Update 2/17/15 11:33 a.m.: We received notice from Squarespace.com that they had removed ThunderReview.com from the Internet; we appreciate them moving quickly on this.
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There’s a website called ThunderReview.com that is stealing Splice Today’s content and pretending it’s theirs. No credit, no links, just full-on thievery. Definitely one of the things about the Internet that sucks journalism-wise is how easy it is for anyone to come along, illegally cut and paste your content, and plug it into their own sites. Happens all the time. We don’t actively use advanced (expensive) Copyscape tools to ping us every time someone steals our content, but a reader brought this most egregious copyright violation to our attention.
Let’s take a look at what Thunder Review is up to. Registered to tucowsreviews.com, (alas, if you do a whois, tucowsreviews.com does not exist—in fact, at this writing, the domain name was available) the site’s About page states, “The Thunder Review examines modern life through personal essays, cultural criticism, humor pieces, and comics. We believe in good ideas and polished prose. The site launched in the summer of 2007.” (Note: we emailed, and they didn't take our content down.)
Apparently they also believe in stealing content from other sites like BygoneBureau.com and thoughtcatalog.com.
Needless to say we are asking that Thunder Review (hosted by Squarespace) remove each and every one of our stolen articles immediately.
Over the course of a few months, a total of 73 pieces of original content were stolen from Splice Today (includeing four of my own) under various author names.
I work hard to write my own content and it seriously pisses me off when someone comes to my house and steals my shit.
At first, it seemed easy to assume none of these authors are real. They are just fake generated names being used as bylines for articles, right? Wrong. The right hand tab at ThunderReview.com lists “authors” and includes photos and bios. Not sure if Thunder Review has stolen these authors' names or if the writers were ever affiliated with the sites—my advice would be for them to request their names be removed from it and from our stolen articles immediately.
So by the numbers: that’s 19 fake authors (who happen to all be real people, apparently with stolen identities) stealing at a minimum a whopping 73 original Splice Today articles.
In summary, we at SpliceToday.com are formally requesting that the website ThunderReview.com be taken down from the web completely as the vast majority of its content has been stolen from us. In fact, after several hours of searching, we did not find a single piece of original content on it. We think Bygone Bureau should investigate the stolen content. And thoughtcatalog.com, as a larger site, would benefit from buying the expensive Copyscape software upgrade to be sure their material isn’t being stolen from around this tangled web.
—Follow Splice Today Senior Editor Mary McCarthy on Twitter @marymac
