So last week I wrote a post about a site that has been stealing my content. I called it Venting Frustrations and if you’re not caught up on the story feel free to read it. In short, this site has been stealing my and a ton of other blogger’s content.
My friend Lita suggested that I send them an Email to request that my content be taken down (politely), which I did before writing my original post. Very politely. I got no reply, and my posts were not taken down. To this date, I still have no reply. I figure that by now, dozens of bloggers have discovered them, and they are getting tons of requests to remove posts. I doubt anyone is reading those emails anymore. I should pretend to be a potential business partner or something.
Anyways, I decided to write this little update because you’ll never guess what. That post, the one complaining about matrixat plagiarising other people’s work in the laziest way possible, that post got reposted without permission or credit on matrixat. Which is very hilarious.
Like I said in my last post, I figure this little operation is fully automated. They steal way too much content for someone to be doing it manually. I also fully assumed that no one associated with the site ever read any of the posts they steal. And the fact that they still have mine up kind of proves it for me.
However, there have been a few changes to their site that are quite a coincidence!
In my post, I described the limited investigation I had done into finding out who was behind this website. For one, I shared the email address that Lita had given me and which was also available if you hovered over the name of the author. At the time this author was identified as simply “admin” which I had called a hilariously lazy name. Well, that name has now been changed to matrixat which is less lazy but somehow to me MORE plagiarism. And it’s definitely just the account name that was changed as all the previously stolen posts which were clearly in the admin name are now clearly in the matrixat name.
But what about that email. Well, the email used to be admin@mrhbaa.com. That was the address associated with the site and the one other bloggers had had some success with. It’s in my original post as well. That email is no longer anywhere on the site. Instead we have matrixatsales@gmail.com which makes it more obvious what this site is about. Thankfully it seems no advertisers have bit yet as I see the placeholder (YOUR AD HERE) spaces all over the site.
I admit, I haven’t tried using this new email address. The way this site operates gives me little hope for results and honestly, at this point I don’t know why I should be continuing to make the effort to be courteous and polite. If they want me to understand their motivations, they can reach out. I usually try to answer my emails at least.
The second change is that I had noticed a particularly ironic copyright notice at the very bottom of the site also assigning all the rights to Mhrbaa. If you clicked on it, you were redirected to a mrhbaa.com. The site is in Arabic but you can translate it. It makes them seem pretty big however their official Twitter account which last posted on Nov 26 is rather unimpressive: https://twitter.com/mrhbaacom. Their LinkedIn and Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLzZz1-t3X-0uhopLKGodSA) are also fairly modest.
It seemed quite obvious that mrhbaa.com and matrixat.com were closely associated and since the mrhbaa website was older, had actual other pages linked to it, and seemed to have some sort of purpose I made some assumptions. Basically, that mrhbaa was using matrixat as a sort of display site or an offshoot to sell their web services somehow.
But now, the copyright has also been updated to matrixat and just points back to the homepage, like the other follow links on that site. Basically, matrixat the site has obfuscated any association with mrhbaa.com for some reason, and they did that in the past week or so.
Unlike the mrhbaa twitter, the matrixat twitter (https://twitter.com/Matrixat360) has quite a few followers. I’m not sure if these are legit, I didn’t go that far down into the rabbit hole, but it does seem surprising. For one all of them have profiles only in Arabic but the matrixat site is exclusively in English. I get that they might attract more local followers. I mean just because they hid the mrhbaa stuff doesn’t mean I don’t still think the two are associated. But still, if anyone is actually reading the posts they are stealing, you figure they would get at least one English follower. But I didn’t see a single one.
At this point, although I’m still very annoyed both for myself and my fellow bloggers that are getting ripped off, I’m also starting to get really curious about what the point of all this is.
To generate any sort of actual revenue from this blog, they would need to sell ad space, a lot of it. Having a post like mine openly declaring the site a rip-off seems like it would be bad advertising and yet it’s still up there. Granted, they are amping up their repost rate and a singular post is quickly going to get buried but still.
It does seem like a lot of trouble for the few bucks a month they might get in ad revenue. There has to be something else, no? Is this a proof-of-concept site or are they testing the bots? If they are still updating stuff like the author’s name and bio and the copyright mentions on the site itself, it means that someone is working on it actively for some reason. What reason could that be?
I’ve been pretty busy at work lately but I’m going to get a bit more serious about looking into my options. As soon as I find something viable, I’ll share it with you all as well as with the other bloggers that are getting regularly reposted. Since they are using go daddy, I’m guessing the next step is to report them to Abuse Contact Email: abuse@godaddy.com, or maybe I should try to contact them one last time. What do you guys think?
How about this, if this gets reposted without permission, I’ll take it as a sign that I should proceed.
Ugh. I’m so sorry you and all the others had to deal with this. I hope they are truly down and if not, then I hope you find a solution that includes hogtieing them – I mean cease and desist and compensation. Or, you know, karma. I love the hidden message with CSS – thats brilliant. LOL.
This points up something that is becoming a real pet peeve with me and that is there is no one to complain to, to go to for recompense, no one responsible – either they don’t reply or they pass the buck or they make it impossible to contact anyone. I do not have a solution for this thing.
I had a thought. There are some people on YouTube who have taken punishing scammers into their own hands when no authority would respond. They do petty harassment things like give them packages that explode full of glitter. I wonder if they could/would help? It’s a different area but … it was a thought.
Blessedbe.
I’m not what happened but the day this post was published the site went down. It came back a few hours later but now it’s just a collection of webpublishing tools. Not a blog at all anymore. Completely rebranded too. Someone must have gotten to them
Good!
Oh you sweet adorable young reviewers and your problems with human parasites. When your my age… And probably you’ll have to be my sub skill level… You’ll wish people would want to steal from you.
Unlike my occasional trios out that my doctor hates, I’m sure being stolen from will be the last thing that kills me. As opposed to my eating habits, potassium, and genetically being disposed to strokes.
Still? I see people above say that this evil site is over and done with. So no more stealing… Until Disney gets into the Anime reviewing business.
Oh sweetie we’ve been through this. We’re the same age.
After reading yours and Lita’s posts on this issue, curiosity got a hold of me and I went to their website to check whether if it’s a singular case of just plagiarizing from articles from anibloggers (how dare they mess with our community, by the way).
Just by copy and pasting a few paragraphs from different articles under their website… it was apparent that not only the few of you were involved but really the whole pool of freelancers, bloggers, or journalist out there that publish online (pushsquare, wolfgaming… to name a few).
And the thing is that, I think most of the bloggers don’t realize this. So, other than reporting them, maybe you can reach out to other bloggers outside of WordPress, also affected by this plagiarism (providing that they do care) cause why not? The more people being aware of this, the merrier, and the easier it is to put pressure on that website.
Also, I came across an author (from Medium) who had successfully suspended a website and stopped digital copyright infringement on her blog, which I think might be useful even as a reference: https://cambridgetricia.medium.com/this-website-is-republishing-medium-articles-without-permission-416fe8f786a3
Hope it helps! You have the whole ani-blogging community behind your back!
Thank yu so much! The site seems to have gone down in the last hour or so. Maybe someone else got to them first!
It appears that the site is back up, but they’ve rebranded themselves as a “website tools and utilities” website. They have a link for a blog, but when you click on it, there are currently no blog posts included. Supposedly the blog is going to be about “News, Articles, Tips & Tricks from CyberTools.” How long until they start scraping blogs focusing on website tools and utilities for their new blog?
Oh my. They move fast. Their parent site was website tools as well. Let’s see how that goes
Actually they are hosted at OVH and I sent many DMCA claims with OVH and even filled out their form at OVH since their IP address indicated they are hosted with them and I haven’t had much luck as OVH never responded.They have stolen 9 posts
The most effective method is hiding a nasty message for him using the “Add Widget After Content” plugin and putting a message in the text widget and hiding that widget with CSS code:
.awac-wrapper {
display:none;}
This hides it from regular users and even when the user uses reader mode. The text does not appear in the feed, or shouldn’t anyway.
Not sure if your WordPress.com plan can use plugins, but after that nasty message telling Matraxat to go f themselves and warning the user the content is stolen if they see this message, they haven’t stolen my last two posts. I am still looking for the IP address that is taking the content as it got to be automated.
Yeah, OVH is the organization but I do think the domain is on godaddy. Here are the details I got by digging a little further into Who is: https://ca.godaddy.com/fr/whois/results.aspx?domain=matrixat.net&isc=cjc99com&cjelbDays=45&AID=11774111&utm_source=cj&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=xx-xx_corp_affiliate_11774111_001&utm_content=Digital.com%2c+LLC_5431449&tgt=100126636&cjdata=MXxOfDB8WXww Hope the link still works
I know that, but I forgot to mention that I received an email that they do not handle DMCA requests as they don’t host the website and I needed to report it to OVH, which I did and they aren’t doing anything.
Here is a copy of the email for reference.
Dear Sir or Madam,
The website content associated with MATRIXAT.NET is not hosted by GoDaddy. We ask that you please note the following information:
The REGISTRAR is the company that sells a domain name registration to a person or company.
The REGISTRANT is the person or company that purchases a domain name for use.
The HOSTING PROVIDER is the company that provides space on its computers for the files that make up the content of the website.
While GoDaddy offers services as both a REGISTRAR and a HOSTING PROVIDER, this does not mean that we provide both services for every domain that is registered through our company.
If you first identify the IP address of the website, you can then find who that IP address is assigned to. In most cases, this is a much more accurate method for determining who is hosting a website. You’ll want to reach out to the organization that the IP address is assigned to for further assistance with this content based issue.
IP: 149.56.98.61
Host: OVH
(This information was pulled from public records during our investigation and is included only as a courtesy. You are encouraged to perform your own search to confirm this information)
As GoDaddy only acts as the registrar, we are not able to assist you further with this matter.
If you have concerns regarding phishing or other types of abuse issues, please submit a complaint using the form located at ABUSEFORM.COM. We are not able to assist you with abuse based complaints from the Intellectual Property Infringement Claims department.
If you feel that illegal activity is taking place with regards to this website/domain, you’ll want to contact law enforcement. GoDaddy is not a law enforcement agency and cannot perform an investigation of this nature. We will be happy to assist law enforcement if they contact us directly about an open investigation.
Thank you.
Kindest Regards,
(redacted)
Go Daddy | Trademark & Copyright Claims
Nice. I assume you’ve already tried Google? I guess I can always just send a C&D but they can easily ignore that as well
The site seems to be down now…
Damn! Talk about shamelessness. Yeah, I’ve got nothing else to say about them.
Also, you’re interview is live! I had fun asking you questions.
Yay. Thank you so much!
I tried to message the abuse e-mail, filled in all info… x months later, nothing happens. My content was still live on that website. Seems like they do not care enough.
Maybe godaddy is different (I don’t remember what hosting had this website I reported) but I would not have high hopes anyways.
The site seems to have just gon down (it was available this morning). Karma maybe?