You know I'm a total fan of Twitter! I really loved it yesterday.
You can always get up-to-date information on anything and everything, free resources, food fights AND the best part? Get "notified" of Expert Niche Leaders who STEAL article content! That's right. One of the people I was following retweeted Al Ferretti and that is how I found they ripped off my article.
TwitterWatchDog.com founders Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen stole my article on 8 Key Twitter Networking Tips You Must Know
Since they have edited, here is their cached version. 7 Tips for Networking on Twitter.
This wasn't a newbie mistake because Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen are far from being new online. This is just blatant laziness.
After I and a couple of people left comments on their blog (which of course it was never published) and I contacted them via their blog I woke up this morning to an apology email. *Cough* *Cough* Are you freakin' kidding me? A ghostwriter?? Yeah they blamed it on their ghostwriter! Of course when article content stealers lie, they get slightly mixed up...they blame their ghostwriter, but then they refer to themselves. I don't buy their lying BS. They stole it and they know it!
Then they said they see the commonalities between the two articles??? Are you freakin' for real??? They only spent 100 minutes and 12 seconds on my forum last night reading my article. I only had to read a line to know they stole my content. Making minor modifications on my article is still plagiarism!
Hey Dudes, you have been busted!
If you're on Twitter and you're an article writer, I encourage you to follow @SkeeterHansen and @AlFerretti. Why? Because they ripped off my article and they could be ripping yours off too!
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10 comments:
Time for me to open my mouth! yeah me!
Last night I was totally disgusted when I saw these two so-called 'niche experts' tweeting this link aka blog post around on twitter. Apparently, they had no idea that this information would get back to Sophia.
*tip* when you lie, steal and cheat, you are always found out in the long run.
Anyway, I immediately knew after reading 3 sentences that it was stolen article content from my friend and business partner Sophia. I immediately left 2 comments on their blog about this stolen content and informed that its illegal and a crime to steal copyrighted material/article from an author and publish it as your own. (even with a few minor modifications).
My blog comments were never published because they knew their blog followers would see that they were thieves. Instead, my comments were deleted. In my comments, I provided a link to the original article which shows the date and time of the publishing. This was CLEARLY way before their blog post.
Shortly after that, Skeeter follows me on twitter for approximately 2 hours. I am sure it was because I was sending out tweets left and right about article content stealers. I personally have no problem about publically exposing folks who steal article content from others when I got the "PROOF" in hand.
Sophia quickly captured the pages from google archive because we knew these fakes would be deleting or modifying their posting and we wanted to be able to provide proof that these blog owners rip off content from other authors.
Fast forward to this morning, I also got a copy of the email from the two gentlemen in question because I was supporing my business partner and friend Sophia and I had contact both of them about the stolen content.
As a victim of stolen content myself, I am pretty versed in the copyright law these days.
Anyway, I do not believe for one minute that it was their 'ghost writer' who stole the content from Sophia because at one point in their email...it sounded like a VA writing it and then in another area of the email it referenced them (as if they were writing it).
However...with all of that being said, we have indeed received your apology. But...the proper and professional thing to do would be to publish a professional explaination and apology on your blog where the stolen content was published.
Furthermore...those who run around and profess to be niche leaders or marketing/twitter guru's definately know better than to steal content.
Totally shameful behavior in my opinion.
Shelly
Hey Shelly,
I want you to know how much I appreciate your support. I know you're very familiar with this type of thing since you've had many people steal your articles.
What is wrong with people? Stealing content is never a good thing. You're not helping anyone. You make yourself look like a freakin' unprofessional idiot. You automatically lose credibility and trust. Where's the gain??
And then they blame it on someone else. Typical classic behaviour of content stealers.
You'd think since there are two that there be one idiot, but no, they are both IDIOTS.
Just makes you wonder Sophia how much of their blog content is really original material?
I was looking last night to see if I can find more stolen content.
I don't believe for one minute they only stole my article. I bet there are others.
From past experiences...once a stealer, always a stealer and if they have/had one stolen article, there are others too. I'm almost certain of it. It can't be one time deal thing. Nope. I don't believe that at all.
You two forgot the part where they said that to avoid confict they have chosen to update the post "7 tips for networking on Twitter" with their personal style. So in essence they think it's okay to just grab content from anywhere as PLR to regurgitate back out as their original work.
And they have the nerve to represent themselves as experts? That's a pet peeve of mine!
You're absolutely right Lauren. They did say that in the you, Shelly and I received.
Totally pathetic. Total cop out.
What really surprises me is...why blame a ghost writer? I mean really... if you are a NICHE expert and a guru, why not write your own damn content? Do their followers know that their words are not their words?
On our Niche Blog (Sophia & I's professional home biz blog) you will find everything on that site is 'our' words. Not one damn thing on that blog was written by a ghost writer. We do not mislead folks.
I am going to add something to my comments.
Al emailed me (us) during the night and I got the email this morning when I got online. I must say, I appreciate his email and the details that he gave in the email. I think it is fantastic that he is communicating with Sophia and has reached out to her to resolve the matter. I give kudos to Al for doing that.
When problems arise in life or in business, if the 2 parties involved accept responsibility, apologize and work hard together to resolve them...all things can work out for the better. At least that is my motto in both business and in personal relationships.
Shel
First impression was terrible wrong and bad with stealing my article.
Kudos to Al for emailing us after we left comments on his blog which of course were unpublished. First email wasn't all that great as he blamed a ghostwriter.
Second email he still blamed the ghostwriter for the mistake.
After getting some other info from some other people I gave him a chance to prove himself so when he followed me on Twitter I reciprocated.
Bad idea! Regardless of whether it was an automatic reply message for welcoming his new followers, he had a CHOICE on what to put on his "welcome" message and he chose to spam his new followers.
I don't tolerate that kind of crap and I unfollwed him.
When will these so-called "Experts" learn??
Sophia,
I am sorry that Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hanson stole your article. I totally agree with you that if these so called guys are experts than why use a ghostwriter?? The funny thing is you can't even really say that they are expert article thieves because they got caught! LOL! Kudos to Shelly for letting you about this! Kudos also go out to you Sophia for getting this out in the open! Hopefully, this will help to get the word out there about these guys and their article stealing.
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