Flag to goodreads and if nothing is done, DCMA takedown to goodreads. For good measure also get one or more other ripped off reviewers to do the same well spaced apart because unfortunately goodreads, while removing the review, only removes the thief if there are repeat "infringements." Directions are under their terms of agreement, section 9 has complete instructions, viewable publicly from link at bottom of every page even if no account or not logged in. Direct link is https://www.goodreads.com/about/terms
Debbie has no idea what goodreads will or won't do. I know what they are supposed to do and what the TOS says they "might" do to the thief in the case of repeated "infringements.". And that if it goes far enough to issue a DCMA takedown notice they are supposed to require proof from the thief before allowing them to keep content in site.
It always gets my dander up when reading goodreads stuff like the "may" "might" "discourage" "repeat infringements" "in our experience many members will report as spam" (not "it's spam so don't do it") language for their Author Guidelines, help topics and when talking about copyright infringements and plagiarism -- while the Review Gudielines and notices like the really nasty warning volunteer librarians get when going to edit listopias are so strongly worded and even threatening...
Thanks so much for the advice! I've never dealt with this before and I didn't even think about flagging the reviews. I started off thinking if I just asked them to remove the plagarized parts they would but they look to be habitual offenders and frankly, seeing almost my whole review copied, ticked me off, lol.
Off to follow your lovely ladies advice :)
I'm kind of shocked at how many friends she has on GR and we have 10 friends in common and this hasn't been noticed before. Thanks, I was going to be silently annoyed until I saw how much a routine she makes of plagiarizing.
Right?! Her Frankenstein reviews are crazy! She even copied and pasted "(less)" into the middle of one of her reviews, which I assume is from coping the ending of another's review. She can't even do a credible job of copying!
I flagged the three reviews I listed here and will wait a week to see what happens and if they are still up I'll follow Debbie's advice from there. Tonight, I'll go through and try to find others who have been copied, hopefully, people see this and take a look for themselves.
It is so blatant! Thank you for previously flagging her reviews. You are so right in GR needing to address her whole account, it definitely not just a couple reviews here and there. It looks like she tried to get smarter about it, not copying whole reviews from one person and switching to copying a couple lines from multiple people, so people wouldn't notice as much.
I wish I had just done that. At first I thought it was just a couple lines but when I hit the Arrow review I got fired up and that's when I decided to make a post and call her out.
I'm getting a step over tipsy already as I've settled in to email people and flag. It's ridiculous at this point though, all her reviews are copied. I'm torn between cracking open another bottle and continuing or just typing to GRs that they need to do some stern talking.
If their inboxes are not locked to friends only, pm a simple "did you see this review [link]" to their specific stolen/frankenstiened review from other reviewers ripped off; just point them to it don't be flagged for attacking another member or anything. Don't post accusations or in forums (goodreads gets nasty about identifying anyone being accused of anything -- which I understand because if it turns out innocent (clearly not in their case) the accusation persists on the Internet. Goodreads is terrible for going to more lengths to protect anyone else other than an actual reader in the site.
Thanks for bringing this up. I flagged I think 6 reviews and emailed 10 friends about her copying them. I think I'll end it there so I don't get accused of harassing. Judging from some comments showing up on her reviews, people are becoming aware of the problem, which was my goal.
yeah, Debbie brought up a good point for not getting accused of harassing. Flagged a couple and messaged a couple friends. The comments showing up on her reviews show me people are aware of the problem.
She should probably just go ahead and delete all the reviews she copied, I can't imagine how many emails/comments she is getting, the last comment I saw was pretty fired up. I hope this was a learning experience and she learns and grows.
Ok, so instead of doing the right thing and deleting the reviews she has chosen to change her profile name. Umm, all the links still work so not sure what she thinks that will accomplish. I hate that when confronted with her mistake/unethical actions this was her move, changing her profile name. Ugh. But yeah, except for my three reviews I don't see any others deleted and profile still up
I'm still head-shaking and eye-rolling at how she didn't even edit out all the "(less)" from copy/pasting other people's reviews. Hopefully more reviews will be going away as other reviewers catch on and as we all flag them.
It's pathetic how quickly for bad reasons goodreads deletes accounts of valid reviewers but let's accounts like hers and spamming authors stay. I'm tired of hearing authors whining month after month how evil readers flag them for spam when all they did was ask them to read their book and it's damaging their ... what damage? What dire consequences? Still there whining so account not deleted; still sending messages so spam hasn't stopped; still spamming threads and spam gets left even when goodreads staff comments that your post is on the wrong place and getting flagged as spam ...
"Borrowing heavily" indeed. Sounds like mealy-mouthed Amazon speak. No one borrows or unintentionally copies another person's work. Sure, a phrase or two in common or one stuck in your head you don't remember where it came from -- but not clearly so much cut/pasted. Goodreads staff should review the situation and decide that either (a) she is innocent and they'll do nothing or (b) she did copy other reviewer's works and delete her account. Deleting only the reviews you flagged for stealing your content is something, but doesn't necessarily discourage her and no help to others whose reviews were stolen.
I had a look at her "books read" page...she has given them all five stars...and I do a lot of those myself, but she has no "date set" on pages of them! I also will "save up" books and do a pile of reviews at once, but she has that down to a fine art! It's WEIRD...and odd...and just a bit hinky.
Why do people do that? Is it some kind of a game for them? The whole point of a review is to express your own opinion. Why would they express someone else's?
Maybe someone is paying them for their reviews, so they try to up the volume. This whole review plagiarizing thing sounds fishy.
Not just payment but also statistics to get more payment, more attention, more followers, more likes. The higher you are in reviewer rankings, the more KLOUT rating any blogs have, ... anything you can tout out to get more people to pay you to review, more free book authors, more followers to get more likes to move still yet more up in the ranks, more ARC offers ...
Of course if you rip off a few dozen reviewer you can easily outrank them and can in a few minutes have blog with more content than a dozen book reviewers blogging for years if you rip off all the reviews on their blog from all those years.
Even without ripping off reviews, many of the top reviewer accounts on amazon are actually groups of people rather than individuals. Of course a group of people can read and review more than a single person (assuming average reading speeads) -- 3, 8, 47, 300 people blogging on one blog can readily become a top reviewer on amazon under the one blog account.
I'm still beyond annoyed. I checked, and Goodreads has not taken her review down yet. I also checked at Amazon. And her review, using my words, is up there, too. I flagged it there, too. I do wonder if someone is paying her for all of these cut and paste reviews.
This type of thing has been going for so long. That was one of the reasons for me leaving GR...
10 years ago
Whiskey, I'm just seeing this now and I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm off to read the second, updated portion now.
I've had this happen to me as well, but it wasn't portions of my reviews that were stolen, it was the entire review and it was used to sell books on a pirate site. I never did get an update from GR as to whether or not they could do anything about it.
Thank you. She has stolen from so many people I can't believe she wasn't caught before now.
I saw the info about the pirated sites, it looks like they link directly from GRs. I can't believe GR hasn't done anything about that yet. I've seen my reviews on there and at least they give me the courtesy of listing me as the author, even though I didn't give them permission to use. Once I saw a review of mine on one of those sites under a different name.
I'm being a loud mouth about this because she has stole from so many of my friends :(
10 years ago
I don't blame you for being a loudmouth, I would be too.
This is pretty disgusting. I'm sorry this happened to you. I went ahead and flagged several of her reviews. She set her profile on GR to private, but I found her on Twitter, where she links back to these reviews as if they were truly hers. Disgusting.
I have a feeling she's a paid Fiverr reviewer.
ETA: I've been going through this chick's reviews and so far all I've encountered were stolen from others. It's outrageous. How hasn't GR banned her yet?
It always gets my dander up when reading goodreads stuff like the "may" "might" "discourage" "repeat infringements" "in our experience many members will report as spam" (not "it's spam so don't do it") language for their Author Guidelines, help topics and when talking about copyright infringements and plagiarism -- while the Review Gudielines and notices like the really nasty warning volunteer librarians get when going to edit listopias are so strongly worded and even threatening...
Off to follow your lovely ladies advice :)
I'm getting a step over tipsy already as I've settled in to email people and flag. It's ridiculous at this point though, all her reviews are copied. I'm torn between cracking open another bottle and continuing or just typing to GRs that they need to do some stern talking.
I have flagged the review of hers https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1249796244
that stole from mine: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1100847432?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
That makes me so mad! Thank you for having our backs.
It's pathetic how quickly for bad reasons goodreads deletes accounts of valid reviewers but let's accounts like hers and spamming authors stay. I'm tired of hearing authors whining month after month how evil readers flag them for spam when all they did was ask them to read their book and it's damaging their ... what damage? What dire consequences? Still there whining so account not deleted; still sending messages so spam hasn't stopped; still spamming threads and spam gets left even when goodreads staff comments that your post is on the wrong place and getting flagged as spam ...
"Borrowing heavily" indeed. Sounds like mealy-mouthed Amazon speak. No one borrows or unintentionally copies another person's work. Sure, a phrase or two in common or one stuck in your head you don't remember where it came from -- but not clearly so much cut/pasted. Goodreads staff should review the situation and decide that either (a) she is innocent and they'll do nothing or (b) she did copy other reviewer's works and delete her account. Deleting only the reviews you flagged for stealing your content is something, but doesn't necessarily discourage her and no help to others whose reviews were stolen.
Maybe someone is paying them for their reviews, so they try to up the volume. This whole review plagiarizing thing sounds fishy.
Of course if you rip off a few dozen reviewer you can easily outrank them and can in a few minutes have blog with more content than a dozen book reviewers blogging for years if you rip off all the reviews on their blog from all those years.
Even without ripping off reviews, many of the top reviewer accounts on amazon are actually groups of people rather than individuals. Of course a group of people can read and review more than a single person (assuming average reading speeads) -- 3, 8, 47, 300 people blogging on one blog can readily become a top reviewer on amazon under the one blog account.
I've had this happen to me as well, but it wasn't portions of my reviews that were stolen, it was the entire review and it was used to sell books on a pirate site. I never did get an update from GR as to whether or not they could do anything about it.
I saw the info about the pirated sites, it looks like they link directly from GRs. I can't believe GR hasn't done anything about that yet. I've seen my reviews on there and at least they give me the courtesy of listing me as the author, even though I didn't give them permission to use. Once I saw a review of mine on one of those sites under a different name.
I'm being a loud mouth about this because she has stole from so many of my friends :(
I have a feeling she's a paid Fiverr reviewer.
ETA: I've been going through this chick's reviews and so far all I've encountered were stolen from others. It's outrageous. How hasn't GR banned her yet?
Update: http://whiskeyinthejar.booklikes.com/post/1214877/part-3-i-love-our-community