Two people who post at this blog stole your work?

If Google finds that this is the case, Google will freeze their site out of the search engine.  They like original content.  It is sometimes difficult as many of our pages from P2P may be the same!

Janet

Janet,

How would "google" determine which is the ORIGINAL?  To my knowledge, all that the spiders can determine is that it is duplicate content on multiple sites... not which site originated the content.

Ron, I've heard of agents copying "testimonials" and not even changing the agent's name in the testimonial - pitiful, huh?

Ron, I don't know if this will help, but you can try "CopyScape" on your pages http://www.copyscape.com.  I've seen many sites who use this to prevent plagerism.  Let us know if it works.  I've toyed with the idea of using it, but in the end I guess I feel as long as we're out there, it's a risk we take.  Think about the music and movie businesses, they can't control theft and they have a lot more money than we do. Sorry though, you seem like a very genuine person and what those 3 agents did was wrong.

gail ron is a very genuine person and of curse what those 3 agents did was wrong. however when touching this issue I thank ron for bringing this to the upfront since lots of us are not realizing how despicable this is I would not till ron brought it to my attention

on the other hand there is lots of marketing programs some that I myself use like sharper agent creating topics to you to write about most are designed templates coming right out from realty times etc. others created by ghost writers for real cheap there is no reason to steal this stuff however while reading the unique content of rons stuff I could understand the temptation  

If these are p2 memebers and they are taking from you have you contacted p2 about this?  

After any necessary further investigation, I would like to get thier names if possible so that I would AT LEAST be able to release my handshake. Let us know what the P2 response might be.

Jay, off with their web sites, Rogers

Ron,

I truly believe that a person who stoops low enough to steal another's words and thoughts, is a person who does not have the ability to comrehend the joy of creativity.  In my opinion, your reaction to this plagiarism is being felt at a much deeper level than the theives can understand. It made me think of one of the greatest articles ever written in response to a plagiarist.

This is an excerpt from the article, "Message to the Man Who Stole My Words, by Leonard Pitt, a Pulitzer Prize winning  columnist at the Miami Herald.

From Pitts column:

See, my life's goal is to learn to write. And you cannot cut and paste your way to that. You can only work your way there, sweating out words, wrestling down prose, hammering together poetry. There are no shortcuts.

You are just the latest in a growing list of people who don't understand that, who think it's OK to cheat your way across the finish line. I've always wanted to ask one of you: No honor or pride? How do you face your mirror knowing that you are a fraud?

If your boss values his paper's credibility, you will soon have lots of free time to ponder those questions.

But before you go, let me say something on behalf of all of us who are struggling to learn how to write or just struggling to be honorable human beings:

The dictionary is a big book. Get your own damn words. Leave mine alone.

End of Pitts column excerpt.

To read the complete column, you can go to: http://bobbycramer.blogspot.com/2005/06/stealing-soul.html

Sharron

Wow,

Take half a day off and look what happens. Ron, you have every right to be hot under the collar. I for one, love to read your posts.

Ron -

Your Craigslist ad's for "Get the Word Out" were brilliant. Nice work there.

I feel your pain. I've had entire pages ripped off of my site. One agent had the gall to tell me he'd never even been to my site before and practically accused me of stealing the info from him! When I showed them they had requested a document from my site several weeks earlier, and that their page included the same typo that was on my page they finally backed off.

Having content stolen from your site, a blog, or anywhere else sucks, plain and simple. It's no different than having your car stolen from yoru driveway or your house broken in to. It's theft, plain and simple.

Okay..now I am angry!  I just found out that an agent here on this blog as well as the Point2Agent sites, cut and pasted my neighborhood description and put it on her expert page!  I wrote those words on my own, using my firsthand knowledge of the community!  Point 2 agent has assured me that they will remove the duplication of the neighborhood for the next auction period, but they "do not police their agents".  I called her this afternoon and requested that she remove the content or I would have no choice but to file a grievance to the state board.  She acted as if she had no idea what I was talking about.

As REALTORS we are supposed to hold ourselves to a high code of ethics!

It's not just text that is freely taken by others, it's also photographs.  I can't count the number of times that I've seen our exact photos appearing on other sites (excluding those who were granted authorization to use them).  It's frustrating, but I agree with Gail's suggestion about Copyscape...I, myself, utilize the Digimarc service to track all of my photos and have a notice posted on our site informing visitors of this.  I can now easily locate and contact any who use my work without my permission by running a report.  It's not 100% protection but it's a start and so far seems to be serving as somewhat of a deterrent.