I could be writing an article about the good things people are doing in the cryptocurrency space in India. Maybe even an article about how an exchange is planning to launch instant crypto to crypto conversion or an exchange that now allows you to trade on yet another international exchange. But I have to resort to writing a post about Plagiarism because it is IMPORTANT.

Until now I have slapped copyright infringement notices to over 2 dozen websites and individuals. The first 20 were within the first month of coincrunch.in, then I stopped caring. No matter what you do, someone will copy your content and not give you credit. We work hard for the content, and all our content is open to everyone. All you have to do is “This was published on CoinCrunch India”. That’s it.

But some people do not like to give credits. Some of them take the data and then call it theirs. Why? Because they want to “Be the one” that got the “Exclusive” scoop.

This doesn’t happen only with well researched data, it can happen with something as simple as an opinion on twitter.

Now, I didn’t really worry myself from this plagiarism before, but it changed today. Today I realised that by copying our data, they are not really being loyal to their followers, they are cheating them. I’ll admit, by the time I started writing this, my anger subsided and the issue was resolved amicably. But nevertheless it is important.

Youtubers Stealing Data

There is a channel on Youtube called MLM Aman with 32k subscribers. For a Hindi cryptocurrency channel, 32k is a very good number. The channel shares his whatsapp details, telegram group details, channel details on every video so it is easy to reach him/them.

There was this one video that was shared with me in our telegram group. The video takes the data from our website about INR deposits and INR withdrawals across exchanges and shares it as if they made it.

This is not the first time, a lot of times these guys steal our data and don’t bother to give credits. But this is a channel with 32000 followers. Popular youtubers need to set a good example by appropriate attributions.

Anyone of our readers would remember this image and would know its from Coin Crunch. This is before the time we reorganised the blogpost.

Confronting Stealers

When I tried to get in touch with Aman on Whatsapp, I did not get a response. So I reached their telegram group. After I confronted them, I did not take a screenshot of my messages, my mistake, as they were deleted and I was banned within a few minutes.

Why? Because I spoke about it in a group of 1800 members. After banning me, their admin goes on to tell the members that there are too many spammers and he has blocked them now.

I gave them one day to give CoinCrunch the credit in the video description, what did I get? A ban, a spammer tag, and they deleted the messages where I shared the proof.

Ofcourse the guy who banned me later said he did not call me the spammer. He said I should have PMed Aman instead of calling them out in the group. But well, I did and Aman did not reply on whatsapp so I had to come to telegram group.

I sent a copyright infringement notice via Youtube after I got banned and retracted it after speaking with Aman. I never had the intention to send them a notice. But banning me and calling me a scammer and deleting the evidence of plagiarism grinds my gears. I sent the notice out of anger and retracted it out of respect for a fellow community member.

Aman did give me credit on the video, in the description ofcourse.

Warning to Followers

While talking to Aman, he said that he did not know that CoinCrunch was the original publisher. So 32000 people following Aman are relying on information that his channel publishes without doing a due diligence? 

This is not the first instance of plagiarism. Puspendrakum or Socialmediaguruji as many know him often copy pastes other people’s work on his twitter without giving credit. When confronted, he just deletes the tweet. He has 72000 subscribers on Youtube and close to 6000 followers on Twitter. A man well respected in the community resorting to copying data from others.

I have seen a couple of instances myself but a lot of followers have pointed it out as well. As a user who follows these “experts”, you should be critical of every single thing they publish, ask for the source if they haven’t given it already and question the authenticity. DO NOT BLINDLY FOLLOW EVERYONE.

 

Use it But Do not Copy The Whole Thing

There are also copycats who copy and paste the entire article on their website and at the bottom write, Source: Coincrunch.in

Again, that is wrong. You can use the data as a reference. Only pick up parts of it, essential to your story, to your original content. Why copy paste and divert traffic?

These copycats will copy our content, divert traffic and bombard the users with pesky ads. There is a reason there are non-intrusive ads on our website, to improve user experience.

If you are a budding blogger or youtuber, you gotta be original. You can use the data from other websites, they are the source, but do not copy paste it to divert traffic, it is BAD practice. While I cannot find every single one of the copycats, I will ensure that the ones who are not doing right by their users do not go unpunished.

Lets Fight Plagiarism Together

The crypto community in this country is just a few lakhs strong. Everyone follows few websites and influencers as their source of information. They take the published data and share it with others. But if you ever find a person who is sharing data that belongs to someone else, do report it. We must report it and get it resolved. That way we can stop the spread of this plague called copying.

Help us fight content copying by being vigilant and sharing this post with your friends.