Procopywriters.com Steals its Content
November 29, 2007 by John Hewitt
The rats at procopywriters.com/blog have been stealing my content, apparently for quite some time. They make it a practice to rerun other people’s blog posts in their entirety without permission. They’ve run many of my past month’s articles, which is absurd because I haven’t written anything about copywriting in a LONG time. In addition to poewar.com, these rats steal from:
freelanceswitch.com
poynteronline.org
copyblogger.com
dailywritingtips.com
If you frequent any of these sites, please make it a point to let them know their content is being stolen.
Update:
Based on conversations with the owner of the site (which appear in the comments of this post) my articles have been removed from the site. The site continues to run other author’s works without their permission and to insert advertisements into the text of other people’s work. Some other bloggers have been addressing this issue on their blogs. I am linking to their discussions so that anyone who is interested can see how other people have reacted to this.
- Blog Plagiarism: A Close Call (catalystblogger)
- Plagiarism or just sloppy RSS usage? What’s your take? (Web Writing Info)
- Professional Plagiarism or Copyright Infringement? You Be the Judge (Writing Forward)
- Plagiarism Debate (Writing The Cyber Highway)
Update (12/13/2007)
The “blog” portion of procopywriters.com appears to have been taken down. I don’t know what they plan to replace it with, if anything, but lets hope that it is a legitimate blog written by a real person (preferably paid for their efforts). Whatever the case, I hope that puts an end to this issue.
Related links
- Successful Freelance Writers Know How to Use a Feed Reader (0.500)
- 27 Things This Writer Loved About 2007 (0.500)
- Looking Back at 2007: Underachievers (0.500)
- 5 Reasons I Love Blogging More than Freelancing (0.500)
- Blogging Changed My Life (0.500)
Contact John Hewitt
Writing Content and Web Consulting
Email: hewitt@poewar.comPhone: (520) 261-6104
LinkedIn: poewar
Twitter: @poewar
Facebook: pwar2
Yep. Checked it out and wow. You are right. Not only do they steal, but the supposed links to your website go to advertising companies!
I sent them a contact email letting them know that I am aware of their theft and asked them if they were too lazy or too immoral to write their own.
Geez, this burns my biscuts!
I am constantly amazed at how low people will stoop on the Internet. What really gets to me though, is that they are pitching the site to WRITERS, and they don’t even bother to write!
It’s nice when someone asks permission, but I have always been somewhat flattered when my work has been good enough for someone to want to steal it. Once a man got mad at me over a poetry workshop he was supposed to give at a festival on the “tiny poem.” I stupidly called it a “little” poem workshop, he was so angry he bashed me to almost everyone I knew and then called the Chamber of Commerce in my hometown and told them I was a plagerist. I hope I’ve never been guilty of his accusation, and always given credit and/or asked permission, but anyway the Secretary at the Chamber of Commerce asked him “what’s a plagerist,” I guess life has its little justifications in the end. Murder will out.
Hi Connie,
I appreciate the sentiment, but I have too big an ego to be flattered by someone stealing my work.
John: Reply from my email below.
From: Jon Castleman (jcastleman@procopywriters.com)
Sent:Tue 11/27/07 12:01 PM
To:
Joni, None of the above (or below!)… We DO repost information from other writing blogs. We do NOT change thelinks and ALL stories link back to the original source so this is the firstemail we’ve received with a problem, however, if you are the OWNER of one ofthe blogs being syndicated, or any content on the site, and you do NOT wishyour content to be syndicated by us just let me know and I will happilyremove it. Jon
Thanks Joni,
He’s Bullshitting. The only reason I found out about them rerunning my articles is that I got a pingback from the link to MYSELF that I included in my last article.
Procopywriters.com DOES NOT include links back to my original articles.
Hello,
I am the President and one of the owners of ProCopywriters.com and want to explain to everyone what’s going on and see if we can “all get along”.
First…ProCopywriters is almost three years old, however, we started the blog YESTERDAY!!! It is true that the content comes from other web sites around the Internet. NO content is stolen from a web site – it is collected through the sites RSS feed.
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. RSS is a method for content owners to allow other web sites to publish “syndicated” content. It is this syndicated content that we are publishing on our site.
We do NOT edit the content or change ANY of the embedded links. We do use a contextual advertising technology that adds advertising links where none existed (Kontera, for those interested).
We DO attempt to credit all sources of the stories and the blogs we receive our stories from all have links (we believe!) in the left-column.
Now…with all of that being said…
Not everyone understands RSS, so, IF you own any content that is being syndicated on ProCopywriters.com and you would like that content removed or you no longer wish us to syndicate your content, simply contact us using the form on the web site and we will gladly comply. Please also make sure you leave a valid way for us to contact you.
This goes for you, too, John! If you have any issues, I believe simple communication will address them to your satisfaction.
We do apologize for any confusion while we are working on this new project and certainly didn’t intend to pass of anyone else’s content as our own.
Best wishes for success!
Jon Castleman
President
ProCopywriters.com
Jon,
It is you who does not understand the rights of RSS. You DO NOT have the right to republish my work (or anyone else’s work) without my permission.
Additionally:
You did not include links back to the source material.
Your “new” blog includes archives dating back to 2006.
You do not in any way state that the content is republished from other sources and is not created by you.
What you are doing IS NOT an accepted practice on the web. I will not be the last to take issue with what you are doing and I do not feel your theft of other people’s content is a private matter. If you thought I would keep your theft private, you REALLY don’t understand the concept of blogging.
John,
I don’t wish to enter into an “e-debate” here on your blog, but I do believe your are mislead (and perhaps, that’s our fault!).
If you wish to discuss this to see if we can come to some mutual understanding, please feel free to contact me personally (if you email me, I will happily provide a toll-free number).
If you wish us to remove your content, please simply take me up on my offer above and just request it in writing and it will be done.
I am really trying to help!
Jon
Jon,
A. I’m sure you don’t want an “e-debate” since you haven’t got a leg to stand on.
B. If you haven’t figured out by now that I don’t want my articles on your site, then I don’t know what else I could say to convince you.
C. You run a site that is supposed to be “the source for freelance writers.” You even advertise freelance jobs. Here’s a thought, if you don’t want to write your own blog, HIRE A FREELANCE WRITER TO DO IT!!!
John,
A. I have plenty of leg to stand on, but don’t have the time to monitor this all day and this will be my last post here, so if I don’t respond to your next one, you’ll understand. However, I do suggest you see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_syndication and pay close attention to the paragraph that begins “Syndication benefits both the websites providing information and the websites displaying it”.
B. I was hoping to have a professional conversation with you and show you the links back to you and make sure you understood how we compile content. I though that if you were a little more educated as to what we were doing, you would see that there is benefit to both of us. Since you are unable or unwilling to simply have a civil discussion, I have removed all of your content and all of your links from our site. If you still see content that you believe is yours, please contact me by email (NOT THROUGH THIS THREAD – I WILL NOT BE MONITORING THIS ANY LONGER!) and we will take care of anything that may have been missed.
C. Funny, but not worthy of a comment.
Best wishes for your success!
Jon Castleman
ProCopywriters.com
Jon,
I’m sure you will be monitoring this site, even if you don’t have the fortitude to keep responding. After all, you were already monitoring my site. Thats how you got my content to begin with.
So, you want to use wikipedia to justify your actions. I think I’ll go with “Plagiarism Today” to make my point:
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2006/08/29/why-rss-scraping-isnt-ok/
“First, the current acronym for RSS is a relatively recent invention. Until RSS 2.0, it stood for “Rich Site Summary”, perhaps a more accurate term. In fact, all RSS 0.91 and 1.0 feeds technically still use that name.”
“Second, even though it does say “syndication”, that does not mean open syndication. Just because a format is easy to syndicate does not imply an open license to do so, much like how an unlocked door does not promise the right to enter a room. The Web is filled with standards that make content portable and none of them carry a blank check for reuse.”
A few more notes, Jon. The fact that you find the idea of paying someone to write a blog for you funny makes it pretty clear to me that you don’t value the work of others.
Also, since you used Wikipedia as a defense. Here is a quote from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splog
“RSS abuse
Full content RSS feeds are actually compounding the splog problem. RSS makes it easy to copy content from genuine blogs. Splog RSS feeds pollute RSS search engines, and are reproduced and propagated around the Net.”
By the way, since you don’t know. Your site is a Splog. Or as defined by Wikipedia in the same article:
“Spam blogs, sometimes referred to by the neologism splogs, are artificially created weblog sites which the author uses to promote affiliated websites or to increase the search engine rankings of associated sites.”
They are posting my material as well. I’ve just published a news bit about this whole scenario and will now be sending them a letter detailing what they may and may not do with my content.
The fact that they are inserting advertising, not including links to the “contributing” sites, and failing to obtain permission makes their practice completely unethical.
-Melissa Donovan
Writing FORWARD
Isn’t this somewhat related to what the WGA is talking about? I think someone needs a lawyer to send a “cease and desist” (sp) letter to Castleman or make him pay residuals for the income your blogs and their advertising generated.
This is so frustrating and I blog about it often. The Performancing wesbite has a legal issues forum which will help you deal with the people who steal content. They also offer stock DMCA letters and all you have to do is fill them out and email them to the necessary parties.
People get away with stealing content because they think we won’t do anything about it. I don’t let them get away with it and you shouldn’t either.
I’m a big fan of your blog, by the way. Thanks for all you do!
Deb
Also, I want to add that RSS was created for the individual to use to aggregate their personal feeds – not for a splogger to steal content. It’s still illegal and unethical and you can send their host a DMCA notice if they refuse to take down your content.
I see Castleman has quickly rectified SOME of his “mistakes” – he’s added correct links just under the titles of just a few of the articles (in dimmed print). However the links inside are still going to advertising and the link to Stumble It (yes it still says “Stumble It”)now goes to StumbleUpon.com.
I say hit him up for the residuals!!!!
Hi Deb,
It is frustrating. What kills me is that he is supposedly a fellow writer but he has no problem stealing people’s work. He runs a site for freelancers but won’t pay for content or (shudder) write it himself. What a loser. At least he pulled my content.
I got a message a few minutes ago from Melissa Donovan at Writing Forward. Turns out I’m on probloggers’ list of “contributors.” No, they never did ask me to contribute to their blog or make me an offer of any kind. I don’t see any of my writing up on their blog yet, but I will send them an email asking to be taken off the “contributors” list and letting them know I’ll be keeping an eye. Thanks again to Melissa for the warning.
Thanks to Melissa I just found out as well (Thanks Melissa for playing Paul Revere on this one). I’m listed as a contributor and my posts are on the site.
I’ll be looking into the resources that Deb suggested, as well as sending a cease and desist letter.
Without including back links, the benefits of RSS are nil. This guy knows exactly what he’s doing, and is trying mighty hard to justify it.
[...] The owner of Procopywriters posted his reasoning at Writer’s Resource Center [...]
I have had a rather interesting e-mail exchange with Castleman. He insists that his intentions were good, and he claims that he thought the links went to the sites (not the feeds). He also removed all of my content from the site within minutes after receiving my letter asking him to do so.
Still, even if it was an honest mistake, I cannot imagine a so-called writer infringing on other writers’ copyright and attempting to earn monetary gain from it in this manner. He seems to believe that it’s not necessary to obtain the writers’ permission, and that a link back is enough payment for posting the work. It’s a shame he didn’t just post excerpts and links, which would have been fine (and legal).
Not to mention the fact that he’s running one of those bidding sites that low ball writers. The writer has to pay a fee if they win a bid. What a total scam. Plus, the terms page states:
“No copyright material can be posted on ProCopyWriters, unless the poster owns the copyright.”
Grrr.
-Melissa Donovan
Writing FORWARD
P.S. Psst, Courtney, it’s Pro Copywriters, not Problogger. Big difference there!
Oops, my P.S. was to Jennifer, not Courtney. Sheesh, what a day.
Thanks for the heads up Melissa, I’d like my material removed as well and will be sending a DMCA notice to request as much.
Deb
We were hit too. Thank you to everyone for the heads up about what is going on (and to those posting in the defense zone in the comments of this thread). Special thanks to Deb Ng for that form. It’ll come in handy. I’ll be dealing with the situation this morning.
I think what stung most is being called a “Contributor”. Funny, I don’t ever recall taking on that “job”.
I’ve sent an email to Brett Trout (http://blog.bretttrout.com/), intellectual property lawyer, to see what he had to say about this. I’m not expecting free advice, but I hope he writes about it on his blog. This guy John obviously has no clue.
PS: How ironic John has a post on his site today about giving your work away for free.
So sorry about that–just realized my mistake. I was a little worked up and my fingers were going faster than my brain there–yes, it is Procopywriters, NOT probloggers–my apologies to probloggers for getting them confused.
Thanks for the tip – I forwarded the info to the owners of FreelanceSwitch.
The ‘Welcome’ message on the left side of your blog doesn’t say that you didn’t write the content, and pitches YOU as a copywriting service. And your blog is full of content written by other people. Poor show, procopywriters.com.
I just sent our close, personal friend Castleman an e-mail telling him to quit using my content, but since I’m in a bad mood this morning, I think I’m still not quite satisfied.
I believe a few e-mails to his Web host would probably better rectify the situation. They’re usually pretty unhappy when one of their customers does this sort of thing.
Castleman is at best an ass, and at worst a dirtbag. It’s ironic that many of my recent blog posts have been about getting paid what you’re worth.
I just congratulated the guy who does Zen Habits on becoming a “contributor”.
(Kinda off subject)
Tom Chandler:
It sounds like you have everything under control. Bad mood or not, I think that your making a good decision.
What he did was wrong and it’s good to let that person know that. Try and have a better day 
John Hewitt:
I don’t know what Zen Habits is, can you explain? I love Zen and am all for it, I’m hoping to get my room in Zen spirits by changing everything into a more relaxed look and a more empty look.
Thank you both and have a wonderful day.
Hi Rianon,
I should stop assuming everyone knows a site just because I do. http://zenhabits.net is an excellent and very popular web site devoted to the concepts zen, minimalization, and living in harmony with your environment. It is an excellent site. I highly recommends it.
Thank you very much and I will definatly check it out!!!
I’m going to stick my neck out here and take Castleman’s side. I’ve posted some comments over at WebWritingInfo and I’ll post some here.
I have emailed Castleman and told him what I wasn’t happy with and what I wanted. I wasn’t rude, I wasn’t confrontational, I was just firm. We’ve sent a few emails back and forth since then and I think that the guy just basically made a mistake, didn’t intend to start a war, and honestly thought what he was doing was okay.
The guy wants to do right by bloggers and find a great solution for all. He originally chose Contributors thinking it was a good name, but is open to calling it “Links” or “Blogroll” or basically whatever fits and pleases the bloggers involved.
He’s also ready to take the blog down if it causes too many problems.
I think that many people tend to get ruffled easily – there are always two sides to a story and often room for compromise. There is so much info on the net that it can be confusing. This guy seems genuine about wanting to benefit the bloggers involved. I think he just screwed up.
He woke up to a fire and comments all over about him. He’s defensive right now – do you blame him? I’ve just come off a blog attack a week ago over something dumb I said. Is it so hard for people to quietly say, “Hey – that’s not right. Could you fix that for us” before leaping in with swords waving?
I really think that there’s room for this situation to be beneficial to everyone. The person is open to discussion – but come on, if bloggers en masse are going to start beating the crap out of him for screwing up, what sort of image does that give us as bloggers? We’re outspoken, direct, defensive, slightly controversial and all that to begin with – are we giving ourselves a bad name by getting so up in arms so quickly?
Yes, the guy made some pretty dumb statements in here. Did he believe what he was saying was right? Sure. Did he afterwards think, “Hey, maybe I’m wrong?” Sure. He put himself on the line, came out, and asked people to contact him. That takes guts. Give the guy a break.
Sometimes, screwups are honest. Not everyone is out to f**k people over. I think both Courtney, Deb Ng and I can all relate to being caught in crossfire we never expected. The instant reaction? To get defensive.
I believe that in this case, the guy is honest about his good intentions. I don’t want to defend everything he did, because I agree he screwed up in many ways, but he didn’t deliberately do so to hurt everyone and be an ass.
I’ve also heard the “RSS is free to everyone spiel” when I had copy taken from my About site. So, that’s a common “excuse” or “idea” or whatever. I think it’s an excuse, honestly. They go back and forth with you and hope you get sick of dealing with them. The website told me I had to block this particular person from my RSS feed! That is- ***I*** had to do the work.
Couldn’t this kind of thing mess up your google rank? Doesn’t Google hate to see doubles?
Hi James,
I respect your opinion on the matter James, and have no intention of flaming you. I am, however, very happy that Jon has “woken up” to a firestorm. When he wrote in, he seemed very determined that what he was doing was right and that I needed to be “educated”. I believe the “freelance” site he runs is exploitative of writers and that his blog, which attaches ads to other people’s content (this is still going on as we speak) is an extension of that violation. I do not believe that his actions occurred out of ignorance, despite his comments to the contrary. Many of his statements (such as the assertion that the blog was started within the past couple days) are clearly false. I feel that, without significant pressure, he would not have made even the relatively minor corrections that he had made.
In short, I feel that this was a public, not a private matter.
James,
I have to agree with everyone.
Do what you have to do.
@ John – I agree. I read the thread. He did something without doublechecking. He got called out on it and went into the battle on instant defensive. I don’t think he was 100% blind or ignorant, but I think he didn’t take a lot of factors into the equation, such as how bloggers would feel to see their content used in such ways.
Maybe he wasn’t being honest to start with; I’m not him, can’t say for sure. But I do think that he’s doing the right thing now, and that helps.
I disagree completely with his use of ads. I’ve told him as much and don’t approve of that at all. Sorry, forgot to point that out.
As for his site, I didn’t look it over, nor do I recommend it in any way. I focused on his blog, period. The age of the blog may or may not be true – it’s very easy to backdate content. Also, all the blog posts I see are recent ones, not old ones. I’m not 100% sure of the startup date, though, so I’ll let this one ride, too.
Never said it was a private matter, btw – it’s public all right. I’m saying that we – as a group – can do better than come in with guns shooting, no matter how much someone else upsets us.
No?
James,
You are right that I could have been nicer about it and other people could have been too. You may not realize, however, how much LESS nice I wanted to be.
James: What was the agreement you came to with Castleman?
John:
John:
Is it stealing if you put a link to the website you got the information from right underneath it? Just wondering……
Hi Riannon,
The accepted practice is to post an excerpt from an original article (usually around a hundred words or less but it could be a little longer) and link back to the source. You can put the link at the beginning or end of the excerpt; it doesn’t matter. I do this quite frequently with job ads. I include some of the description or requirements, but not the application information. For that, they have to follow the link to the source.
John,
Cool thanks, I’ll definatly remember that!!!
I know that there’s allot of information on your site and I was wondering AND thinking after I put my question, up if I could possible, When It happens, Put a link and description of your website on mine? It would be great if I could, that way you get more traffic, good traffic, and people learn more about writing! 
Hi Rainon,
Links and descriptions of other sites are a perfectly acceptable (and encouraged) practice. I welcome links from other sites. I always have.
@ John – Oh, no, man… I know exactly how less nice you wanted to be. I know. And in your position, I would’ve probably reacted the same way or worse. What I was trying to say was that in general, many people tend to get up in arms and take offense to something that either 1) doesn’t involve them or 2) doesn’t give them all the facts. It’s like saying, “You hurt my buddy, so I don’t care about your side of the story, I’m just going to take you down, boy.” When people gang up against one person, I always feel uncomfortable just because I think it’s unfair, y’know? So my comments weren’t really directed at you, but at large.
@JoniB – I asked him to remove any association with my website, all links and any content. He did. I gave him my thoughts on why he upset people and also my suggestions on what might make things better. That was it, basically.
James,
The Internet is prone to a mob mentality. I completely agree.
I’ve always been proud of my site’s community. Other than the occasional anonymous FU, most people concentrate on the positive and try to be helpful. Even when I occasionally stray into controversy (which I normally try to avoid) the community seems to know that this is a site based on helping, not hurting. Even this heated conversation has been pretty civil by web standards.
John, I linked to this post on my blog to warn others of this tragedy.
Thanks Michele. I added a link to your article to my post.
John;
I came up with a term for what happened to you.
I call it contentjacking.
See http://www.writingwhitepapers.com/blog/2007/05/03/contentjacking-the-new-cyber-crime/
Mike
Ok, thank you John
Like I said though it’s not quite up yet but I hope to get it up soon……
Nice Term Michael.
The “blog” portion of procopywriters.com appears to have been taken down. I don’t know what they plan to replace it with, if anything, but lets hope that it is a legitimate blog written by a real person (preferably paid for their efforts). Whatever the case, I hope that puts an end to this issue.
[...] – The Lost Saga Give Thanks and Pass it On – Here to Create Blogroll Additions – Here to Create Procopywriters.com Steals its Content – The Writer’s Resource Center Writing Down the Bones – Twisting and turning Plagiarism or [...]
I don’t know if it’s temporary or permanent, but it look to me as though their blog is offline or gone. Or moved somewhere?
The copyright laws, while they confuse many, are fairly explicit.
Ignorance of those laws, as with other laws, is not a strong defense.
Hire an attorney and check ‘em out. Make thieves pay for their theft.
Stopping a person or two by pointing out the error of their ways is one thing, but making some perp pay for their ill-gotten profits will do much more. It would be nice to see them as a citation in some article regarding intellectual property and the theft thereof.
Just sayin’.
[...] you may recall from my recent kerfuffle with procopywriters.com, I tend to get upset when I see people reusing my site content without my permission, especially if [...]
[...] The owner of Procopywriters posted his reasoning at Writer’s Resource Center [...]