Call to Action: help me to fight the evil – STOP PLAGIARISM ON STEEMIT!

in steemit •  7 years ago 

Hi everyone,

Honestly, I hate to write posts like this one but the incidents that recently occurred in my photo contests simply made me take an action.

Steemit-big.png

Despite all the warnings pinned to my contest posts, there has been a significant increase in plagiarism in both photo competitions I run here on Steemit. In fact, there were at least 3 users who submitted stolen images in my contests in the past few days.

These users are @bibkchhetri, @leoumesh and @justdothat.

@bibkchhetri used this stolen image in my Sunday Asian Photo Challenge.

DQmaz6sHpnwDcTs4SFwPTJc1FGDnDiRmKfGxWrvk5qWNJDA.jpg

@leoumesh submitted this image stolen from Shutterstock (https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/beautiful-himalayas-summer-view-travel-nepal-703214101?irgwc=1&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=TinEye&utm_source=77643&utm_term) in my Sunday Asian Photo Challenge.
stock-photo-beautiful-himalayas-summer-view-travel-nepal-703214101.jpg

@justdothat submitted several stolen images of Prague including this one as his own in the Prague Photo Challenge.

I investigated these users ´blogs and found more stolen images in some of their posts such as these:

@bibkchhetri - https://steemit.com/photography/@bibkchhetri/typical-nepali-house-in-ghandruk-might-himalayas-at-the-back

@leoumesh - https://steemit.com/photography/@leoumesh/heaven-is-a-myth-nepal-is-real

@justdothat - https://steemit.com/photography/@justdothat/trip-czech-republic

I think plagiarism is one of the worst offences here on Steemit so I am going to downvote all of the above mentioned posts.

I would also like to ask you, my fellow Steemians, to be more vigilant before upvoting any images that might look suspicious. This goes especially for my regular users who support my challenges on daily basis. I am happy to see great working relationships being built through my blog with many amazing photographers supporting each other. However, if you see a new user submitting suspiciously great photos, feel free to check them out.You can use google image search or tineye.com to verify the authorship of their entries but a simple check of their blogs might reveal a lot about them too.

I am really glad to have so many talented photographers competing fair-play in my photo contests but with the numbers of entries growing consistently, plagiarists might be hiding among them, being unnoticed for an extended period of time. If you find them, don’t hesitate to inform me.

From now on, I am going to make this type of post when necessary. I think it is important to highlight not only the ones that deserve recognition for their great work but also those who need to be pointed out for a behavior that is not acceptable and gives a bad reputation to the whole platform.

It would be great if this post got little more visibility so your upvotes and re-steems would be highly appreciated.

Thank you so much for your cooperation.


Please feel free to check out some of my other recent posts.

Prague/Czech Republic - Tuesday photo challenge - share your personal pictures from your visit to the Czech Republic!

ColorChallenge - Orange Tuesday - @intrepidphotos in 7 World's Continents Photo Challenge!

Price of 40 SBD/200 USD: 7 World's Continents Photo Challenge - MONTHLY WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT - January 2018!

Price of 20 SBD/100 USD: 7 World's Continents photo challenge WEEKLY WINNER announcement #20!


Tomas
CEO & Founder of CGH

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I am sorry to announce another user that I caught today. What is even worse it is somebody that was participating in my challenges for a while now, getting some good rewards from me. That user is @finance2nomad. It seems like from the beginning he was using his own images but started stealing from the internet recently to gain the rewards. I only found out by checking the below image that let me to a web page of one excellent photographer with whom I am having a conversation over the messenger right now confirming he is not on Steemit. Feel free to check his website: http://steinvangrunsvenphotography.nl/ I hope that he will actually join us. That is the real author of the image below.

image.jpeg

Guys I really need your help to fight this so we can all work in peace. I am upvoting this comment so it stays on the top of this thread. Tomas

PS: I am flagging his post right now!!!

Is there a way to identify who the author of the photo is? Because even when we do Google Image Search and Tineye search, most of the times it shows multiple images from different sources.

I think it's an uphill task to find the original owner. Is there a method to find out the real author or photographer?

Willing to help.

Not always. Sometime it requires digging in to find the original author. However, to identify the stolen image is not that difficult. Checking the blog of the person say a lot in the first place. Then google search giving plenty links to the image already rings the bell. Then I do question the person that submitted the image if that is original photo. If it is original then they easily prove it. If not, they either admit or start making excuses which have no solid background. If we all participate we can minimize this kind of behavior. Thank you so much for your help. Tomas

I knew i recognized the name he just won a different contest about 20 minutes ago.

You may want to chat with contest organizer @jamtaylor

Hope you have really verified this offense because i would hate to see someone punished on accident. But assuming you have... and thats to bad because appears he has been playing lots of contests. I wonder if he has done any of our #photogames. In any case only one game you can plagarize so far.

Sometime the verification might take a little time but there is no doubt about this one! Definitely a stolen image without any shame. We all need to be more vigilent and pay more attention. Have a good one. Tomas

This user has placed Third in my contest as well, and I have left notes in several places asking them to address these allegations before I release any winnings.

I see you have the same problem! I guess this type of people will do the same in many different challenges so if we all become little more vigilant then we can at least minimize this. I am going to do those posts little more frequently or even highlight this kind of users at the top of my comment section which should work too. Have a good one and wish you the best of luck! Tomas

I hope you're able to get to the bottom of this one, Tomas, I see this user has been entering (and winning) a few contests.

I couldn't be more supportive of the drive to reduce plagiarism, but as someone who was accused of plagiarism by a well-intentioned user shortly after joining Steem, and flagged before having a chance to prove myself, I just want to urge anyone who suspects plagiarism to do what Tomas is doing here and practice due diligence to confirm, from outside sources if necessary, the truth of the matter before flagging a user, because it is and should be a devastating allegation.

Hello, Bro. I think we can easily stop the plagiarists who steal the work of others and include it in the race. We should be able to suggest accounts that they as spam account to no longer occur the same thing. I myself regret that not too many are aware of how to make a masterpiece until finally released to the community is the achievement that behind it could be we risked our lives. Therefore it is necessary to have a special team in steemit consisting of every country playing in it to create a kind of security council whose work of course curates the content even further, in this case the content of the photo on the race. Thank you for reading this comment.

Thank you for submitting this. As a photographer publishing on the internet, I have been victim of plagiarism for ages.

I will help

What if he shares the image he took , but does so not only on steemit, but also somewhere else on the internet? It's hard to prove content rights once something hits the web...

Not always. Sometime it requires digging in to find the original author. However, to identify the stolen image is not that difficult. Checking the blog of the person say a lot in the first place. Then google search giving plenty links to the image already rings the bell. Then I do question the person that submitted the image if that is original photo. If it is original then they easily prove it. If not, they either admit or start making excuses which have no solid background. If we all participate we can minimize this kind of behavior. Thank you so much for your help. Tomas

Then he would prove the ownership when asked to do so which none of the users above were able to do so.

Gosh I remember this one! I never thought of verifying the images of some regular contributors in this contest - since every single image in all my posts are from myself, so I tend to trust other fellow participants. Thank you Tomas for pointing this out. You are right it's high time that we get more alert to the plagiarists and check for plagiarism. It's terrible to steal others' images without any effort. It hurts me even when I'm not a professional photographer, as I know how much work has been behind each travel photo, especially the good entries for this contest, lots of them require long flights and arduous hikes, it's not just a selfie at home.

@czechglobalhosts you are doing good work. Stealing others' work is unacceptable. Original owner should get all the credits.

Tomas is completely right here - And I hope nobody with fake pictures will earn money here or anywhere else on the STEEM Blockchain!

If you discover fraud however - YOU can even earn from it by reporting to @steemcleaners! That way you can earn while helping Tomas to get his challenge fraud-free!

There is an older clip of mine explaining this, watch it, it's only two minutes! And it will be worth it for you guys!

Steemcleaners - Earn STEEM by fighting spam, etc.

Take care and stay fair,
Martin!

Thanks Martin. I should start using them for sure.... This might be about the time!

Of course you could use them yourself too - But it's probably more effective for minnows and other participants of your challenge. Removing an abuser/plagiarist will earn them a little SP + they will have one "opponent" less!

Great - I might pin that to the top of my posts!

That would probably draw a lot of attention to it and lower the spam a lot ;)

Steemcleaners looks like an awesome project. I just hope that there are people that are using it to try and get some of these accounts under control that are spamming and using other people's content. This can be a great tool for everyone here on the platform that is trying to do everything right.

The problem is that sometimes whales and dolphins plagiarize too and there is a different set of rules for them.

I have actually seen a whale post an entire book once and I am still paying the price for just mentioning it. There is also a dolphin that 99% of his posts are just copy and paste articles and he is making a fortune doing so.

When new users see that their peers are making thousands by plagiarizing they assume that this is one avenue for becoming successful and I don't think it is fair to go after the minnows while ignoring the worst offenders.

To end plagiarism we really need to take a top down approach, so minnows can't continue to point at the veterans, while saying that they were only doing what the veterans were doing.

Also the consequences, of letting people make thousands off of other author's content, could potentially be disastrous for our investment, but I am no lawyer.

Reproducing someone else's work without permission is illegal, even if you credit the author. It's just as bad as plagiarism and some people on Steemit are earning a fortune from it.

Thanks for taking action, protect your contest as well as to let those users know that they can't cheat here! Too bad that people steal other people's work and earn money with it.

Let´s all be little more vigilant my friend!

@czechglobalhosts

“JUST. A SUGEGSTION “

Why no one can develop a bot/ bots to check the plagiarism in photos , videos and written content.
Then we ( steem anti-plagiarism community) open the donation or steempower delegation to these bots to automatically flag these posts .

@josteem

Yeah, it's a plague lately, that plagiarism, and it goes hand in hand with fake accounts. Just go to "introduceyourself" and you'll find tons of fake accounts... :-/ It's not hard to make the difference between one true account and one fake... But it's just that they are so many now that no one can really counter them ...

That´s why it is so important to take an action and point those people out. If we all do nothing it will only get worse and from there we all go down the drain. Little by little, all together we can make a huge difference as long as the community stand as one. Have a great night.

Dobrou noc @czechglobalhosts! Was there any change to the sign up process? I remembered it was very long and constraining at the beginning, and people were vetted... I guess that now, it's open door and spammers are flooding in :-(

Well, could be the reason too.... also the rise in the price of Steem and SBD plays a big factor... Dobrou noc:)...

I am resteeming now because for curation and contests it is very challenging when working through copying and pasting. More discussion about plagiarism and especially alternatives may help. On my supernatural writing contest we need to use copyscape and require many words to minimize this and with photography it must be a nightmare! We also do not benefit from giving those of us that copy images elsewhere rewards.

I also hope resteeming this because I hope sharing this post leads to some more genuine entries because we do want to reward those of us that are creating original artwork on STeem!

Thanks for your support on this issue, @jerrybanfield! I have an idea, though I'm not a programmer to implement it: it would be extremely useful for those running contests to have a quicker method of initiating a reverse image search - perhaps a page that can grab the image URLs from post comments or tagged blog posts and input them into a clickable link to an RIS page like TinEye, to make it easier to reverse search a bunch of photos all at once. Or a browser extension that adds an RIS link to the right-click menu.

The RIS is not a perfect way to catch plagiarists, since many photos are legitimately scattered all over the internet already, even though they ARE our photos, but it's the best first step to catching people out, and it's clunky right now to have to copy-paste every image URL into a separate webpage.

Oh great post..And yes i have saw many fake picture in your challenge and at first you give them a warning and i know you don't like flagging people as it makes their reputation very low..And i will be more aware about this and that was an great information for all..Thanks for sharing your information and about this plagiarism..@czechglobalhosts

We all just need to be little more vigilant and take an action to minimize this kind of behaviour. I am afraid with the rising price of Steem more crooks will be trying to take an advantage that´s why it is crucial for all of us who care about the platform to give a helping hand. Have a good one.

I'm very torn about Steemit lately. There's a lot of amazing things going on with eSteem, DTube, DLive, Steepshot. Were bringing on a lot of bigger name Youtube creators, etc, etc, etc.

That said spam is worse than ever, I see bot accounts posting other peoples articles with a link at the bottom offering none of their own commentary and no value.

I see bots posting other peoples memes, etc, etc, etc. These accounts often tend to do better and make more money than real people. They clog up Steemit, they offer no value and no effort is put in.

It almost makes you feel as if whats the point of trying, should I just join everyone shitting on Steemit and making a bunch of money with no effort?

I think upvote bots are fine but I think comment bots and bots that create content should be banned or if they can't be outright stopped should be flagged 100% by everyone

I can feel your frustration.... But if we all start refusing those things and fight back we can minimize it. The platform is still very young and we are to create something extraordinary and add the value than those practices will have to disappear.... I am sure the community effort and the time will sort this out. Let´s do our part in the meantime and share the awareness. Have a great night. Tomas

Hey @czechglobalhosts I'm with you, I'm not ready to throw in the towel but it is frustrating. Posts like this...

https://steemit.com/link/@missrdx/3snsjp-link

Are from now on going to start getting a 100% downvote from me. Also anyone who's using the "introduceyourself" or "introduction" tags for the 35th time, again I'm gonna 100% downvote them. I saw a girl earlier who like every 3 posts re-introduces herself again with a different photo and different name.

This community needs to clean things up so I'm going to start taking a more active role in that

I have not checked that section in a while..... I might have to pay it a visit... There are many scams and things going around and I am sure we can all do better to fight it back.

There's the flagging option in place for these reasons.

As a photographer this really pisses me off. They were not my images that were stolen but I am so mad for the photographers who likely don't even know their images were stolen, and wth did the one who submitted the shutterstock photo think they could get away with it, did they not see the huge watermark across the photo???

Actually, it was submitted without the watermark as it was off an Instagram site or somewhere else.... If we all do our part we can at least minimize this kind of behaviour. Tomas

plagilarism is too bad to and shouldnt be happening right here on steemit. The worse part is copying people's content with giving due respect of ownership to them. its really bad and I move against it too. Maybe more orientation should be put in place for that

We all need to take care of it as a whole community and not over-look this kind of behaviour. There are many amazing and talented people here and joining on daily basis and we all stand as one we can and we will make this a better place for all of us to use and benefit. Have a great night. Tomas

What the hell! Why are these people doing this?
It Should be stopped.
I'm with you on this initiative.
Upvoting and resteeming it to my followers.

It is just a human nature that normal people do not understand. We can not completely stop this kind of behaviour but if we all do our part we can at least minimize it. Thank you and have a great day.

your welcome brother :) you to have a great day.

I strongly agree with you Tomas, resteem your blog, and I hope the action of plagiarism we can prevent together.

Yes, we can and we will as long as we all stand as a one! Have a good one my friend!

That's a very important topic and thanks for highlighting it! I have had my photos stolen so much, they even ended up in some print shops uploaded by other users... It is so annoying to say the least.

We just all have to be little more vigilant and keep on checking from time to time. If we take action on regular basis then we can make a difference and minimize this kind of behaviou. Have a great night and thank you for all your beautiful images that you are submitting on daily basis.

I'm still hoping someone like Apple steals my photo though. ;)

I am very surprised by this publication because you always emphasize being very careful with plagiarism and it is not fair for one person to take his photographs and another to gain merits that do not correspond to him. I take this opportunity to congratulate you on your publications, they are beautiful. I love photography. Regards..!

Thank you so much for your support. The compliment to all the talented photographers joining my challenges on daily basis. Have a great night. Tomas

OMG! I mean what are they doing ?? this is so unethical to steal the photographs or content really shameful !

I appreciate you pointed out those who are not ensuring the quality at all and promoting the plagiarism, well step taken by you Tomas #supported you!

Thanks mana, truly appreciated. Tomas

Thanks for doing this. As a hobbiest photog it's tough enough getting out and taking photos, let alone editing and putting together a post that someone might want to read. Plagiarists....uggggggg

I know and I do appreciate your daily support and your wonderful images. Thank you so much! Let´s just all pay little more attention to those who benefit from work of others. Have a great night. Tomas

Great job im so glad you found out they are cheaters and thieves. We need more people like you to go around and check these types of things. Once a cheat always a cheat. Like its just sad how can people be this ignorant and steal images from someone else and try to win a contest with them. I hope Steemians start to wake up and see this, because your vote can make a difference so don't waste it on fake people, use it on those who really deserve it. Keep up the awesome job your doing @czechglobalhosts and never let them win.

Good point! That is even the worse part of it... people in a good faith vote for those thieves... We all need to stick together as one and fight back.... Involvement of all that care is necessary....

It is very necessary we stick together and keep a eye out for these things. Also its important that these thieves realize Steemit is not the place for that type of shady work, and they need to go somewhere else with that and not on Steemit. Keep letting the community know about these types of people and the community well take action I believe that.

Hi Tomas! You know I think that plagiarism in this case is like unsportsmanlike behavior during competitions, like doping.
Downwoting maybe one of the ways to punish for plagiarism. Also one way which I see it is to disallow to participate in your contests to people who were seen in plagiarism.
As you know there is chetah bot which controls or makes the appearance of plagiarism, but is is works with post, not comments if I'm not wrong. And as I know there are many questions to it's work. Maybe if you work with Python or Java you can create such unplagiarism bot or library to control plagiarism in your contests. I think all steemians will be thankful to you. Good luck!

I wish I could but my computer skill are very limited..... Anyone that I caught cheating is never allowed back to my challenges... once in a while they try again but I make sure to stop them. Thank you for your support. Tomas

I belive you will find right solution how to stop plagiarism in your contests!

@czechglobalhosts This is a very important topic.
Stealing photos is a huge problem. It's bad when a user of any network publishes other people's photos as their own or simply does not write the author.
Even worse when using other people's photos try to make money. This is not only bad. This harms the reputation of the photographer.
@theaustrianguy Thanks, I'll keep it in mind.
I have a good memory about photo.

Let´s just all be little more vigilant and keep those people out our house. Involvement of all users that care about this place is necessary. Have a good one! See you around. Tomas

Hey Tomas

You are completely right in making a post and pointing out the names and actions of those copycats. I hope this will help to stop them

But it somehow has some negative connotations when I see you upvoted this post with 100 percent.
You might want to argue you want to increase visibility but why don’t you leave this this to us Steemians who you have already asked to do so?
Or at least refuse the payout, you are already making and cashing in several posts every day!

I think you had some good ideas to create those kind of challenges and I will continue joining and supporting you, but as I said before, it just seems too much

BTW. I am upvoting my comment too to pin it higher to increase the chance you will see it

That is my right to do so not only as an investor but also a daily contributor to Steemit! Without investors that would not be possible - no payouts, no Steem, no Steemit. I would be more worried about people upvoting their own comments day in/day out. Not pointing your own upvote right now which I do understand. I am helping many talented people to build their own successful blogs on daily basis through my contribution which I don't think that many people do. Have a great night. Tomas

Let's be honest while we all love Steemit money is a motivating factor for everyone. I personally see nothing wrong with upvoting your own stuff, especially content moreso than comments but I see nothing wrong with that as long as people aren't using all 10 votes per day on themselves and are spreading some love around to the community.

If someone puts either money or time and effort into Steemit I see nothing wrong with rewarding themselves a bit. I tend to be more generous IMHO than most people on here and I feel I give a lot more than I get so for me I've been consiering upvoting myself more.

Glad to see some positive feedback on that.... The actual concept of that is very smart... Once we start having real big investors and corporations coming in and investing millions of dollars to buy SP either for marketing purposes or to pay their employees or service providers then we can say there is a real value that can make a difference... If the community or the company does not wish to go that way then they can simply remove the self-upvote button. However, I do not see that happening. If Steemit succeeds then we will be all surpised of the unrealized potential it holds. Have a good one! Tomas

Agreed, the community needs tools to flag potential plagiarism

Thanks man you're doing a great job

All the best and very important post sir.I like it.Thank you so much sir.

People stealing content sucks. I know the work that goes in to photography first hand and having someone trying to pass of my work as their own. If you ever need some help checking submissions let me know.

It’s unfortunate that in the pursuit of upvotes and a few bucks, some have become desperate enough to plagiarise. It’s definitely not just images but also whole posts. Using these is one thing but claiming them to be their own work is despicable. When they are exposed, like here, the weeks spent on slowly building their profile will go down the drain. Reputation counts for a lot.

I have resteemed as well. Don't join a contest if you want to cheat

i agree this need to stop it aint right they need to be flagged

You're right. Sometimes a call to action is needed, nobody enjoys calling people out, but sometimes it is necessary in order to get the point across. Plagiarism is not a joke and a serious matter. I think this post is worry of a resteem to help spread the word against using other people's work as your own

Regards,

Conrad

Great Post! I think that's how we should improve the steemit community with the help of not only people vetting others but also writing about the negatives affects of plagiarism! I think that most people forget that the internet has too many things out there and they can do it without giving credit. Lets fight the good fight!

sincerely this is bad and uncalled for

4 views and 59$? do people even click your posts, or just tap your upvote?

I upvoted btw

o steemians do not freeze plagiarism to follow this contest. be a professional steemit in getting a contest

I think you’re addressing something very important and I’m glad that you’re rising awareness. It is so sad that it’s actually necessary to tell people not to steal others images. I have seen many examples myself. I love photography and design, and I let myself being impressed by talented artist. I don’t want to be fooled, I want to see original work!

How do you find whether a photo is plagiarised or not ?

I found a guy copy and pasting my own comment, and trying to get upvotes with it! (a few weeks ago).

Needless to say I flagged it, and he got nothing from it..

Really nice post.......

:( sad but true there are people who are doing this bullshit :/
I'm not a regular visitor of your blog but i condemn this type of act,
it should be stoped.
upvoting and steeming,
that's what i can do for now.

Good idea, I also hope no more PLAGIARISM

One of the "contestants" I gave a flag in your one call. He allowed himself to copy the picture given in the call, overwritten the logo and thought it would pass.

I agree! Plagiarism must be punished! So unscrupulous people don't have a place here on Steemit.

Thanks for the heads-up, Tomas. Plagiarism is theft of someone else's intellectual and artistic property, so I really appreciate this call to action.

To the contest participants: Come on people, these contests are for FUN. Let's respect and enjoy each other's work, savour the beautiful sights of the Czech Republic long after returning to our own countries and maybe discover places that we missed or didn't get to visit while we were there.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

hahaha some funny to be hear that some guys still want to scam in your contests and its really bad to listen about it that how someone keep it with palagrisim i also hate this....i know specially you warn in your every post about it
so i only say all them if any one have not thier on shots and photgraphs so live far away from these contestes till you have your own and not try to scam only for some rewards
@czechglobalhosts i hope after this post no one try to post palagrai photos

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Unfortunately it's happened on Steemit, upvoted and reestem.

your contain is really very good,
i love it.
keep it up.

Upvoted,follow and reestem

this goes against all the principles of steemit, plagiarism. I saw it to in several posts / contests... To bad because it wil lower the power of Steemit. I do think some people think you make a quick steemdollar with this kind of behavior... I think we must all keep an eye on plagiarism and indeed register and announce it.. Only with original content Steemit is in its power...

Ahoj. Neumím anglicky, ale vím, že jsi Čech. Tohle téma jsme už pod tagem #cesky také řešili. Bohužel je pravda, že v tom monstrózním objemu dat a postů, je téměř nemožné plagiátorství uhlídat. U nás jsme tedy nevydávali cizí fotky za své, ale řešili jsme problematiku licencí u ilustračních fotek k článkům. Viz články @godfish zde a @petrvl zde

Ale proč tě hlavně otravuji. V současné době se nám rozjíždí spolupráce s našimi slovenskými bratry a sestrami a spousta z nich má krásné fotky ze Slovenska. Chtěl jsem se tě zeptat, zda bys nebyl ochotný rozšířit contest Prague/CzechRepublic i na Slovensko. Nebo jestli by jsi neudělal soutěž třeba jen pro ně. Něco jako Bratislava/Slovakia. Tady taková malá ochutnávka.

Přeci jen jsme byli celá desetiletí jako siamská dvojčata, než nás chirurgicky oddělili. Je mi jasné, že máš ranec práce a že by to bylo zase něco navíc. Ale byli bychom rádi, kdyby jsi o tom alespoň uvažoval.

@Sorryjako a přeji ti spoustu úspěchů a ať se ti daří ,-)

I don't know Wat people gain in theft, am seriously shaming on their behalf

I'm so sorry that you're having to waste your time filtering through plagiarized work! So frustrating!

Plagiarists can not be fully defeated. But it is necessary to fight against them. Every reasonable person must do that.

Thanks for your effort. I dont enter photo contests here much because of what you have found out. i also wish Steemit would disable the Right-Click ability for people to steal the photos posted on this platform. Its very easy to just drag them off the site and claim them as yours...

Thank you for doing what you can to make more people aware of this problem. As a photographer who spends a lot of time and money on my photography I know how bad it is when people try to pass your work off as theirs and benefit from it. When I came across my first time seeing plagiarism here on Steemit, I tried to warn the person and give them a chance to take the image down before I downvoted them, but they never responded. I will continue to keep my eye out and do what I can to help out the community. Thanks again @czechglobalhosts for everything you have been doing.

Thank you for your post Tomas! I always feel infuriated when I see plagiarism. People put hard work into creating these photos, writing and art. How could someone shamelessly take it and claim it as their own? Just utterly disrespectful. I am lucky in that I have grown up in a country (New Zealand) where the idea that plagiarism and copying is bad is imparted onto us from a very young age. It is really unfortunate that this is not the case for some countries around the world and they feel that copying someone else's work is not a big deal.

Very rampant.. I got so tired going to and fro at steemcleaners website hehehe.

This is so alarming. This is nice that you have posted their names. These s#itheads have been reaping fame from using someone else's work.

Plagiarism indeed is a big problem here on SteemIt. I’m not so much into photography, but plagiarism is just as big of an issue when it comes to articles.
I’ve reached the point where I use a plagiarism checker on 50% of the quality articles I read before I upvote them.
That is the price we pay for getting payouts for posts... Many people are here to make money, one way or the other.
I think we can’t even imagine how big the problem really is, and how many people are getting away with it every day again... :0(
@simplymike

This is such an evidence of incapacity from these people. I really don't get the point why people are proud of earning upvotes and interest of people by taking something that was not their credit! I think you should be proud on your own feed in the end, that you reached and built something, that people honor your content and that you yourself have something - which is like a photo album in former times - to look through and call nice memories in mind. I appreciate that you use your influence to share this!

my process when i find someone new that i like the image is to check other posts. i like what you are trying to do and i get that it is hard to discover it

Do what you have to do, you are the aggrieved @czechglobalhosts. Everyone who starts at Steemit knows that you can not copy and paste and that you can not spam, let alone take something and take it as yours.

beautiful atmosphere and beautiful and interesting we look at friends, I will restem your post.

As long as there are rewards, there will always be cheating. The only thing we could rely on is our community power. Keep catching those cats and we shall help you downvoting them.

yes those post with stolen contents should be down voted

Good call. I actually spent 2 hours today going through new photography feed and reported 8 or so people who steal images from the net and pretend they are theirs. one guy even was entering into contests. I wish we had a way to get cheetah bans to stop them permanently. How does steemcleaners work, do they only hit the individual post reported? or blacklist them forever?

I was thinking about this today. And I started working on a bot that will scan all the images posted on steemit and compare it with a google images search. Something like karmadecay for reddit. If a match is found, then the bot will automatically reply the post with links to the originals. I literally just started working on this today, so it might be a few more days, but I will have it working by next week.

That's really pathetic to steal someone's hard earned property and then submit to the contests where reward is done. This is totally shameful and unethical act being stealing images. Ridiculous!

There are many steemian who are doing the same for the sake of money where they don't even want to put efforts to become UNIQUE. Dunno when they get sense. :/

It's really good step that you checked them out and pointed out. Plagiarism Banned for ALL.

I agree with you so much! I also wish people would identify their own photos! Thank you for addressing this major problem!

Thank you for collaborating with me to promote this post as explained at https://steemit.com/steemit/@jerrybanfield/10-ways-to-fund-a-steem-growth-project.

I do agree with you mr czechglobalhosts for gaining plagiarism on steemit because some people do that on their post on steemit. they take some pictures are not belongs to themself to earn money.

Thanks for researching your entries and sharing this! I also agree that plagiarism is a serious problem around here. I'm really grateful for the Steemit Cheetah bot that finds copied-and-pasted text and flags it with links to the original content. I hope they can develop a bot like this for images too.

followed and upvoted!

Keep up the good fight against lazy bastards who can't come up with their own material! There is a special place in hell for them.

great photocontest...
nice photography..
love it..
keep it

Bad spam..
hate it...
you should probably not keep it up

really plagiarism increasing in steemit.
why people try to copy & past.
good decision taken,support you.

this is too bad. steemit is here to reward artist etc. for their effort and own creative work.

I hope they learn their lesson and don't do it again.

Stoled, ... participated for photocontest,.. Shameful..

Hello, Bro. I think we can easily stop the plagiarists who steal the work of others and include it in the race. We should be able to suggest accounts that they as spam account to no longer occur the same thing. I myself regret that not too many are aware of how to make a masterpiece until finally released to the community is the achievement that behind it could be we risked our lives. Therefore it is necessary to have a special team in steemit consisting of every country playing in it to create a kind of security council whose work of course curates the content even further, in this case the content of the photo on the race. Thank you for reading this comment.

Okey my friend, I am going to write about plagiarism in steemit. Thanks

The rules are clearly written on Steemit. Still you need to take actions against somebody. It's sad. Keep up good work.

Will keep an eye out for this nonsense online, I totally agree this needs to be stopped.

Stealing is only being a liar to oneself.

Copyright

Little tip,, if you RIGHT click on an image and choose SEARCH GOOGLE FOR IMAGE you will VERY quickly find if it has been copied! WOrks a treat and also for images that have even been edited a bit..

Worthy post!

Appreciate this. I am lost seeing the theft, article - spinning, identify theft and deception that is going on. The stuation has become so bad that the steem blockchain will soon be more than 50% content belonging to others and junk. The full RPC node now requires more than 256 GB - if anyone is thinking SPAM/plagiarism is not their issue, everyone is actually getting impacted. Forget the reward pool abuse, theft, moral issues etc, we are becoming a proof of plagiarism as opposed to PoS and everyone is paying for it with RPC issues, extremely large memory foot print for witness servers etc by storing all the stolen / plagiarized content. Its high time everyone rally against abusers and clean up the mess.

I agree, I often tell my steemians in my area, to be true steemians, avoid stealing other people's work, because it can ruin a good name.
your writing becomes an input to me, that how valuable a creativity is, and with your permission, I will re-stamp this article.

thank you

warm regards
@najmifajar

2 of the offenders are from Nepal and the other from Istanbul so I'm not surprised.

It is very sad when there is a steemian doing plagiarism bureaucracy. I'm from Indonesia and I will help you to find plagiarism and report it.
thank you

Plagiarism is bad anywhere, the good thing is that we can do something about it here.

Thank you for your work of pointing this out!

I hope that soon we will be able to solve it.
I not like it if some one take my photo. :(

I am very impressed with the articles you make, from the description of one word to another word is very beneficial and motivational for the reader.
very good work

Well just block them. Can't you block them?

@czechglobalhosts if you find users stealing images, can you shoot me a message on Discord.

  • Malcolm Reynolds#0159

It’s a little heads up for anyone who runs photo competitions. Make sure you use Tineye to reverse search those ripping images off. So much thirst for $.

This is something that as a newbie around deeply concerns me about steemit, not only as photographer, but also as musician/illustrator. How to report if It happens? I think in due time everything will fall into place, but It is sad how you see people would like to take advantage from the work of others just for money, especially when their "illegal" action remains forever registered in the block chain. I just don't get it :(

great photocontest...
nice photography..
love it..
keep it

1ass.png

Bahahaha, nice one. ;)

lol @tecnosgirl. That's awesome!

Comment spammers are nearly as bad as the plagiarism on the site. One recently got under my skin with his scammy way so thank to @overkillcoin I have this image to help combat it.

100% agree here, people who put these annoying copy-paste comments on every post without even reading it are killing this platform just as much as plagiators. My patience is running out with them.

This same guy commented twice on this thread. I had already commented on his first one when I came across this one with the picture. Do you think @overkillcoin would be cool with me using this picture to post on spammers comments? I think it's hilarious.

@derangedvisions he created them for community use. So you are fine to use it.