Kerals.com – The new wave of plagiarism from blogs
Blogger Saji noticed that a number of blog posts including his were used without permission by kerals.com and he notified kerals and put a post regarding this to notify others. There were around 300 blog posts that were copied without permission.
Following this Anilshree put a post supporting Saji's findings to attract more attention to this major issue. Though none of AnilShree's posts were copied, he wanted to gather more support for this issue. Bloggers who found their content on kerals.com were outraged and as the first step, sent an email to Kerals.com.
When informed that there was no response to Saji for 4 days, a support ticket was sent asking them to take down the contents or it will be reported to hosting provider or Google Adsense.
To this a very rude abusive reply was shot back from their Director Mr. Shiv Kumar.
Later an array of mails and threats, phising attempt, and even a forging email were followed from Chris, Ajay, POP, Shiv Kumar – all employees or owners of Kerals.com. Anilshree was too warned and threatened by kerals.com of consequences and was forced to take down his post.
But most other bloggers stay put. Strangely, whoever complained was banned from accessing kerals.com site too, in order to conceal evidence of fraud.
Bloggers complained to theplanet.com (copyright@theplanet.com), the hosting provider for Kerals.com and to Google Ad sense which clearly states they follow the DCMA guidelines and will not allow adsense on copied contents.
Kerals.com started to realize things were getting serious and started to remove the content and informed a few bloggers about it.
However they wanted (or rather ordered) to take down the posts of bloggers when the posts were removed. This is not necessary as blog like any other medium is protected under freedom of speech. When they were informed of posts were removed, bloggers put posts updating the status of their individual case.
Even then, more bloggers received threats and in form of fake legal notices. Some emails even claim to have photographs (a clear case of cyber stalking) of bloggers and addresses. Have no idea what kerals.com is going to achieve with such kind of tricks which is going to land them up in more trouble.
These are the bloggers posts whose contents were stolen and put posts on this Issue:
1. Aravind
2. Thulasi
3. Valyammayi (Around 25 of her blog posts were lifted)
4. Kannus
5. Saji
(Saji with screenshots)
6. Peringodan
7. Mayoora (Update)
8. Satheesh KM
9. Agrajan
Bloggers who are joining the protest as a good will gesture.
10. Cibu
11. BlogBharti
12. Njaan
13. Daly
14. Pramod
15. Anchalkkaran
16. Reshma
17. Bhoomiputhri
18. Inji Pennu
Email header forging
19. P.R
20. Idangal
21. I Report by Malayali
What do the Bloggers want?
Most bloggers are satisfied with their content being taken off the site. They are not even asking for a public apology. Yet, the threats and harassment continues.
Some bloggers are getting ready to sue the company for copyright infringement and cyber stalking and other harassment.
Details about Kerals.com:
Their whois records shows kerals.com is served from sreela.com a site for pornography.
Their company registration address shows:
Groups, Anashwara
Anashwara Groups LTD
8564 Green ford ct
Srinagar, 659874
India
565499874 Fax --
Anashwara Groups - Suite 27,
Nehru Park Way,
Srinagar 190 001,
Jammu & Kashmir, India
Anaswara Groups
87a Topui Road
Srinagar, Jammu Kashmir 65598, ,
INDIA
Phone: 6659874556
Anashwara group also owns malayalampadam.com a website with Illegal Malayalam movies, which was already caught once by the police.
(More posts will be added as the issue continues. Please leave comments if you want your post to be added)
6 comments:
Outraged.
Ente support rekhapeduthunnu. Wish i could have been a lawyer instead.:)
http://amooma.blogspot.com/2008/06/kopy-kerals.html
A post agrigator in Hindi
Kerals is more than a plagiarist platform. It is a mafia-style goonda haven. Cyber stalking and personal violent threats have already been sent to several individuals.
If THESE creeps are not controlled, then how can the legal system be trusted at all?
Granted cyber crimes are difficult to prove and hence difficult to mitigate. But in THIS instance, proof is abundant... and clear.
And they can't hide from the law saying that only some of their employees are at fault. As long as the employees made the email threats while they were employees, they were representing the company as such. The company is liable for everything they said and did.
I am unclear as to HOW action against this should be taken. Perhaps a class action suit. I don't really know. We need a law firm to support the act. Evidence is clear. So I doubt if we'd have trouble getting the support...
I am a lawyer but helpless being out of country but have active bloggers as friends who would fight for this. Seems like the headstrong malayalee founder of this group needs a reality check and he will get one soon.
Is Kerals.com misusing its member's registration details?
Are the support staff reliable and controlled by kerals.com owners.
More over Kerals.com or Anashwara Groups PVT LTD in association with IMCK seems to be clearly funded by selling SEX online.
They also threatened a malayalee lady from US for complaining about stealing other peoples content.
Read all the details at Inji Pennu's blog Ginger and Mango under the topic "Stealing, Threat, Cyber Stalking, Abuse – What next Kerals.com ?"
I strongly contempt this act of Shiva and the soft nature approach of Sathya to save himself from legal tangles.
Are they playing good cop bad cop?
Read more at http://www.simplymalayalees.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=514
I had one more reply Kerals.com from a guy by name "Saajan Thuruthiyil"
He suggest that I must not waste my time investigating Kerals.com crimes and must find time to fight with my wife
Here is the verbatim copy of the email : http://www.simplymalayalees.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=514&PID=1946#1946
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