I need your help, but I should start by apologizing. I’m sorry I tricked you, but I was desperate to get your attention. My husband was not on Ashley Madison, but this does kind of, sort of have something to do with Ashley Madison. Instead of spending hours searching for my friends’ husbands on there (my husband would never do that,) I’m using that precious and otherwise productive, time to write this blog post that I really don’t want to write.
Calling all bloggers and anyone else who uses the internet.
I really need your help. No, YOU need your help!
As bloggers we all put hard work into our writing, photography, recipes, or even videos. We put our hearts and souls into our blogs. I personally love the interactions and connections and even adventures it brings my way. I love that I can express myself in a way that never in my life did I know I could. This gave regular ol’ me a chance to be a writer, something I never would have thought I would do in my lifetime.
Today a piece of that was stolen from me. It’s time we put an end to this. We need to expose those thieves that think they can steal our words, steal our website traffic, and steal our relationships. Because it’s clear they don’t care about people, and they don’t care about relationships. How could they?
You probably know me from this blog post I wrote in 2011. My life changed that day I posted it. In a matter of 3 days 300,000 people had come to visit me here and share their own stories, and it hasn’t stopped since. A few years ago, I battled someone who stole my content to put on their own website and wouldn’t remove it. In the end, after they stole my blog and received 11,000 shares on their page of my content, Facebook deleted their post anyway. I don’t know why, but I kept their identity private. I think I didn’t want to drive more traffic to them. Well, yesterday, thanks to my friend Lindsay and my blogger friend Doug, I found out that someone was at it again. (By the way, check out Doug’s awesome blog!)
This time to the tune of over 25,000 Facebook shares in 3 days. If you don’t know much about social media– that’s a lot! If you want to skip the story, please scroll down to my CALL TO ACTION. Please, help spread the word about this, but DON’T GO VISIT THEIR WEBSITE. THAT WILL ONLY GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT. Instead, I took screen shots, and besides, their blog isn’t any good anyway. Who knows what content is even theirs at this point. (Ironically, it says “copyright 2015” at the bottom of their page.)
I don’t know if this will work, but I hope it does because we need to take a stand, and I’m begging you to help.
They clearly stole my blog word for word, but added titles to the 10 reasons, and you’ll see that apparently Marian Schneider is the author.
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And they added photos too to “make it their own”:
No need to show the whole post. Wasn’t it so kind of them to hide the link to my blog at the end and say nothing about me being the author?
Notice the almost 27,000 Facebook shares of my post? Last night at 7 pm, it was 15,000. As you can see from this other post, Share This Now is nothing special. It’s the CONTENT of MY article that is special. This one has been up for a week and only has 257 shares.
So what happened anyway?
I politely contacted them informing them of the problem:
Hi, It has come to my attention that your website has posted my copyrighted content without my permission or the proper credit given to me. Your website has received over 14k Facebook shares from MY content that was stolen from my website and you are essentially stealing traffic from my site. Please respond immediately with your proposal of how you plan to remedy this situation. It is titled 10 Reasons Your Dentist Probably Hates You Too.
Hector replied:
Hi Laura, we are very sorry for the mistake. We have been online for less than two weeks, and we are still restructuring. We had taken the measures we believe are appropriate to fix the situation. The link now is working properly deriving visits to your site, and we are going to make the proper disciplinary measure with the author who published that post. If you think that measure is not enough please let us know. Cheers.
Great, so they now actually added the link, but that’s not enough:
Hi, thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. The link to my blog is still too obscure and still doesn’t make it clear that I am the author. If you would like to continue to have it posted, this is an acceptable alternative… [a word for word example of how they can post it]… In other words, I do not mind if you have a teaser first paragraph or two, but then I would like the readers to have to click through to my blog to read the rest.
And the bastard actually blew me off and then asked me to follow him!?!?
ok Laura, thanks for your reply as well. We’ll take care. By the way, you are hereby invited to take a look at our website, there are a lot of things that you are going to find interesting and you are also invited to give us a like on facebook.
Me:
Ok, so you will change to the format I suggested? When can I expect to see this? I love to support other websites for their hard work. Please support us too– we are just regular people who have worked hard to write our content and have our own sites to manage too.
Hector:
oks, tomorrow you can check our site with the changes made.
Meanwhile, I’ve been investigating how to shut his site down. Like I say here, this isn’t my first rodeo:
Really??? I would like it to be done immediately. Your shares of my content are growing by the minute. You have already robbed me of over 15,000 hits. That is A LOT of damage already. I am trying to be nice about this, but I don’t have patience for this kind of runaround. I’ve been down this path before. Either I can file the complaint and have the content removed completely, or you can be a good person and do the right thing yourself.
Hector:
ok, look, we had had our good shares of our content appearing in other webs, and our solution was to ask them to have our site as a source. And we’ve agreed upon that. Your site is already appearing as a source.
Me:
Not according to how I have requested. Why are you so against giving my own site the proper traffic it deserves? Do you see how that is a win-win for both of us? Or do you only care about your own site? So you basically lied to me and said you would take care of it, and all you’ve done is linked to my blog in a way that does not honor my wishes. That is my legal right as the owner of this content.
No response from Hector, and my final message:
That’s fine. I just checked one more time to see if you acted with integrity, Hector. But it seems you have not, so I am currently reporting you to your web host. Remember your values dude. “Platform used by creative people in order to fight boredom.” Stealing content and being uncooperative is not being creative. “Laugh, but don’t be a jerk about it.” Walk the talk , dude. Walk the talk.
What did I mean by that? They have 2 taglines on their Facebook page: “Platform used by creative people in order to fight boredom,” and, “Laugh, but don’t be a jerk about it.” Hmm… ironic.
If you’ve ever read my blog, you will see that I treat everyone with respect. I either ignore nasty comments to me, or I reply with kindness. I try to only stay positive on my social media because I believe there is too much negativity out there. I don’t say nasty things because people are too mean to each other on the internet. But Hector chose a bad day to cross me. I have no problem revealing to you, the man that he is. Here is the public information about this website:
I have had a lot of people cut and paste my 10 Reasons post, and maybe I should have corrected them, but when it was for small personal blogs that only brought in a few hits here and there, I let it go. That was then, and this is now. Now I see now how turning that blind eye can lead to bigger problems down the road. Why am I so angry about this? Not only do I care about the connections I make through my blog, but I am also writing a book. It’s a book that I think a lot of you will like. It’s a book that the 28,400 people (by now, and who knows how many more) might never have a chance to see. It damages my chances as a potentially budding author who, like I’ve said, has put my heart and soul into this work I do. And that’s why I’m so pissed, and that’s why I need to do something about this.
A CALL TO ACTION:
UPDATE POSTED 8/22/2015, 30 hours after original posting:
I want to extend a huge thank you to everyone for helping fight the bad guys. We have definitely ruffled their feathers! Thanks to all of your actions, they have disabled comments on their Facebook page, and I’m not sure why, but they’ve also disabled the information that shows how many Facebook shares they’ve had. They’ve changed how they attributed the blog post to me about 6 times– removing the link, changing the verbiage from “Source: lolabees” to Inspired by: Lolabees, to even a few more variations. They’ve deleted all of the comments about their theft problem, and now added them all back! All of this in only 1 day. It’s reassuring to know that there are a few good people out there who act with integrity and stand up for what’s right! At this point, I think the best thing we can do is if you see their post on Facebook posted by one of your friends, let your friend know that the blog post is stolen and ask them to delete their link and replace it with this link: http://lolabees.me/2011/11/28/10-reasons-your-dentist-probably-hates-you-too/
Thank you!!
So what can you do in 3 simple steps?
Whatever you do, PLEASE DON’T GO VISIT THEIR WEBSITE. THAT WILL ONLY GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT, which is money they are earning from my content.
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- First share this post! If you are my friend, do me a tiny favor. If you are a fellow blogger, do it for all of us. I know you would feel the same way if this (and it probably has) ever happened to you. Do it for our blogging community. If you reblog or share this, I’ll create a page on my blog and link back to your blog on it (Let me know if you do, so I can be sure to include you.)
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Next go to Share This Now’s Facebook page, and share this blog post, and tell them how you feel about their behavior.
If you are open to helping me keep 10 Reasons Your Dentist Probably Hates You Too in the hands of its rightful owner, add the real link to it to their Facebook page and post that you know they stole this content.If you see their post on Facebook posted by one of your friends, let your friend know that the blog post is stolen and ask them to delete their link and replace it with this link. Here it is for you to cut and paste: http://lolabees.me/2011/11/28/10-reasons-your-dentist-probably-hates-you-too/
Like I said, Hector chose the wrong day to steal from me. My dog died last week, and I’m not in the mood to sit idly by and watch this man steal from me. Besides, I’m sure I would have found someone I know on Ashley Madison by now.
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