Sadly, it has come to our attention that there is a no-good, shifty person out there, stealing our content and claiming it as their own. What’s worse is that this person is not only reproducing our information word for word on one site, but on many websites. This person is selling electronic cigarettes directly out of China and has absolutely no regard for hard-work and respectable business practices.
Now, we are not ones to normally write about this stuff, but here at Instead we believe that in the electronic cigarette industry, there is more than enough business to go around. However, it concerns us that competing companies would take our content. This does not do the Electronic Cigarette industry any good.
Here is the evidence of our claim:
First, this website (www.e-cig.org) was first created in August of 2007. Our homepage content “The electronic cigarette is a revolutionary device that acts much the same way an ordinary tobacco cigarette would, but rather than toxic smoke, it produces vaporized nicotine…” was written on August 22, 2007. Our “content thief” unfortunately, does not seem to be aware that even though she/he has post dated all of our content or “their blog posts” to show up as August of 2007, her/his URL’s were not created until May of 2008. Hmmmm….
This is causing several problems. The first being that we are forced to contact innocent people who are lifting our content not knowing that it is copy written as original content on www.e-cig.org. Our content was apparently so good, that people, Internet wide are using our words, verbatim. The second problem being that original content is in fact the property of the person who wrote it and therefore, it is illegal to copy someone’s work. Changing a word or adding your phone number to someone’s article does not constitute original work.
Now, since the above is really all that anyone needs to know that this particular business is up to no good, we will cite the following articles that this person just could not keep their hands off of!
Our content: Top Ten Places to Use Your Electronic Cigarette
Infringing Web Pages: http://www.e-cigarette-global.com/top-10-places-to-use-your-electronic-cigarette-b270
Our content: Homepage of E-cig.org
Infringing Web Pages: http://www.e-cigarette-global.com/about-e-cigarettes-electronic-cigarettes-t46
Infringing Web Pages: http://www.e-cigarette-blog.com/about-e-cigarettes-electronic-cigarettes-t46
Infringing Web Pages: http://www.e-cigarette-mart.com/cms/about-e-cigarettes-electronic-cigarettes-t46
Our content: Electric Cigarette or Electronic Cigarette
Infringing Web Pages: http://www.e-cigarette-global.com/electric-cigarette-or-electronic-cigarette-t271
Our photo: Mini Electronic Cigarette Photo
Infringing Photos: http://www.e-cigarette-mart.com/super-electronic-cigarette-deluxe001-blue-device-starter-kit-p-63.html
http://www.e-cigarette-mart.com/index.php?main_page=product_reviews_info&products_id=72&reviews_id=45
http://www.e-cigarette-mart.com/index.php?main_page=product_reviews_info&products_id=63&reviews_id=40
http://www.e-cigarette-mart.com/index.php?main_page=product_reviews_info&products_id=63&reviews_id=39
http://www.e-cigarette-mart.com/index.php?main_page=product_reviews_info&products_id=63&reviews_id=38
***Please note: we do have the original file from the photographer as proof this was lifted from our site and tagged as their own.
The owner of the above sites also owns several other sites but we figured we had enough content infringement with just the three above mentioned sites to follow through with our claim. So, SmokeyTom, Bob, Yongmei Chen or whoever you claim to be: Please be advised that we are onto you and we are taking the necessary actions to ensure that you cannot do this to other businesses. This is unacceptable and you should be ashamed. As we know you are constantly visiting our website, you will surely get your copy of this very post! You have ignored our requests to either take down our content or give us credit!
For anyone looking for electronic cigarettes: There are many online distributors who are good, decent, hardworking folks who will treat you right and not try to claim to be more than one person. Whether you choose to do business with us here at Instead Electronic Cigarettes or not, please know that we do not have it out for our competitors. We participate with them in forums across the Internet and find, that as a whole, they are great people who share the same philosophy as us: The electronic cigarette is a great alternative to smoking for many long time smokers.
With that said, others such as the owner of the websites below are obviously unethical based on their disregard for others content, images, and video.
http://www.e-cigarette-mart.com
http://www.e-cigarette-blog.com
http://www.e-cigarette-global.com
http://ecigarettes.offerchina.com/
http://www.e-cigs.org
If you want to buy an electronic cigarette, we recommend you do it from a supplier who has the morals to create their own content. If you want to buy from us, visit our electronic cigarette store.
Is this happening to you? Check out our Hub on How To Deal with Content Stealing Online.
UPDATE 12/12/2008: It appears that we have gained the attention of the above person who has gone and made changes to the following websites:
http://www.e-cigarette-mart.com
http://www.e-cigarette-blog.com
http://www.e-cigarette-global.com
We are still waiting on the other two! However, this an excellent step in the right direction and we thank the owner for finally accepting our request! If you are interested in seeing the archived pages of the above three websites, please visit www.archive.org. So even though you can’t see the copied content now as it has been changed, you can see what it did look like!
