If you are in the StudioPress community and write articles on Genesis, there is a good chance that Mr. Brad Dalton of wpsites.net may have gotten your blog posts removed from Google search index via DMCA copyright infringement removal notices (having no merit, whatsoever).
One of the recent notices (of several) he has issued against an article I published on this site is http://lumendatabase.org/notices/15090105.
A few others:
https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/15090091
https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/1479129
https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/1881655
https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/1073001
https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/842558
https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/843440
If you have been issued one similarly and wish to issue a counter-notice, do not click on “Create DMCA Counter Notice” button at the bottom of notice on the lumen database website. When you do, you are prompted to fill a form that is quite confusing and at the end of it, you will only receive a letter that you could attach URLs (from your site that got removed from Google) – on a paper and you have to manually send/fax that to Google. There’s a better way.
Follow the steps below:
1) Go to https://support.google.com/legal/answer/1120734. Click on “Web Search” under the “Counter Notificaton” section.
2) Select “One or more pages on my site have been removed due to a legal complaint, and I would like them restored.”
3) Click on Yes in
4) Click on “this counter notice form” link at the bottom of the page in the “Otherwise, please complete this counter notice form.” text.
5)
a) Fill in your personal details.
b) Enter URLs of content in question.
Note the text, “If you have many URLs to report, we recommend submitting between 10 to 100 per notice for the fastest possible processing time.”.
c) Under the “Why are you requesting reinstatement?”, select “The complainant does not have the right to submit this request”.
d) In the text area to provide more details, add the following sample template text:
The code in my blog posts is based on the source code from Genesis, WordPress and public properties like WordPress Codex.
Genesis is a WordPress framework and is owned by StudioPress. StudioPress does not have any objection with me writing tutorials on customizing their product.
Both WordPress and Genesis are GPLv2 (or later) licensed. Details: https://wordpress.org/about/gpl/.
I have not referred to Mr. Brad Dalton’s website (wpsites.net) when writing the articles on my website (yoursite.com).
e) Place a tick mark in the boxes to confirm that you are ready to face the legal battle if the infringement issuer decides to take it further. Type your name and submit the form.
Note:
- I am not a lawyer.
-
If you receive nasty emails like the following, take a day off.. spend time with your family, reassess what’s important to you in life and move on.
WOW…….. Really ? Not that I have any content like you mention but thank you for the advice and heads up Sridhar. Keep up the good work, it’s always greatelly appreciated 🙂
Sridhar, that’s awful. I’m sorry to hear you’ve had to go through this. Know that there are a great many of us who massively appreciate what you do, both on your site and in the wider WP/Genesis community.
All the best
Dom
Love the way you handled this, Sridhar. Brad needs to read some books about how to have an ‘abundance mentality’. 🙂
This is EXACTLY what I said. The Universe is abundant, and there is MORE than enough work for all of us.
Great minds think alike, Sandee. 🙂
I just wish there were many more wonderful people like Sridhar, who is the epitome of contribution to the community, here in Australia.
Clearly the man is a racist and a bully and should be reported as such to the authorities.
We are all very much supportive of your work and fully appreciate the efforts you make to bring a wider understanding of the Genesis framework to people all over the world.
More power to your elbow Sridhar.
That email shown is nasty. Such language totally undermines one’s argument.
It is entirely possible for two people to write identical code without copying, especially for small snippets. I recently wrote code to display sticky posts in category archives. I later found a plugin on wordpress.org that was very, very similar. I didn’t copy that code. Both had the same fatal flaw that rendered them quite ineffective. Darn.
Wow! You handled this like a true professional. He’s a scumbag and that is completely unacceptable. I hope many of the people who pay for his services get wind of this and promptly cancel.
I use other people’s tutorials all the time, including modifying and reposting them as I believe they may prove helpful to others. Nothing wrong with that, especially in such an open-source-minded world like WordPress / Genesis.
More power to you!
Hi Sridhar, wow, so sorry that you got targeted like this, it seems surreal. I build sites in Genesis for clients, is he scouring code around the web to take sites down? I didn’t really understand the whole infringement thing. The attribution only seems to be in the code comments anyway, is there a risk of copyright infringement to anyone using code you have contributed? (no rush on this, just curious.)
You have helped so many in this community, please let us know what we can do to stand up for you.
Thanks for posting this. Not sure where I would be without your tutorials and guidance. The Slack group you created has the nicest, most helpful people. Sad that there are obnoxious haters trying to pull you down; you are a class act Sridhar. Many, many people are grateful for you and all that you bring to our community.
I’m appalled! Thanks for sharing this.
huh, I know a LOT of people have referenced and built on my Genesis Explained series. Maybe I should issue a DMCA against all of them. :/
That’s a good series. Please don’t file a DMCA against me. LOL 😅
Absolutely deplorable, I had no idea Brad was such a defective a**hole of a human being. On top of that it seems he has little, if any, understanding of the GNU General Public License and WordPress. https://wordpress.org/about/gpl/
Thank you for sharing this information. I had considered joining and paying money to Brad for wpsites.net access, so glad I did not and now … will never.
Hey, Sri. This sucks. Sorry to hear. He did the same thing to me a while back. If I recall correctly, he even lashed out at me. I don’t think Brad’s all there in the head. In the very least, he has no grasp on spirit of the platforms on which he builds. WordPress and Genesis are open-source, GPL projects with strong, generous communities. We share code all the time; it’s how so many people, including myself, have learned. Brad is trying to turn the GPL code bases into his own proprietary software for his own profit, then he attacks people for fighting back. I’m not sure about Australian laws, but, luckily for him, he’s not in the U.S., else I suspect he’d be served with a lawsuit over his abusive, malicious actions.
I can’t believe that. That’s so sad.
You are great and I’m so thankful to have found your site. You make my themes rock even more with your out-of-the-box ideas and creativity. We all share the same code and none of us claim that the code is ‘ours’.
@Marc’s comment above… I was thinking the same thing about GNU License. Someone like Brad should know better then that. That’s just crazy!
You rock Sridhar! Keep your head up and don’t stop!!
So… Brad essentially regurgitates dry information culled directly from StudioPress/Genesis documentation, and essentially “gives a man a fish”. “Here – use my code, as I say. Just do it.”
You, on the other hand, help interpret that information, provide appropriate context, and essentially ” teach a man to fish.” “Here’s what the base of this code refers to, here’s how it’s often used, here are some ways that you might deploy it, here are some additional solution-provoking thoughts …”
No wonder he’s upset – you’re delivering a better product, in a better manner, and not forcing your readers to be nothing but code-copiers. No doubt he’s losing readership – which is unfortunate, really, “rising tide” and all that – but I’m wagering most folks in this arena want to learn as much as have a solution handed to them… obviously, the Sridhar Approach, and not so much the Brad Approach.
Unfortunate for Brad, but that’s part of learning, as well. Carry on!
I guess that is one way to get rid of the competition. He sounds very insecure. You are doing a great job. Keep up the good work.
Melanie
Sorry to hear, you’ve become the target of such revolting actions language and opinions.
You are one of the most helpful people in the Genesis ecosystem – he is definitely jealous of your success. I hope you enjoyed taking a day of 🙂
W. T. F. ?!?!?
What appalling behavior from Mr. WP Sites. What does he hope to achieve? No one’s tutorials about anything–especially anything open source–are completely original, and this looks like a serious case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Wow. That Brad Dalton has some serious jealousy issues, plus some serious misunderstanding of many issues. Thanks for bringing this to our attention … and with a solution for those who may unfortunately need it.
Hey Sridhar, I’m speechless. Thx for sharing and by the looks of the comments looks you have a strong community behind you including myself.
Such over the top bullie behaviour! Uses a US law to question the originality of the content you produce, and then abuses your right to live in Australia, accuses you of bullie behaviour, yet it is clear to see that he is the perpetrator of such behaviour. So many contradictions in one contact form (and thought my quote requests were full of them, wanting the world but don’t want to pay for it ) !
I personally believe we need more immigrants like you here in Australia, and as such would like to shout you lunch each time you receive abusive emails and celebrate what you bring to this land, and hopefully relieve the stress it of the situation for you.
I am not joking on this, it can anytime, it doesn’t have to be when receive abusive emails, the least I can do is shout you a beer!
Hey Sridhar
As a fellow immigrant and your fellow Australian too, I’m disgusted by this incident. Your work in not just being the Neil Patel of Genesis applications but someone who resolved my blog’s posts’ issue earlier, is greatly appreciated by not only Australians but across the world. You are a credit to the Internet. May the force be with you!
Cheers
Nick
Sridhar – I want to join my voice to the chorus of people thanking you for the quality of your work and the excellent information you share.
Several years ago I was a new developer looking for information and tutorials. I signed up for a membership at wpsites but cancelled after a few months because of his poor writing and confusing directions/assumptions. The quality of your work is exponentially better, clear and actionable. It’s a completely different league.
I also want to express my disgust for the language you were subjected to in his email. I am glad to know you took time with your family to focus on the REAlLY important things, but I’ll offer my words to counter his… Any neighborhood/ community/ country would be made better when a person such as yourself is a part of it.
Thank you, everyone, for the kind words. Means a lot.
Sridhar,
Part of the reason I pay for your services now is that you helped me so much for free in the Studiopress forum. A lot of people try to quickly answer questions to get credit, but they didn’t actually care whether they help. You’ve genuinely helped me and others, which is why I think you’re successful. I wish you much continued success.
F**K THAT GUY!! HIM AND THAT OTHER ALT-REICH GHOUL, CHRIS PEARSON, SOUND LIKE A MATCH MADE IN PEPE HEAVEN.
Oh jeepers, this is awful (have just returned from a 3 week roadtrip to Qld so coming late to this). Your advice to log off and spend time with loved ones is sound. Big hugs to you and your family.
From a fellow Melbournite.
Sridhar, I appreciate that this is a few days old now – but well done for the manner in which you handled this, and thank you for spreading the word to the community on the best manner of dealing with this.
In an ideal world, this won’t happen again – but undoubtedly there will be someone else who unfortunately has to deal with it.
Last two lines of his email to you, reminds me of an anonymous hate/racist email I received some time ago regarding a Genesis tutorial I wrote.
I had added some feature to my Genesis website following a tutorial I found using Google and had forgotten about it, after some time while going through the code of my child theme, I saw that code and thought that I had written it so I should write a tutorial about it. I didn’t intend to steal someone else’s article/tutorial, I just had forgotten about it. Following this, I received an anonymous racist email calling me little “racist word thief”.
I haven’t included my real name/email in this comment because I removed that tutorial immediately and do not want any more problems in the future.
It appears the a fore mentioned “oxygen thief” has even closed down his free tutorials on his site, DUMBASS
WordPress and Genesis code is not his father’s property. One day he will say, All PHP code is my property.
hi sry for my bad english
for this section: Enter URLs of content in question
i must copy lumendatabase link or my website links ?
I really dislike this DCMA thing, received a few false positive and they never took any action when I counter notify them.