Plagiarism on a global scale
They Cloned the entire ILLUMINATION!
Is this the last straw or a blessing in disguise?
I received an interesting post by one of our writers on our Slack channel.
The post included a link to a cloned copy of our beloved publication.
Then the link produced a deluge of emails from hundreds of concerned writers.
I had mixed feelings and thoughts. Firstly, I was overwhelmed with the inquiries about this issue that came out of the blue.
As an optimist, the initial feeling was pride when I saw the Japanese version of ILLUMINATION. But it was false proud!
Perhaps, ILLUMINATION made a global impact and was deemed it worth cloning, I thought.
Further challenges came from the thoughts of creative writers. Sentiments reflected the echo of the sky falling down in the deluge of emails depicting the emotion of a stolen child.
My initial good feelings transitioned to a sour taste.
Stolen content raised disgust, rage, disappointment, and unhappiness for writers.
As a content developer myself, I understand the concerns and don’t undermine these emotions resembling the pain of a lost child.
Some writers initially informed it was only ILLUMINATION that was cloned. However, when I skimmed through the site, I noticed that ILLUMINATION was not the only cloned publication on the list.
Our sister and brother publications such as The Partner Pen, The Bed Influence, The Ascent, Publishous, Towards Data Science, Assemblage, The Narrative, The Writing Cooperative, and several more were cloned.
The leading site was in Japanese. However, the site includes more languages.
In addition to publishing the content in English, Medium publications and articles were translated into several other languages such as Spanish, German, French, Thai, Portuguese, Russian, Vietnamese, Italian, Korean, Turkish, Indonesian, and Polish.
Yes, ironically, ICHI.PRO also declared copyright for Medium content.
After discussion on new policies of Medium, some writers were asking about whether Medium possibly allowed our content to the ICHI.PRO.
I refrained from answering this question in email inquiries as there is no data and no indication of this thought. And the likelihood in my risk analysis depicted zero considering the stringent copyright policies of Medium. In my opinion, ICHI.PRO might have created the copyright notice to disguise its fake nature for a global audience.
One of the writers even left an alerting comment on my Medium policy update story yesterday.
As a duty of call, I sent a message in Japanese and English to the domain registrar.
親愛なるマダム様 私は媒体のイルミネーションの出版物の所有者です。 ICHI.PROサイトは、作家の名前を取り除いてコンテンツを共有することにより、私たちの資料をシンジケートしました。この組織に資料を公開する権利を与えませんでした。この状況に対処する方法についてのガイダンスを提供していただけますか。 Dear Sir Madam, I am the owner of ILLUMINATION publication on Medium. ICHI.PRO site syndicated our materials by removing the writers’ name and sharing the content. We did not give rights to this organization to publish our materials. Could you please guide how to handle this situation?
I experienced cloning of my books on the dark net, which initially hurt my feelings but then turned out to be a blessing in disguise, causing them to be the best sellers in their categories as my name appeared in cloned copies.
However, I haven’t experienced a content publication be cloned before, so not sure whether it can be characterized as the last straw breaking the camel’s back for content owners or the blessing in disguise for global visibility. Time will tell!
We enjoy syndicating our materials to external sources (e,g, Flipboard and Pinterest) with links to our Medium stories read on our platform giving great opportunity to writers and Medium platform growth. However, the ICHI.PRO syndication is problematic.
A painful issue occurs for this illegal syndication.
The issue with this syndication/aggregation is eliminating the names of writers giving no credit to the owners of the content.
Let alone compensation, even for the donated content, writers still need and expect recognition for their intellectual property.
This situation flooded my mind with many difficult questions.
The only questions I would pose to my readers in this story:
What does this mean to us as writers, and what can we do about it?
So many unknowns at this stage.
Thank you for reading my perspectives.
2022, it looks like they finally cloned my personal publication EUPHORIA too. I hope they improve their physical and mental health and stop stealing content from content platforms.
Guiding Articles for New Writers
What I Learned After Publishing 1,010 And Reading 100,000 Stories
I’m a Writer/Editor: Why the Heck I Built An Affiliate Marketing Business After the Age of 60
Sample Health Improvement Articles for New Readers
Defeat Metabolic Syndrome and Slim Down Waistline with Three Tips
Why 442 Million People Live Diabetic and What We Can Do About it
Six Tips to Prevent Brain Atrophy and Lower the Risks of Mental Disorders
What Can We Do About NCDs Killing 41 Million People Yearly?.
Reduce the Risks of Neonatal Disorders to Prevent Infant Mortality.
Reduce the Risks of Major Diseases with Healthy Lifestyle Habits
I also write about valuable nutrients. Here are the links for easy access:
Boron, Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, and other nutrients that might help to improve metabolism and mental health.
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Thank you for subscribing to my content. I share my health and well-being stories in my publication, Euphoria. If you are new to Medium, you may join by following this link.
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I publish my lifestyle, health, and well-being stories on EUPHORIA. I wrote several articles on major diseases and valuable nutrients for health. My focus is on metabolic, cellular, mitochondrial, and mental health. Here is my collection of Insightful Life Lessons from Personal Stories.
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