Wikivoyage talk:Non-compliant redistribution Voyage Tips and guide

Various sites had copied content without attribution from WT before the en.Wikivoyage fork of 2012; these are part of the history of that project, archived at Wikivoyage talk:Non-compliant redistribution/Pre-2012 WT non-compliant redistribution.

Contents

I'm sure you're right, Saqib, especially as they have automated systems in place to prevent any mention of the word "wikivoyage" either in plain text or as part of an URL. However, if you are really determined to provide attribution, it can still be provided in edit summaries without these filters kicking in, so may we put some specific diffs here, please? Not because I don't believe you but because it would be good to have the evidence readily available... --W. Frank^email_talk 21:39, 9 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

For instance, see Karachi article on WT. --Saqib (talk) 06:33, 10 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

In that article it is pretty clear that the content of the Eat section is just reworked Wikivoyage content. Compare:

Karachi has a large number of restaurants from fast food, fast casual, casual dining to fine dining as well several fantastic upmarket restaurants, which serve a huge and wide variety of both local and international cuisines such as (Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Arab, Korean, South Indian, etc.). The beauty of the food in Karachi is that you will probably find a cuisine for every taste. On the other hand, one can easily find a franchise of an international fast food outlets such as KFC ☎ +92 21 111 532532, McDonalds ☎ +92 21 111 244622, Subway ☎ +92 21 586-8907, Papa Johns ☎ +92 21 585-3374, Mr Cod ☎ +92 21 535-0746, Henny's ☎ +92 21 5867151, +92 21 5864023 (09:00-23:00), Pizza Hut ☎ +92 21 111 241-241, Domino's ☎ +92 21 111 366-466, Penny Pizza ☎ +92 21 34991029. Wikivoyage

with

Karachi has several fantastic upscale restaurants, which serve a huge variety of cuisines. Most of the upper-end restaurants are either located within one of the major hotels in the city (the Sheraton, the Pearl Continental and Avari Towers), or in malls such as Dolmen, Ocean and Atrium or in the trendy shopping district of Zamzama in Defence. One can also easily find a franchise of KFC ☎ +92 21 111 -532-532, McDonalds ☎ +92 21 111 244-622, Subway ☎ +92 21 586-8907, Papa Johns (Clifton) ☎ +92 21 585-3374, Mr Cod ☎ +92 21 535-0746, Henny's ☎ +92 21 5867151, +92 21 5864023 9a-11p), Pizza Hut ☎ +92 21 111 241-241, Domino's ☎ +92 21 111 366-466 and Dunkin Donuts ☎ +92 21 111 366-887. The beauty of the food in Karachi is that you will probably find cuisine for every taste. You can order food and reserve tables at the famous restaurants through EatOye [92]. Wikitravel

I've bolded the sections that are identical. It turns out that the text I highlighted here actually originated on Wikitravel. See this revision and this revision. Moral of the story, I agree with W. Frank, definitely needs concrete proof before doing anything. Zellfaze (talk) 17:46, 17 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

WT is problematic; they copied the pagebanner from us. This issue was raised in the pub a few months ago. No idea if anything was done. K7L (talk) 13:17, 10 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

(swept from Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub#Da russkies stole Crimea):

http://wiki.livingintravel.ru/wiki/Crimea is a direct rip-off of our Crimea article.

There is one revision (12:06, 21 мая 2014‎) in ?action=history and no proper attribution. (The corresponding edit here is 09:06 UTC, 21 May 2014‎.) They've basically posted an entire database dump, without the revision history. No mention of CC-BY-SA, no edit history other than the one last revision as of whenever they plagiarised this.

Their "privacy" link points to Wikimedia's privacy policy and the "disclaimer" points to en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Disclaimer (a redlink, they treat the Wikivoyage: prefix as an interwiki link instead of project space?).

Are we keeping track of these or protesting to the United Nations or something? Russia shouldn't be able to just march in and steal Crimea from us.

I know WP had a "Wikipedia:Forks and mirrors" that was tracking this sort of stuff, do we? K7L (talk) 14:06, 9 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

Wikivoyage:List of content re-users and info at Wikivoyage:Non-compliant redistribution. Nurg (talk) 09:46, 10 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. It looks like the list is buried on the talk page, Wikivoyage talk:Non-compliant redistribution, for some reason? K7L (talk) 13:47, 10 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

Looking at stuff like this they seem to have just copied WV content at some past point in time and not followed our updates since. There seems to be no attribution in any place and as I don't speak Russian I cannot communicate with whoever is behind this site... If they did point back to us, they'd do no harm, right? Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:16, 13 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

As long as the pointers were systematic -- that is, on every article, pointing directly to our article or article history. Powers ^(talk) 01:14, 24 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

The site solarnavigator.net seems to be copying (at least one) WV article(s), e.g. compare this page about Eastbourne, and our article about Eastbourne. Also see this comparison of the pages. The page says at the bottom "This website is Copyright © 1999 & 2015." with no attribution or anything.  Seagull123  Φ  18:10, 14 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

There seems to be large scale copying from Wikivoyage over to this site, with no attribution (which is required by our CC Licence). In fact, pages are marked as © Tourist Inspiration, which is outrageous.

This was originally brought to light by Traveler100, who posted on the pub. The example link Traveler provided has content copied from Hamamatsu. My own searches have, within a few minutes, found content copied from articles as diverse as Boston/Downtown ([1]), various district articles of Paris (e.g. Paris/5th arrondissement) ([2]) and Sheffield ([3]).

Note that I am not referring to the main attraction at the top of each page; they seem to be Tourist Inspiration original content. The copied content is further down the page, under "Local Knowledge".

Reading the project page, we now have two options: write to Tourist Inspiration ourselves, or email [email protected] for help from the Wikimedia legal team. Given the apparent extent of the copyright violation, it will be extremely difficult for us to find every single example on the Tourist Inspiration website, so I think we should involve the Wikimedia legal team even if we decide to write to TI ourselves. What are others' thoughts on this? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:33, 1 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

If they are willing to help, that is certainly useful. I think we need a couple of articles where somebody still active here has contributed clearly above the threshold of originality and is prepared to go forward, so that there is no doubt about the copyright ownership. If Touristinspiration is willing to negotiate, I suppose we'll have a solution where they agree to conform to the licence, withdraw the content or pay money. The latter means they have to pay to everyone stepping forward with copyright claims also in the future, which hardly is an attractive solution for them. --LPfi (talk) 14:22, 1 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your input. I have been the most prolific contributor for Sheffield for a couple of years, but whether the copied content is mostly my work, I couldn't say. I have left messages on the talk pages of the articles we know have been affected, plus on Talk:Boston and Talk:Paris, so hopefully the authors will come forward.

By far the easiest thing for Touristinspiration to do would be simply to credit Wikivoyage and make their content available under a similar CC Licence to our own. Whether they will do so willingly is another matter entirely... --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:13, 1 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Wouldn't just telling them that we'll be forced to inform our legal team if they don't get to us be enough for the beginning? Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:53, 1 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps, but assuming I've understood your meaning, opening negotiations with a threat (that we may not be able to follow through with) is not a great way to start and could backfire on us. If they respond negatively to our first communication, or ignore it altogether, then we can consider letting them know we'll be contacting WM legal. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:52, 1 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

The so called Eat and Drink sections they have seem like odd mashups including Buy listings. Overall, the page looks just like some kind of machine-generated directory of random businesses and every entry seems to have a section of "Local knowledge" with unattributed Wikivoyage content brought over by some bot. I have a feeling the people behind the site might not even know (and don't care) what exactly their articles/entries contain. Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised if they wouldn't react in any way to what we write to them. ϒpsilon (talk) 19:43, 1 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Contact address is a rental post box in LA and domain registered via WHOISGUARD Panama so they are not wanting to publicise who they are. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:56, 1 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Still waiting for at least one prolific contributor to the Boston and Paris articles to show up. The other option would be if anyone already taking part in this discussion would be willing to check Tourist Inspiration for their own content and work on an email with me to send to TI. Any volunteers to find out if your contributions have been stolen? :-) I guess anyone involved in sending an email will also have to be willing to use their real name, so it's understandable if some of you may be reluctant. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:21, 3 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Okay, so I've drafted an email to send to Tourist Inspiration. Please take a look, comment above the line, and make any amendments you wish to the email itself. I am no expert in these matters, and am not really au fait with copyright law, legal language, etc, so any input and advice would be much appreciated. At some point, I will also be contacting WMF:Legal. Thanks, ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:21, 7 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

23 November 2017: The draft mentioned above can now be found in the edit history of this page. I have now sent the following email to Tourist Inspiration:

Dear Sir / Madam,

I am writing to inform you that some of your content is in breach of copyright. There is content on pages of Tourist Inspiration which has been copied from Wikivoyage (https://en.wikivoyage.org/) without crediting the original authors. Wikivoyage is a free wiki-style travel guide that is run by the Wikimedia Foundation (https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home), but its content is owned by the authors of Wikivoyage, of which I am one.

Under Wikivoyage's Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Licence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License), anyone is free to copy, use or modify content from Wikivoyage; however the copied / used / modified content must be attributed to its original authors. In this case, the URL of the relevant Wikivoyage article is sufficient, because Wikivoyage credits its own authors. The content must also be freely available under a licence which is compatible with the original CC-Licence.

Tourist Inspiration is currently in breach of both of these terms:

1. There is no indication on pages with copied content that said content originates on Wikivoyage. Written credit must be present on every page which has content taken from Wikivoyage, reading something like: "This text is taken from Wikivoyage"; the word 'Wikivoyage' should be a link to the page the content originates from.

2. Pages with copied content are marked © Tourist Inspiration, where there should be a notice along the lines of "Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License" with a link to a page showing the licence in full, for example: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ This is to inform other people of their lawful right to copy, use or modify the CC-Licensed content. Furthermore, use of the copyright symbol implies that Tourist Inspiration is the sole author of all content on a given page, which is simply not true.

Below, I provide a few examples of Wikivoyage content copied onto Tourist Inspiration. The copied content can be found under the heading "Local Knowledge" on each of the referenced pages:

The Elsecar Heritage Railway page (https://www.touristinspiration.com/united-kingdom/england/south-yorkshire/elsecar-heritage-railway-600.html) has unattributed content copied from Wikivoyage's Sheffield article (https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Sheffield), as do many other of the pages linked from your South Yorkshire portal (https://www.touristinspiration.com/united-kingdom/england/south-yorkshire/).

The Village Hotel Farnborough page (https://www.touristinspiration.com/united-kingdom/village-hotel-farnborough-549833.html) has content from Wikivoyage's Farnborough article (https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/farnborough), as do other pages on Tourist Inspiration (e.g. https://www.touristinspiration.com/united-kingdom/flexiletswallis-square-farnborough-665543.html, https://www.touristinspiration.com/united-kingdom/falcon-hotel-542797.html, https://www.touristinspiration.com/united-kingdom/saco-farnborough-825100.html).

At the time of writing, I have made several random searches on your website for destinations as wide-ranging as Slovenia (https://www.touristinspiration.com/blog/sloveniaguides-si-2/), Boston (https://www.touristinspiration.com/north-america/united-states/massachusetts/kings-chapel-historic-site-2018360.html), Hamamatsu (https://www.touristinspiration.com/knowledge/things-to-see-and-do/kitaouji-collection-47730.html), Paris (https://www.touristinspiration.com/939/odette-paris-2009298.html) and Los Angeles (https://www.touristinspiration.com/north-america/united-states/california/kawada-hotel-1456522.html); all have resulted in my finding of copied content under 'Local Knowledge' within a couple of minutes' browsing. This is unacceptable, and must be addressed.

In my capacity as one of the main authors (ThunderingTyphoons! - user page at https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/User:ThunderingTyphoons!), and thus one of the copyright holders of content on both the Sheffield and Farnborough Wikivoyage articles, I request that you comply immediately with the terms of the CC-Licence as outlined above and as fully stipulated here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License

You can do this either by correctly attributing the content to the Wikivoyage articles in question, and by making your content available under a similar licence, or by deleting all copied content from Tourist Inspiration. I further ask that you review the rest of Tourist Inspiration to make sure that all content copied from Wikivoyage is either appropriately attributed or deleted.

Please note that I have also informed the Legal Team of the Wikimedia Foundation (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal) of the presence of copied content on your website, and will pass on evidence of all such material I am aware of, regardless of whether I am the original author or not.

Yours faithfully,

James Dawkins

Now to wait for a reply and action from TI (unlikely), or word from Wikimedia Legal, who are investigating. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:26, 23 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Well done. This letter is well-written, covers all the important points &, as far as I can tell, is legally correct.

In addition to any contact address(es) given on their site, it might also be sent to webmaster@ and www@ (required by RFC 2142 but non-existent on many sites) or, if the company is US-based, to the address the DMCA legally requires them to maintain for copyright complaints, or to some similar address in other countries.

It seems to me this letter would, with review from WMF legal, be a fine starting point for a boilerplate form letter that could be used for future infringers. Getting the right balance between simple explanation & extremely precise legal wording, and between polite request & blustering threats, is quite difficult. I'd say this letter is admirably close (better than I could have done) on both, a good basis for future notes. Pashley (talk) 04:57, 15 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, that's really well done. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:25, 15 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hi, both. Thanks for your kind words about my letter, and particularly for Pashley's ideas.

However, the issue with Tourist Inspiration has been resolved. The website's owner responded to me directly in a very apologetic manner and has enacted the desired changes. A lot of WV content has been removed, and the stuff that was reinserted is now credited very thoroughly. I am personally satisfied by the steps taken, but if anyone else wishes to review the website, be my guest. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:40, 16 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Holy smokes this is great, thank you for doing it, and sorry for the extended hibernation. I'm also flattered that anything I wrote would be copied, even by a bot! Thanks again for the legal wrangling! --ButteBag (talk) 00:32, 9 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Welcome back, ButteBag! And thank you. A lot of the copying was done by the website's owner himself, but whether he was using a bot to do that or not I couldn't say. What I do know is he spent several days and nights personally removing copyrighted content. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:00, 9 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

@MartinJacobson: in response to your request for comment.

You would be more than welcome to copy the above email written by me and reword it as necessary. That email was successful in conveying the seriousness of the issue to Tourist Inspiration, and it got me into direct contact with the website's owner. We were then able to discuss an appropriate solution without needing to involve the Wikimedia lawyers.

Of course, every site is different, and the ones you're looking into may not be as easy to pin down. I would therefore recommend also getting in touch with WMF Legal anyway, just to tell them what you've found and what you're doing about it. They will almost certainly launch an investigation, though they tend to take a few days to reply to emails. I used the general email address, [email protected].

You could also take a look at Pashley's suggestions (also above) of alternative ways to contact the sites' owners if their public emails are unresponsive.

By the way, any email you send to the copyvio websites would be better if it were signed by at least one of the authors of the affected Wikivoyage articles; as I understand it, we collectively hold copyright over the content of each article we contribute to.

Let me know if any of this is unclear. I'd also be happy to lend a hand if you need it. Best of luck, Martin. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:14, 18 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your very informative reply, ThunderingTyphoons! I want to make clear that I don't want to make any measures myself, partly since I don't feel comfortable with the legal issues, and partly since I don't feel comfortable representing WV or the authors in outward communication. I realize that I didn't make this clear in my original request for comments. My hope was to bring these cases to the attention of someone who is more confident and competent in these areas than I am myself. So, if you TT (or anyone else) are willing to look into this matter I would be more than happy to leave it in your hands. Best, MartinJacobson (talk) 19:39, 18 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

[edit conflict] Thanks for doing this! Just to confirm: As individual users, we do indeed retain copyright over all of the original content we contribute to Wiki sites. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:44, 18 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

The person who looks into the matter should be someone who has a credible copyright claim to the material that has been reused. So I think posting on the articles' talk pages and in requests for comment was the right thing to do. Ultimately, if the authors of the articles in question are able or willing to defend their work against theft, then they should do so. I won't be taking this on myself, but will repeat my offer of help to anyone who fits the above criteria deciding to take the lead. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 19:53, 18 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Traveloca seems to have copied our site in its entirety, see e.g. the travellers' pub. TravelAroundOz noted a copied article at Talk:Tourist Drive 33#Wow, just wow and I wrote at Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub#Copycat site. Perhaps for now we should discuss in the pub. –LPfi (talk) 14:04, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

The site also seems to have removed the credits bit on the bottom (the bit saying This travel guide page was last edited at 10:58, on 15 February 2021 by Wikivoyage user TravelAroundOz. Based on work by Wikivoyage users LPfi, Ground Zero, AlasdairW, Ikan Kekek and ThunderingTyphoons!.) btw if your wondering how I found it, thank Earwig's Copyvio Detector (see [4] . TravelAroundOz (talk) 02:54, 16 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

See Talk:Tourist Drive 33#Wow, just wow.

It seems traveloca.org has copied all of Wikivoyage (with InstantCommons direct links for the images) without giving us any credit or attribution. See e.g. the travellers' pub. Their contact fields seem to be blank.

Do we have any standard procedures? I was thinking about a complaint mail to their internet provider. I think there is some (kind) letter template for the purpose at Commons. If I write myself, I might be rude.

What do you think?

–LPfi (talk) 12:51, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

We keep the copyright to our work at Commons and Wikivoyage. The only way they can use it is through being licensed by us. If they don't comply with the licence, they are breaking the copyright law. I am not personally very interested in going to court in Arizona, but you US folks might have an easier time doing it. And I suppose they either comply or take down the site just through some correspondence. –LPfi (talk) 12:58, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Hey, I recommend looking at Wikivoyage:Non-compliant redistribution and then if you want a template / inspiration for an email of mine that was successful in getting copyrighted material deleted without resorting to legal action, its talk page. Remember also that we have an in-house legal team. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 13:39, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

It's also not true, by the way, that "the only way they can use it is through being licensed by us" - under copyleft anyone and everyone is free to reuse or remix any and all of Wikivoyage's content, without our knowledge or permission. That's how we get third-party organisations making offline apps based on our content, and that's also how the Wikivoyage community was able to legally fork from Wikitravel without the permission of that site's owners. However, the licence requires a reuser to credit us as their source and also to place any work of theirs that uses our content under a compatible copyleft licence. The above website is in breach of these terms.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:19, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the links. I am probably writing an e-mail later on, but as they have copied all the site, any interested contributor could write.

Our work is licensed by us through our CC-BY-SA licence. What I tried to say is that there is no other mechanism making our content free to use. We have not resigned our copyright and that we share it by a free licence does not make it public domain. I said it because many contributors talk about "copyrighted" content in contrast with free content. The difference is just in the specific terms set forth in the licence, and BY-SA is definitely not a public domain dedication.

–LPfi (talk) 14:38, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Geez, looks like they're not just plagiarizing our entire site (from articles to user talk pages, just try replacing what comes after /wiki/ with anything we have here and you'll find a copy of it) but doing so pretty much in realtime – this discussion including LP's last comment is already in their "Travellers' pub". Could be a good idea to involve the WMF legal team. Ypsilon (talk) 15:15, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

My comment appeared there when reloading their Travellers' pub immediately after posting it. Ypsilon (talk) 15:17, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

(conflict) Interesting; it's obviously an automatic process.

@LPfi: If there's any way I can help, just ping me.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:35, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Contact the legal team, see https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/contact/. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:33, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Here's a draft for a message to the legal team, feel free to modify (and copyedit) it as needed: --Ypsilon (talk) 17:31, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Dear staff of the Wikimedia legal team,

As a contributor to English Wikivoyage I'm writing to notify you about a gross copyright violation that members of the Wikivoyage community have recently discovered. The whole English Wikivoyage is being re-published in real time at https://traveloca.org/wiki/*insert name of an article or indeed anything on en-WV here* . In violation of the copyleft licence, they do not credit Wikivoyage as the source for their content, nor do they notify readers of their lawful right to reuse the content.

You can see the community's discussion about the matter here: https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Wikivoyage:Travellers%27_pub#Copycat_site

The traveloca website doesn't seem to provide any contact information, so there is not much more we can do about it. Therefore we're asking you to take it from here, as you have the knowledge and tools to investigate and deal with this kind of issue, and also because the copyright violators probably are less likely to ignore messages from you than from Wikivoyage contributors.

Thank you.

[someone's name here]

That's looking good. My only major change is to the last part of the first paragraph: your version seemed to repeat the attribution issue twice, whereas there are actually two ways in which the licence has been broken.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:37, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

A w:whois request gives an abuse address (sorry for forgetting to include it here): [email protected], phone +1.4805240066. –LPfi (talk) 19:46, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

So in theory, that's a way of contacting the people behind Traveloca? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 19:55, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

I wouldn't risk sending it by just us contributors. It's best if the legal team did so. TravelAroundOz (talk) 03:34, 16 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

The problem is that WMF (and its legal department) cannot act on our behalf because of the rules on lawyers and clients. The client is WMF, and representing us would mud the waters, which is disallowed. See Wikimedia Legal Disclaimer. They can help informally, but we must respect their not giving formal advice nor acting as our attorney. –LPfi (talk) 08:29, 16 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

As we own the copyright of our own work, each of us can legally defend it independently. Nobody needs to represent the community. As long as one doesn't do something stupid, as in actually going to court without having a clear case, there is little legal risk, and the risk is on the individual. Of course, uncivil or badly founded complaints will risk our reputation, and might make other complains less effective, but I don't think any of us will act without due thought. –LPfi (talk) 08:40, 16 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

I suppose Namesilo isn't there to help infringing on copyrights (there are probably also that sort of providers, but there is no reason to think they are one). So, to avoid legal risk, they might gladly shut down the site. Often providers reserve that right in their terms of use. They could also notify the site owners and ask them to clear with us, which would not harm their business, nor be much work for them. –LPfi (talk) 08:52, 16 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Fill in this form https://www.namesilo.com/report_abuse.php TravelAroundOz (talk) 10:21, 16 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

abuse@ is probably not the right address; that is mainly for complaints about user actions such as spamming or stalking. This complaint should go to webmaster@ or www@. The official list of what addresses should be available is in RFC 2142; not all sites follow it.

If they are in the US, some obligations & a complaint mechanism are defined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, & some other countries have similar legislation. I do not think that should be the first thing tried, or that our editors should try to invoke this formal legal mechanism without first consulting WMF legal, but it is another string to our bow if polite requests do not solve the problem. Pashley (talk) 10:48, 16 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

The best address would be [email protected], but I doubt that address is in use. Most hosted sites not even read [email protected], the only one that is mandated. [email protected] would be a little off, as they might handle only their own web site, not issues about their customers' sites. It seems (using traceroute) that the web server of traveloca.org is hosted at Cloudflare or some customer of theirs, not at Namesilo, but as they don't have reverse DNS at the web server, I cannot tell. Traveloca's web server's email is handled by emailowl.com. Oh dear. –LPfi (talk) 11:44, 16 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Maybe focus on what we can do right now, and worry about the rest later. Ypsilon drafted an email to Legal above, which I then modified. Is it suitable to be sent like that, or should it be rewritten further? We want Legal to provide us with the most help they can without breaking their own terms; would it therefore be better to change the focus of the email somewhat and instead of ending with "Therefore we're asking you to take it from here...", we go more down the route of something along the line of "We are in need of some help. Are you able to advise on courses of actions that we could take? Are there any actions you can take on our behalf?" It's a bit more open-ended, and avoids giving the impression that we presume we're entitled to their help but are grateful for anything they can offer.

Also worth noting that, when writing to Traveloca (or their server provider or whoever), the merest hint of involvement from lawyers (i.e. just stating that we have informed the legal department of the WMF) may be enough for them to comply without the need for further action. I don't claim to be an expert, but it worked like a charm with a similar copycat a few years ago.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 12:27, 16 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Sounds good. I'd also remove the sentence on not having contact information (they'll found out for themselves, either way). Feels funny, though, that our discussion about the matter can be found at their web site. Kind of emphasizes how openly we act. –LPfi (talk) 16:01, 16 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Remove the sentence on not having contact information from the email to Legal? They won't necessarily even try to contact Traveloca, and if not won't find out about the lack of contact info unless we tell them.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:44, 16 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Well, it would be a nice surprise if Traveloca would just take down the copy (or add the information required by the copyleft license) after an e-mail from us, though I'm afraid they won't do that. If the WMF legal team cannot do much about this other than give us advice, then is there some other Wikimedia department we could ask to contact the copycat site? After all they're plagiarizing a whole Wikimedia project. --Ypsilon (talk) 17:35, 16 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps just remove the "so there is not much ..." part of the sentence. We are at least able to write the abuse address.

I suppose legal action from our side is very much possible, with or without help from the WMF, and the copyright infringement is quite obvious, so I donẗ think they want to be taken to court, and their providers have even less reason to let it deteriorate that far. I think we should contact WMF and then proceed based on their advice. As they have plagiarized so much, it should not be too difficult to find e.g. a photographer based in Arizona interesting in cashing in some copyright infringement damages, or WMF could give me a lawyer contact interested in representing me for a percentage of damages. And Traveloca and their providers know that, so a polite but firm email communication should certainly be enough.

–LPfi (talk) 13:52, 17 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Sorry if this is obvious to everyone else, but what is the significance of Arizona? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:06, 17 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Whois gave "Registrant State/Province" as "AZ". I suppose that is Arizona. I don't know whether that is relevant, but it could be. Cloudflare in California hosts their DNS and probably also their web server, so that would be another contact, and probably closer to more people. –LPfi (talk) 19:41, 17 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Any updates? TravelAroundOz (talk) 01:43, 20 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

This conversation seems to have died. Is everyone happy for this email to be sent to Legal? And would someone please refine the sentence about being able to contact Traveloca, i.e. insert the correct address? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 08:40, 22 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Dear staff of the Wikimedia legal team,

As a contributor to English Wikivoyage I'm writing to notify you about a gross copyright violation that members of the Wikivoyage community have recently discovered. The whole English Wikivoyage is being re-published in real time at https://traveloca.org/wiki/any_article (or indeed nearly anything on en-WV). In violation of the copyleft licence, they do not credit Wikivoyage as the source for their content, nor do they notify readers of their lawful right to reuse the content.

You can see the community's discussion about the matter here: https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Wikivoyage:Travellers%27_pub#Copycat_site

The traveloca website doesn't seem to provide any contact information (ISPs seem to be Namesilo and Cloudflare, according to whois and traceroute). We are in need of some help. Are you able to advise on courses of actions that we could take? Are there any actions you can take on our behalf?

Thank you.

[someone's name here]

That's cool. Perfect draft Jamie. If it were an article, do Tourist Drive 33 since there is a little bit of discussion about the copyright violation and where I originally found the copycat site. TravelAroundOz (talk) 10:36, 22 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

I think we can send it. I adjusted the link not to return 404 and the wording accordingly (and added "nearly": they don't seem to include Special:*), and added the ISPs. Remove the parenthesis if you think it is useless. Personally I won't do anything about in in a week or so. –LPfi (talk) 10:36, 22 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Anyway, my editing activities will be reduced in the next week due to personal reasons. I'll see what happens then. TravelAroundOz (talk) 11:20, 22 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Ypsilon, ThunderingTyphoons!, LPfi: Anything back from the legal team? TravelAroundOz (talk) 10:12, 28 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

No idea, I for one haven't sent any e-mail. Maybe would be best if one of our admins or bureaucrats would get in touch with them. Ypsilon (talk) 13:16, 28 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Ikan Kekek, Ground Zero, AndreCarrotflower, The dog2, Mx. Granger:, any thoughts? --Ypsilon (talk) 13:37, 2 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The letter looks fine to me. Gets straight to the point. The dog2 (talk) 14:43, 2 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

I haven't been following this issue closely, but I have no objections. —Granger (talk · contribs) 17:05, 2 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

Looks good to me. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:08, 2 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

I'll copy edit slightly (unindented for ease in copying):

Dear Wikimedia Legal Team,

As a contributor to English Wikivoyage, I'm writing to notify you about a gross copyright violation that members of the Wikivoyage community have recently discovered. The entire English Wikivoyage site is being re-published in real time at https://traveloca.org/wiki/(name of article). In violation of the copyleft licence, they do not credit Wikivoyage or its editors as the source for their content, nor do they notify readers of their lawful right to reuse the content.

You can see the community's discussion about the matter here: https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Wikivoyage:Travellers%27_pub#Copycat_site

The Traveloca website doesn't seem to provide any contact information (ISPs seem to be Namesilo and Cloudflare, according to Whois and Traceroute). Would you be able to advise us on courses of actions that we could take to address this situation? Are there any actions you can take on our behalf?

Thank you very much

[someone's name here]

And yes, I approve of this letter. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:15, 2 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

Did anyone actually send the letter? Has there been any response? STW932 (talk) 07:44, 2 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Wikiwand has just copied the entirety of Wikivoyage with no attribution provided. For example, have a look at the pub which is the exact same copy of this page. We've had a similar problem with traveloca.org as well, and here we go again - another copycat site. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 04:21, 27 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

See Wikivoyage:Non-compliant redistribution & its talk page. Pashley (talk) 05:57, 27 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

If you scroll to the bottom, you'll see attribution (says Wikipedia, though...) and a link to the page history. Might be CC compliant. Nelson Ricardo (talk) 06:09, 27 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Not all; so far, most destination articles I’ve seen are copied from WP, not us. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 10:21, 27 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Seems to be some kind of cache-based reader (https://www.wikiwand.com/about) - users can't edit anything to Wikiwand. Leaderboard (talk) 13:36, 27 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

It's the same with traveloca.org. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 09:08, 29 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Wasn't the issue with Traveloca that they didn't attribute content to Wikivoyage contributors? Anyway, it seems that the site has now been hijacked by identity thieves. Nelson Ricardo (talk) 19:22, 29 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Just as an FYI, I found another copy of Wikivoyage a few days ago: Traveler and Free. This one is a mirror site, which updates in real time (go ahead and find this very post on their mirror of the Pub!). It's not copyleft-compliant: there's no credit given to WV, and each page has a fraudulent copyright symbol on it.

There seems to be real people behind it, as the same site hosts a blog that appears to be original content.

On Monday, I sent an email to the address listed on their contact page, and have also notified Wikimedia Legal.

Will let you know if there are any developments. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:35, 21 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Their terms of service reads an absolute joke to me. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:48, 21 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Ah, I didn't spot that, but Legal might be interested. It expressly forbids other sites to mirror it!

Forgot to mention that it's not just a mirror of en.wikivoyage, but of all the language additions.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:57, 21 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for taking action. We should have a page with best practices for these cases. –LPfi (talk) 13:27, 22 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

We do, but it's not very instructive - Wikivoyage:Non-compliant redistribution.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:29, 22 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. I had forgotten about it. There is even your example letter on the talk page. That page helps quite a bit, although it could be improved. I added a paragraph on contributions with copyright. –LPfi (talk) 18:25, 22 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

@ThunderingTyphoons!: Any advances? –LPfi (talk) 18:15, 31 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

I'm afraid not. If other users are interested, I recommend writing your own reports to Wikimedia Legal; they're obviously very busy, but if several Wikivoyagers make some noise about this issue, they're more likely to prioritise our case over other stuff they're doing (I work with lawyers IRL, and that's how they operate).--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:26, 31 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

What can they do, other than giving some general advice? They cannot be our lawyers and they don't have any copyrights to the content. If we sue, they can probably give contacts to lawyers in the right jurisdictions (seems to be England, as the London address is marked as "HQ"), but that's about it, I think. –LPfi (talk) 08:38, 1 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

I sent an e-mail of my own. –LPfi (talk) 09:05, 1 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

I sent email as well & cc'd legal. Pashley (talk) 14:26, 1 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

@ThunderingTyphoons!: It's a bit over a month since you started this thread, but have you received an email from Legal yet? If you haven't yet received one, then I'm afraid they're just going to dismiss it. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 12:14, 22 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

I have, actually, but it was so bloody pathetic that sharing it just seemed like a shame. Nonetheless:

Dear James,

Thanks so much for running this issue and your draft letter by the Wikimedia legal department! We appreciate your efforts to help address this copyright violation.

Best, Rosemary Sanz - Wikimedia Foundation Legal Department

--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:19, 22 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

Wow, that's like getting a helping hand and a pat on the head, but without the helping hand. Ground Zero (talk) 17:51, 22 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

Another wow from me. "Draft letter"??? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 21:37, 22 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hi colleagues wikivoyagers,

FYI, I've stumbled upn this website that seems to duplicate the content from different versions of Wikivoyage (Florence (travelzom.com) vs. Florence (4833176) here) and I've contacted the Wikimedia legal team for a review. Cheers -- Nastoshka (talk) 13:29, 29 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Great discovery, it's unbelievable that these people claim copyright to the content, and their "terms of service" say readers can "temporarily download one copy of the materials on Travelzom's Website for personal, non-commercial transitory viewing only". --Ypsilon (talk) 13:42, 29 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

They say their headquarters is in the UK. Would a UK resident want to send a complaint? Their domain is registered by GoDaddy for Domains By Proxy and their IPs are from Cloudflare. Those are possible secondary complaint contacts. –LPfi (talk) 14:15, 29 February 2024 (UTC)Reply