{greenyouth} Re: More Missing People, Crying Mothers..

Monday, February 19, 2007

Yahoo blames it on subcontractors when caught on plagiarism

Finally Yahoo! India (someone at customer care, not an official) responded to our many emails stating:

The Malayalam story was provided to us by Webdunia.com (the content provider) on the express representation that they are duly authorized by the author of the story to publish it. In the circumstances therefore, we do not admit of any copyright violation, as alleged by you.

Although there is no copyright violation and without prejudice to our rights, the said story has been removed from our web site, to avoid any further controversy.Should you have any further concerns on copyright violations, please write in to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and it will be addressed by the webdunia team.

Yahoo even denies that there was any copyright violation, even when they instantly removed it from their servers when caught. If there was no copyright violation, why would anyone care to remove it? Or are they claiming blogs do not have copyright laws?

Yahoo! India and their subcontractors are their concern, not us bloggers. By asking us to contact subcontractors is nothing but pure arrogance from this multinational corporation, giving no respect to the law and procedures existing in a country.

The content appeared on Yahoos domain, not on Webdunia.coms domain.
The content appeared on Yahoos portal, not on Webdunia.coms portal.

Our aim is to get a response from Yahoo, acknowledging their mistake. Our fight will continue until then.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Yahoo! India commits plagiarism.

On Feb 2, 2007 or so, Yahoo started a Malayalam Portal in Unicode Malayalam, and shortly thereafter, we noticed that contents were being lifted out of Malayalam blogs, contents that were copyrighted by each author.

Among the worst affected was Suryagayatri. At least 5 recipes from her Kariveppila Blog were taken, slightly modified (pictures, re-arrangement of sentences) and placed on Yahoo's Malayalam Portal.
(Ref: English Version of what happened, Screenshots of violation)

Yahoo India also took, without permission, contents from http://www.puzha.com/. Puzha.com maintains that they had bought the original content, which was then stolen by Yahoo India. (Ref: Puzha blog entry detailing this theft)

When we learned about the infringement and protested against it, Yahoo's content provider, Webdunia, removed the contents. So far, the blogger's efforts (and our collective efforts) to procure an official response from Yahoo have been in vain.

Yahoo.com directs us to Yahoo! India as they claim Yahoo India is a separate entity. Yahoo India on the other hand directs us back to Yahoo.com, making us run in circles with no clear response.

While we were researching Yahoo's content providers, we came across a provider, Webdunia (mentioned before). From our investigation, we found that they are the ones who collect information/features/articles to be posted on Yahoo India.

With the knowledge that we had made a formal complaint to Yahoo/Yahoo India, Webdunia came forward with vague options for remuneration as well as an apology from Webdunia and not from Yahoo India.

Suryagayathri has refused all offers because she/we believe that Yahoo is solely responsible for this mistake and should make a formal acknowledgment. In addition, Webdunia wanted us to quickly and quietly accept an offer so that they would not lose their contract with Yahoo India.

Our aim is to get a response from Yahoo, acknowledging their mistake.

- Malayalam Bloggers, (blogging in Unicode malayalam)

Monday, February 12, 2007

Yahoo! India violates copyrights!

Yahoo! India, an Indian subsidiary of Yahoo! Corporation launched a new Malayalam (Indian Language) Portal recently. While browsing through the contents, couple of Malayalam bloggers were shocked to find their published content (blogs that were protected under Creative Common Licensing rights) were smoothly lifted and placed on Yahoo! Indias portal.

Obviously, the bloggers were never contacted before this violation. A Malayalam recipe blog by blogger Surgayathri had to suffer the major violation even though her blog is protected under Creative Common License. Other than Kariveppila blog, Yahoo! India stole contents from another web magazine (Puzha.com) too and from some other Malayalam bloggers.

If one checks the Kariveppila blog, prima facie evidence shows this whole thing was done on purpose since it was not a simple copy paste.

1. The pictures of the recipes were changed while using on the portal.
2. Some of the paragraphs were moved down and up on the recipe
3. Some sentences where structurally changed a little bit.

Since this is a Malayalam blog, a translation of the contents is shown here in English for a wider audience:

Six of her recipe posts were copied word by word. This is one of the example.

Recipe name: Erunellikka (This is a gooseberry pickle)

Recipe from Kariveppila post:
As the first paragraph, she writes about a common Malayalam language idiom There is an idiom which says, older peoples wisdom first it might be taste bitter, then it will taste sweeter. Gooseberry is one such thing which reminds us of that and gooseberry is full of Vitamin C and is very good for you health

Yahoos Recipe Post for Erunellikka:

The first paragraph starts with the same lines.

There is an idiom which says, older peoples wisdom first it might be taste bitter, then it will taste sweeter. Gooseberry is one such thing which reminds us of that and gooseberry is full of Vitamin C and is very good for you health

Second paragraph, she mentions about how we can pickle gooseberry and or even eat it fresh. This is not there on Yahoo! Indias site. Instead they have listed the ingredients.

Now, she writes how to make the pickle.

She starts her sentence with To make gooseberry pickle, wash the good gooseberries, take water in a vessel and boil the gooseberry thoroughly. It should be cooked well so we can remove the seed from inside. There is no need to cook it longer, only until the gooseberry turns soft. After it is cold, we can remove the seed inside.

Yahoo! Indias Recipe post for Erunelikka just copies that keeps as their third paragraph.

From Yahoo! Indias Recipe post,

To make gooseberry pickle, wash the good gooseberries, take water in a vessel and boil the gooseberry thoroughly. It should be cooked well so we can remove the seed from inside. There is no need to cook it longer, only until the gooseberry turns soft. After it is cold, we can remove the seed inside.

Next she writes about, how to do the rest of the pickle making.

She writes, Take a saucepan and heat oil, sauté urad dal, then mustard, then red chilies whole, then sauté curry leaves, then add cooked gooseberry with salt. When the sautéed gooseberry becomes dry, add red chili powder and mix. Add asafotedia. If you are adding pickle powder instead of red chili powder, adding salt in lesser amount would be enough. No need to add asafotedia also then.

Yahoo! India copies this without a word missing and writes the same.

Take a saucepan and heat oil, sauté urad dal, then mustard, then red chilies whole, then sauté curry leaves, then add cooked gooseberry with salt. When the sautéed gooseberry becomes dry, add red chili powder and mix. Add asafotedia. If you are adding pickle powder instead of red chili powder, adding salt in lesser amount would be enough. No need to add asafotedia also then.

Note: How can the recipe writer at Yahoo! India think about the same pickle powder what Suryagayathri thought about? Very, Strange! Isnt it?

Now, the blogger writes about another method to make the same pickle.

Yahoo! India too has the same sentence.

She starts the second method of making the same pickle by writing.
We can make this pickle in another way too
Yahoo! India too does the same We can make this pickle in another way too

She explains in detail Take oil in a vessel and heat; add the gooseberries which are washed and wiped thoroughly to this and sauté well. Take off from stove and remove the seed. Add salt and keep aside

Yahoo! India has the same paragraph which translates to,
Take oil in a vessel and heat; add the gooseberries which are washed and wiped thoroughly to this and sauté well. Take off from stove and remove the seed. Add salt and keep aside

Her next paragraph says, Heat little bit of oil in another vessel, add urad dal, mustard seeds, curry leaves, and sauté. Add salt and add the gooseberries. When it is dry, add red chili powder and asafotedia and mix well. Or use pickle powder

Then the blogger writes in the next paragraph, One should be using gingelly oil for this purpose. Initially fried gooseberry is better than boiled gooseberry

Yahoo! India has the next paragraph the same way, which translates to,

Heat little bit of oil in another vessel, add urad dal, mustard seeds, curry leaves, and sauté. Add salt and add the gooseberries. When it is dry, add red chili powder and asafotedia and mix well. Or use pickle powder

Yahoo! India adds the last paragraph to this paragraph and has the same sentence and even the same tip too One should be using gingelly oil for this purpose. Initially fried gooseberry is better than boiled gooseberry

Writing the same recipes is not a common thing at all. But recipes copied word by word, sentence by sentence as you have seen above is a clear case of copyright violation.

There are five more recipes copied the same way from the Kariveppila blog.

Why do multinational million dollar corporations behave like this? Is it because they are sure individual freedom need not be respected?

Yahoo was contacted and they silently removed the pages without even acknowledging the violation or replying to the blogger. Don't they at least owe her an apology?

Below are the screenshots from Yahoo, if you can read Malayalam.

More screenshots...

Notes:

View a Lawyers opinion about this theft.
Related news item on Kairali Europe