Some are useful sites, say, drawing news content on a particular subject, and others are sites which abuse the hard work of others. One such site is one that has appeared in the last couple of days is “all-things-lanzarote.com” (no link for obvious reasons)… I should point out this imposter is nothing at all to do with the established site allthingslanzarote.com.

This site has been aggregating content from our Lanzarote Relocation site, and have also got the backs up of at least two other well known sites on the the island, one of which it would appear the domain name is emulating. I’ve not mentioned the other sites as I haven’t asked them for permission at this stage to include their names. However, they will be made aware of this post and a more than welcome to comment here with anything they wish to say on this matter.

It is possible to leave a comment on the site that has copied our content, but I’m guessing the comment I made will not last very long … Here it is…

Paul – put very simply. Your lifting of our content breaches all of the unambiguous copyright notices at the bottom of all of our sites, and those of our clients. I ask, very simply, and very clearly, that you remove ALL duplicate content and ensure ours and our clients sites are not ‘farmed’ in future. Is this clear enough?

I reiterate Paul (if that is your real name of course). All of our own – and our clients sites, carry clear and unambiguous copyright notices. You have not been granted any permission to reproduce our content in any way shape or form.

Your activities, now I and the other involved have brought our disapproval to your notice, are, on this basis illegal under the terms of the Berne Convention.

I would normally have mailed the site owner. But as might be expected by someone who is unscrupulous enough to steal the hard work of others. The site owner has not included an email address, and has chosen to hide his true identity behind the privacy options on the who is information.

Domain Name: all-things-lanzarote.com

Registrar: WILD WEST DOMAINS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.wildwestdomains.com
Referral URL: http://www.wildwestdomains.com
Status: clientDeleteProhibited, clientRenewProhibited, clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited

Expiration Date: 2011-01-28
Creation Date: 2010-01-28
Last Update Date: 2010-01-28

ALL-THINGS-LANZAROTE.COM WHOIS

Updated: 16 hours ago
Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States

Registered through: Cheap-DomainRegistration.com
Domain Name: ALL-THINGS-LANZAROTE.COM
Created on: 28-Jan-10
Expires on: 28-Jan-11
Last Updated on: 28-Jan-10

Administrative Contact:
Private, Registration  @domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599      Fax — (480) 624-2598

Technical Contact:
Private, Registration  @domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599      Fax — (480) 624-2598

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1921.HOSTGATOR.COM
NS1922.HOSTGATOR.COM

Information Updated: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 19:18:33 UTC

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1. Theft of copyright content
2. Choosing a Domain Name – 6 Tips
3. Content and Relevant Linking

We’ve recently written on this site, and our site about moving to Lanzarote. about Geoff Holt’s bid to become the first quadriplegic sailor to cross the Atlantic unassisted after we met him at the Rubicon Marina in Playa Blanca. Over dinner one evening this came up in conversation – a couple of days later Geoff and his PR company asked me to take the official leaving pictures of the crew and the boat to be distributed that day to the press.

I don’t normally do things like this, but as it was Geoff, I found it hard to refuse – he has a way with gentle persuasion! Of course I was happy to give my time to help… If I do do photography for someone else – it tends to be stuff like this I won’t charge for, either not for profit or charity work. (That doesn’t mean this is an invitation to anyone starting up a ’save the cockroach’ campaign or whatever to call me – it’s not going to happen! I’m usually far to busy and made an exception in this instance )…

I have to say – I did enjoy doing it for a change. And, once a photographer – always a photographer. I still get a kick out of seeing my work in print in the national press and around the Internet with a credit.

As a side note – Perhaps my original education might explain to people why I have a tendency to be so vehement about defending the copyright and intellectual property of Gandy-Draper when our work and photographs are stolen off ours, and our clients sites…

Anyway – if you want to follow Geoff Holt’s progress you can do so on his website through his regular blogs about the trip.

Related posts:

1. Geoff Holt’s Atlantic crossing
2. Plagiarism in Lanzarote
3. Happy New Year!

It’s a small island – so plagiarism isn’t that hard to stumble on here…

This one completely takes the biscuit for bare faced cheek – it’s lazy, it’s unprofessional and frankly – pathetic. (I’ve twice contacted the site owner without a response…)

Text from our Gandy-Draper home page (I’m very familiar with it as I wrote it when we set up the site soon after arriving on the island):

“Our working methods and systems make it possible for us to work with clients anywhere in the world.”

“Our aim is to provide an unrivalled standard of service to our clients, going that extra mile to make the experience of working with us something special.”

Text from www.aaronsananes.com/services a ‘competitor’ (whose site has had various incarnations, this being the most recent)

“My working methods and systems make it possible for me to work with clients anywhere in the world.”

“My aim is to provide an unrivalled standard of service to all of my clients, going that extra mile to make the experience of working with us something special.”

Spot the difference…? Yep – simply the change of  ‘our’ to ‘my’. (His command of grammar doesn’t run to the distinction between ‘us and ‘me’). It’s laughable really…

Since being on the island approaching three years ago here’s some other examples;

• Our Canary Nightlife site has spawned a number of imitators – a minor annoyance because these sites die when whoever sets them up actually realises we have got as far as we have only through hard work (Internet novices don’t realise that running a website takes as much work as any other business)
• It’s very frequent that text turns up from Canary Nightlife – click here to see how we dealt with one particular incident (if you are having such problems there are a few tips on dealing copyright infringement and  an email template you can feel free to adapt to your own purposes)
• A site built by one of our clients was completely copied with only minor changes – click here to see that story
• Occasionally during the course of building a site, we provide some photographs for our clients provide some photography – these have then turned up in magazines and on websites. The thing about photography in particular is that the photographer – me in this case – always owns the copyright unless there is something in writing to say otherwise.
• We have noticed someone employ a strap line we have used for a long time on their website “Superior web design in Lanzarote” – Google the phrase if you are interested…
• We’ve had more than one of our site concepts copied and then our clients approached – either using our names in a derogatory manner, or even implying some kind of approval or connection with us…
• We’ve had feedback from various clients and friends of a number of people trying to cast aspersions on us – for instance giving false information on our pricing or levels of service for their own ends, be they competitors or other business with their own agenda. One example being a person who did some work for us and blatantly lying in attempting to take some work for herself which she then promptly screwed up. Unbelievably she then phoned us for help – not knowing what she had done we actually mistakenly spent time fixing it for her – won’t fall for that one again!
• Simon Harris (a Google search will soon show that this man has been accused many times of being a serial fraudster and con man) and his Lanzarote Society site appear to have deceptively tried to imply our involvement and ride our reputation – WE WOULD NEVER GET INVOLVED WITH THIS SITE OR THESE PEOPLE!
• And of course there is always my old friend Cyprus Bob who had a phase of abusing us on here and my personal blog under a fake ID. We know exactly who it was…

I could go on… No doubt if you are reading this you are getting the picture…

What is it with people that they feel the need to mimic, to copy, to ride our damage our reputation – one we have worked hard to achieve. Are they really dumb enough to not realize that we will defend it!

The thing about this island is that this is what happens once people percieve you as ‘doing well’.  I just wish people would actually go out and use their imagination and do something original instead – but lets face it – it’s not going to happen is it!

It’s a fact of life in Lanzarote – as everywhere else… And as times get harder – if people have this perception of us,  it is probably going to happen more and more…

Related posts:

1. Plagiarism and Copyright on the Internet
2. The Lanzarote Society

I know, I´ve been talking about this a lot recently – but it’s an important issue. Today, eagle eyed Sally from Sail Lanzarote S.L. spotted in her stats some suspicious activity, and asked us to look into it… This afternoon she came back with a web address – which she again found in the stats – that had clearly plagiarized their website.

They had downloaded the site using FrontPage and changed the images and made minor alterations to the text. It was a clear breach of copyright – all our sites and those of our clients carry a copyright warning.

So, on this page are the two screens grabs for you to compare…

Was the site copied? We reckon clearly, and as every occasion in these circumstances we were prepared to go as far as legal action to deal with this if necessary.

Whilst we find it somewhat flattering that people like our work enough to copy it, and it also being a testament to Sally and Paul’s writing skills – it is not acceptable to steal copyrighted materials, so we took action.

Here’s the email we sent…

You have blatantly copied a website designed for one of our clients www.saillanzarote.com – in addition to copying much of the text you have also copied the web page design for which our client paid for. The original site has a clear copyright notice which you have breached.

In addition to being unprofessional, lazy and ill mannered, to steal text and design in this manner is a breach of international copyright law as outlined under the Berne Convention.

May I suggest very strongly you remove this text immediately and desist from using the original design or we and or our clients (a registered Spanish S.L. company) will no option other than to pursue any means available to us to have it removed. In addition to facing possible action from our lawyer in La Palma, we fully intend to bring your illegal actions to the attention of Google, your hosts, the SE domain registrar, and to the attention of the general public via any and all online media available to us.

I expect the content to be removed within 24 hours and an apology to my client for your blatant abuse of their hard work and investment of time and money spent on their business. Please, make no mistake that action will be taken if you do not comply within 24 hours this is not an idle threat.

At the time of writing  the pages have now been removed (or possibly renamed – so we will be checking in the future) – so no need for me to name names. 

It will be interested to see if the apology is also forthcoming? We’ll keep you posted…

Related posts:

1. Theft of copyright content
2. Plagiarism and Copyright on the Internet
3. Plagiarism in Lanzarote

Only yesterday we had three instances of this…

1. A short excerpt of text from our Lanzarote Nightlife website had been taken, altered very slightly and re-used. We contacted the people in question who dealt with the matter professionally and quickly and of course apologized. It seems that a former member of staff had originally copied our text, there is no way they could have known this. So – hats off to their response… No need to name names – we were happy with the response.

2. Far more maliciously, some idiots who have set up a WordPress blog, and recently spammed our Canary Nightlife forum with a link to their own forum with a total of 3 member – yes I did say 3 – took several pages word for word from our website and cut and pasted it onto their very amateurish looking blog. To say we were not happy is an understatement. It was clear from these people´s previous actions in spamming our forum there would be no reasoning with them.So, we approached WordPress directly with our complaint. Then we posted this comment to their blog….

In addition to spamming our forum recently. It now seems that your Playa Blanca and Puerto del Carmen page content has been either lifted from our pages directly or copied from articles we have published on Ezinearticles.com – and breached their terms by not providing acknowledgements to the author and our website.

Your actions have been reported to WordPress, and we are currently in the process of reporting you to Google in order to get your site blacklisted for stolen content. We are also reporting your actions to Ezinearticles.com and we will be discussing this with our legal representative in Las Palmas at the earliest possible opportunity.

In addition to being unprofessional, lazy and ill mannered, to steal text in this manner is not only a breach of the terms and conditions of the sites involved – including Wordpress – it is a breach of international copyright law as outlined under the Berne Convention.

May I suggest you remove our text immediately or we will no no option other than to pursue any means available to us to have it removed. You have been warned.

We got a fantastic response from WordPress – within an hour – who duly investigated and removed the posts in question pretty much immediately (it was a clear breach of their terms and conditions). They also assure us that the user has been instructed to contact them following an investigation – it’ll be interesting to see if they get banned. In summary – very annoyed with the morons – very impressed with WordPress. Obviously we won’t name names with these people either – we wouldn’t want to give them a link!

3. In digging around – whilst in this mood – we found several reproductions of articles written by Elle and posted to EzineArticles.com. These are very similar to our site text – but with a few words changed (duplicate content will penalize your own site with Google) – the terms of use for these articles are that if you wish to reproduce them on your own site you must include the footer and links specified by the author as an acknowledgement. The articles we found weren’t just on silly little website as in number 2 – some of them were on very well known and well respected websites! We will in due course report their misuse to EzineArticles – as we know from experience they take this kind of content theft very seriously.

The bottom line is – if you spend time writing original content why should other benefit from you work! Our advice to anyone with a website is ALWAYS include a Copyright notice, and ALWAYS act on what you find…

Related posts:

1. More copyright theft…
2. Plagiarism and Copyright on the Internet
3. Stolen content…

Now, here’s a short story for you by way of example; After a somewhat ‘entertaining’ evening I knocked together a little t-shirt design for a bit of fun on a site I use – I am not going to mention the site here, for the simple reason that despite feeling let down by them, it remains one of my favourite sites and I have no wish to get myself banned…

This t-shirt – drop your politics and personal opinions here – was a mickey take of the (in my opinion) Diana inquest fiasco. Having been subjected on a Lanzarote forum to an ongoing, and ludicrous debate, from a number of conspiracy theorists I decided to have a joke with a couple of friends.

If you’re easily offended by comments on this topic – look away now. The image appears lower down the page…

In bullet points, here is the chain of events;

• The t-shirt design was uploaded to the site in question on 6th April
• It received a number of positive comments from like minded individuals who took it in the vein it was intended over the next couple of days
• About 6 or 7 days later, as I recall, someone sent me the address to this article from the Daily Telegraph in Australia about an Australian t-shirt company called Goat Boy who had seemingly copied the idea
• Strictly speaking this is not a breach of copyright as nobody owns ‘words’ or the image of Diana, but for a company claiming to be ‘original’ it’s pretty poor form
• A number of other comments arrived in the ensuing couple of days which led me to believe that other users of the site saw what this company had done as a copy, and a very nice lady in Australia approached them on my behalf to ask. They responded that they had been sitting on the design for five years? (does that really sound very likely?)
• Rather perturbed that what I had done as essentially a joke was getting mass media coverage on TV and in the press, and being used for financial gain, I decided to write to both the Daily Telegraph and The Today Tonight show – no replies
• To get Goat Boy to crawl out of the woodwork (they had already been given my email address and had ignored mail from me) I posted another t-shirt design on the site accusing them by name of stealing ideas, the description said that I would happily remove it if they provided the documentary proof they claimed to have
• Sure enough Goat Boy did crawl out from under their stone, got that t-shirt removed – which, frankly I expected, and responded with a comment that they had this same documentary proof (calling me a ‘whinging Pom’ – really guys for someone who sells themselves as ‘original’ it´s not very imaginative is it!)
• I responded telling them I would remove my original design when I’d seen that proof, by this time I’m actually getting bored of the whole thing – but I’m not really the type of person to let things drop
• Of course I have not had a response
• From this point the website removed my original, saying that I had breached copyright in using the image I had – which is not the case – it was taken from the public domain and manipulated before use
• The website again passed my details on to Goat Boy to allow them to contact me – of course they have not.

So here it is the design on the t-shirt….

…and here is the link to the Goat Boy version that I allege was an imitation. (I’ve refrained from using a thumbnail so as not to get accused of ’stealing’ it from their website)! I wonder where they sourced their image?

I’ll leave it to our viewers to judge for themselves whether they think I’m right or not here…

Goat Boy (Peter isn’t it?) – if you are reading this my offer still stands, I am happy to remove this post when you supply me verifiable copies of the documentation you have claimed on three occasions to have. I can’t really say fairer than that can I? Do feel free to ‘whinge’ about my allegation in the comments on this site as I am happy to enter into either open or private discussion…

Related posts:

1. Plagiarism in Lanzarote
2. More copyright theft…
3. Theft of copyright content