Monday, September 10, 2007

The Copyscape Miracle

I think Copyscape is an amazing site and a concept that is revolutionizing the way people write for the web. Instead of clients worrying that something they are buying might be stolen, either whole or in part, they can check it quickly via Copyscape. Try to wrap your mind round it- it checks billions of websites and lets you know where in the world anything you have ever written can be found duplicated.

I love that clients can use it to make sure my items are original. The miracle of Copyscape means that clients will know immediately if anything was copied. It gives clients confidence and lets writers know if their work has been stolen.

Case in point: here is an article that I wrote for How to Do Things: http://www.howtodothings.com/hobbies/a4439-how-to-write-an-editorial.html

Here it is reproduced by someone else who put their name on it: http://climatechallenge.org/wiki-sources/media-guide/op-eds

If you will notice, the thief is far from crafty- the date that I wrote it and the date that he stole it are clearly visible. I wrote it three months before he says he did. Not too smart. Why do people even do this? Surely they are aware of the miracle that is Copyscape. And if they aren't, they are about to find out.

2 comments:

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

[repost, I had to fix an error]

I saw your thread about this at http://www.wahm.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=449014
("Any pointers on how to get them shut down? I can't figure out who their service provider is.")

Contact information for the "author":

Central Coalition Staff
Arthur Coulston
Digital Organizer
Cell-phone:415.828.1354
Land-line:202.536.2845


That is the Washington DC office's land phone number, but his cell phone is a San Francisco number.

Coalition Offices

Washington, DC
Phone: 202.536.2845
Mailing:
1616 P St. NW
Suite 340
Washington, DC 20036

San Francisco
Phone: 415.575-5531
Mailing:
2017 Mission St
2nd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94110


Also, he registered the domain himself, which reveals his email address to be arthur.coulston at gmail.com

So you could send cease-and-desist letters and/or make phone calls.

Regarding the service providers...

ClimateChallenge.org is using "Civic Space On Demand" as their host and content management platform.

http://www.civicspacelabs.org/
CivicSpace, LLC
660 4th Street, Suite 141
San Francisco, CA 94107
T. (415) 992-8124


CivicSpace, in turn, is running their servers through a San Francisco ISP called "Monkey Brains".

http://www.monkeybrains.net/
address: 984 Folsom St.
city: San Francisco
postal-code: CA 94107
country: US
phone: +1.4159741313

"Your primary resource for support should be email to help(@)monkeybrains.net. Remove the () marks. If you cannot email or are not getting a response from email feel free to call 415.974.1313 [the office number]: Monday through Friday 10am to 6pm."

"MonkeyBrains is a small ISP started by me, Rudy Rucker, Jr.
Alex Menendez and I do most of system administration. Rafael Nunez takes care of the hardware and bulids servers."


(CivicSpace is probably on a colocated server at their datacenter -- "Colocation means that your server will be plugged directly into the MonkeyBrains network. Your computer will live at a MonkeyBrains facility - not at your business or house.")

So, there you go. Try contacting the ClimateCoalition people first, then move up to complaining about them to CivicSpace, and then try to get MonkeyBrains to gripe at them if needed.