fact, the scandal and not very sexy at that. You see, their entire site is not built from original material. It is all the works of other bloggers and sites. They take the content, add their own pictures, (often pornographic) and also insert ad links within the text.
They stole both “spirited filly” and “at peace” from me… slapped it onto their site and added an image to it and also sprinkled dozens of ads throughout MY text. They never once asked me if I wanted to be part of their site. I don’t mind sharing my work on other sites from time to time and I usually do with my expressed permission first, but this site is massacring my work and the works of other bloggers. Oh and they claim it is ok to do so because they link back to the original content.
I discovered their thievery last night, because WordPress will show me who is linking to my posts. When I discovered they stole “spirited filly” I left them this comment:
WTF is this? You steal my writing and then put some trashy porn picture with it and ads!???!!! Take it down! This is not your writing to use in such a tasteless manner! Take it down NOW!
I then return back to my blog and write another post called “at peace” and wouldn’t you know… that post gets stolen too! So I leave them this message:
STOP STEALING MY POSTS ASSHOLES
BTW, You won’t see my comments because they will never get approved by their site.
Their response to my comments are:
Are you illiterate ?
In any case, as a nice portal, we’d try to help even rude asshole like you.
To claim coyright, do the right thing: -If your claim if bona fide, we will put up a notice to say something like “Asshole XXX does not want to share … we ‘re trashing her junks in no time …”Listen, we’re here to share stuffs. This explains why we put a link to the source unreservedly … We’re more happy than to trash junks coming from cheap selfish asses.ScandakShack.com,Sharing Sexy Scandals, Always.
Yes i am very illiterate. As you can see I can’t even write posts for you to steal and insert porn pictures into and add ad links all over my words … Oh wait … You did do that.What on earth makes you think you have the right to steal someone’s art and then massacre it with ad links and porn pictures?
What you are doing is against the law and you stole it from MY site http://mydesire.wordpress.com. The first 2 posts on my site were stolen and then massacred with ad links. That is not sharing. That is using someone else’s work for your profit. And I am happy to be called selfish because I do not wish my hard work to be ruined with porn pics and embedded text links.
Even your copyright claims page has ads embedded in the text!
To which the Scandal Shack kindly responds with:
We’d just tell you one more time: -
There is no money in the portal, the ads or what bullshits that you’re very jealous of is only a hope to help pay for hosting, they generate nothing significant.
If you wish, you may take over our job. We’re happy to let you do the hosting as long as you agree to publish feeds from our community unreservedly, at least the way we do or perhaps better.
Enough said. Do the right thing or we’ll not entertain you anymore.
A word of advice here, next time, don’t start off calling other asshole. And if you continue to harass us, we’d embarrass thoroughly in your community.
Good nite.
Yes Scandal Shack of crap, I am very jealous of your ads and text links and what you refer on your own as “bullshits”. No thanks, I do not want your jobs. Ah.. so I am the one who has to do the right thing? Oh excuse me, I didn’t realize I was in the wrong for demanding you take down MY material off of your site. I am such a stupid girl sometimes. I find it very silly that I am harrassing you.. and what is that I see… a threat? Very nice of you. And to what community you speak of that you will embarrass me in front of?
So there you have it readers and fellow bloggers. I have in fact, “done the right thing” and submitted my claim through their site. Let’s see if it does anything. In the meantime, some of you may want to see if your stuff has been put up on their site. I have recognized one fellow blogger and will be contacting them shortly. I have also just noticed they have an HNT category on their site, so some of our images are being used for their benefit as well.
If you want to spread the word feel free to reblog this post or link to it.
xo mina
**** Update 7/28/2011 I have contacted HostGator and they have removed my posts from Scandal Shack’s site. As it stands however, Scandal Shack is still alive and still stealing content from blogs. I will have to see if he continues to import my posts from this site as I write them. ****
If you have become a victim of Scandal Shack, don’t bother contacting them. You’ll just be hassled. Contact Hostgator directly. Email them at abuse@hostgator.com and also fill out your claim quick and easily here http://www.hostgator.com/dmca.php
© Secret Desires
WHOIS information for scandalshack.com shows that they are being hosted with HostGator.com.
If your content is being stolen by this site, please see: http://www.hostgator.com/copyright.shtml
It doesn’t matter where you are in the world. Since the site is hosted on US servers, these steps apply.
Dark Gracie had this same issue not too long ago as well. They are going after a lot of sex bloggers, it seems.
Unfortunately, I can’t do anything at work without those steps being followed first. =[
And you can use the http://www.copyscape.com/ service to check for plagiarism.
sev xx
I just had the same problem with a similarly skanky site.
The quickest way to get it taken down is to email them, cc’ing their host, put a link to your post and a link to their copied post and quote the clause in their hosting terms & conditions that they are in breach of through IP theft.
Good luck x
Hostgators T&C’s http://www.hostgator.com/tos/tos.php
Relevant paragraph here:
“Use of our services to infringe upon any copyright or trademark is prohibited. This includes but is not limited to unauthorized copying of music, books, photographs, or any other copyrighted work. The offer of sale of any counterfeit merchandise of a trademark holder will result in the immediate termination of your account. Any account found to be in violation of anothers copyright will be expeditiously removed, or access to the material disabled. Any account found to be in repeated violation of copyright laws will be suspended and/or terminated from our hosting. If you believe that your copyright or trademark is being infringed upon, please email abuse@hostgator.com with the information required. A list of required information may be found here. If the request is of a licensing issue, we may require further documentation.”
Actually you could get the whole site taken down given that Hostgator are likely to deem the explicit nature of the content obscene.
Not just this site. HG will shut down the entire account until the content is removed. If they continue, they will be banned from using their services. HostGator takes copyright infringement so seriously that the department that handles these issues tends to get giddy when they get to shut someone down.
Thanks to everyone for helping. If you feel like blowing off steam and getting into an angry fight email scandalshack@gmail.com directly and let him know. Warning though, he does love the fight and will be an absolute asshole to you. Or follow my links to his posts he stole from me and leave some comments.(they will never get published but he’ll see them and respond to you in email) Most of all though… email abuse@hostgator.com to let them know someone they are hosting is making money off of other people’s work without their permission or compensation. And when said person gets asked to remove material, he refuses to.
I use a plugin called No More Frames; it prevents content scrapers from grabbing your stuff via script which is usually how it’s done (doing it by hand takes too long, this site scrapes a LOT of posts a day). I’ve had issue before with another site, long ago, they weren’t doing this, however – they were posting my photos to make fun of me. Even though it was against my stated copyright policy, they fought me hard (because they were assholes and liked the fight). Not their host or registrar would help.
Best thing to send first is a standardized “cease and desist” type of copyright infringement letter to the site owner if you can. They clearly have no moral conscious or knowledge of internet material legalities, so starting off inflammatory won’t get you anywhere, even though you’re understandably flamingly mad. It’ll probably just make them do it more. They’re the type that feed off of making you mad.
Another good plugin is ©Feed.
Thanks… I realized after my first day of dealing with him that he was a waste of my time. I went straight to hostgator. They removed my content, my posts are no longer being fed into his site and I am no longer getting his spam emails. My dealings with him seem to be over, but there are so many bloggers out there being attacked by his thievery.
I’m actually a little disappointed in how this was handled. Sure, the content was removed, and that’s cool, but what’s to stop them from continuing?
Please continue to spam abuse@hostgator.com if you see this guy being a douche.
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