Last Saturday, I managed to talk to a member of the Ghost Security group about ISIL and whether or not they use bitcoin in funding their operations. That article did quite well and was backlinked to by many mainstream news portals including Softpedia News, the polish news site Wykop and others. However, Cointelegraph opted to plagiarize the article and rewrite the same story without even thinking about backlinking to the original article written by me.
Nina Lyon, Cointelegraph’s plagiarism pro, claims that she “emailed” Ghost Security Group and surprisingly enough, she asked them one of the questions I asked them throughout my interview, and she got the same answer. Well, if she has really reached out for them, then why didn’t she come up with a unique question?
I happen to know someone personally who is a member of the Ghost Security Group, because I am planning on volunteering to work with them and he told me that the group prefers not to make any media appearances and that no one from Cointelegraph has interviewed any member of the group.
Cointelegraph’s Past History of Plagiarism:
It is not the first time that Cointelegraph plagiarizes one of NewsBTC’s articles, as last February they copied a research piece that we published that discussed quantitative easing and how it can affect cryptocurrencies.
Here is NewsBTC’s original article back then:
https://www.newsbtc.com/2015/02/25/quantitative-easing-bitcoin/
Here is the copied article by George Samman on Cointelegraph:
http://cointelegraph.com/news/113576/why-the-european-central-bank-is-paving-the-way-for-cryptocurrencies-op-ed
Last March, I talked to Allen, their editor-in-chief back then, and he added a link to my article back then after apologizing. However, Cointelegraph didn’t even bother to reply to my email regarding the recent plagiarism incident which reflects CT’s new policy; “We will plagiarize and we won’t give a damn about anyone!”.
Plagiarism is a plague that is infesting the blogosphere and to me, plagiarizing an article is just like “pocket-picking”; a crime that has to be stopped by all means.
Newsbtc holds its rights to file a complaint against Cointelegraph to Google News and other search engine services.
Over and out!!
CryptoCurrencyCoherent 
Tamer Sameeh 
Phrenzy Mcmillan 
Vivian 
CryptoEnthusiast 
Norbert 
Bitcoin Enthusiast 
While I do agree with you on these examples, as you have only cited a few examples, I think calling cointelegraph the blackbelt of plagiarism is a little over the top, and you might be a little personally upset. If anything you should be calling out the people that work for cointelegraph that did this, and not the company as a whole. This reads a lot like a revenge article to me. Call out the specific writers, don’t just rage and call the entire company a bad thing. I do find just cause for you to call out the specific writers on these actions though. So, +1 for that, -1 for rage on entire company. That’s like how idiots hate entire countries just because a few radicalism groups have done something bad.
Well, I have to disagree with you because a publication is supposed to have an Editor who reviews all the content written by its writers. Also, I mentioned the name of the writer, the charming “Nina Lyon”, lol
Whether they should have caught it before it happened is a little tough to say, but the editor should certainly and definitely do something about it after the facts are presented. There’s no reason the editor can’t pull the article and link to yours.
“Plagiarism is a plaque that is infesting the blogosphere”
I think you mean plague.
Yes, I meant plague; I corrected it. However, a “plaque” can also comprise an appropriate metaphor, especially if it is a “malignant” plaque, just like our dear friend Brunoxx, who could be nominated for “NewsBTC’s malignant plaque”.
Thanks Vivian for the heads up!! 🙂
It seems you are following me so closely, my friend, especially that I only wrote a single article for them; what is so special about me that makes you so alert that you even remember a single article I wrote almost a year ago? Did you locate the geolocation of my IP yet? Shall I expect a visit from a lunatic serial killer soon?
Doesn’t really address the issues raised though…
Address the accusation.
Ok. Now newsbtc can stop steal from another sites too. I mean you guys steals technical stuffs from the bigger sites without rewrite a single row in CSS.
Hi Tamer,
I find it very ironic that you call out Cointelegraph for plagiarism, which while in some cases like this one is true, yet do not address your constant theft of content by your own writers.
Joseph Young is laughably employed by both NewsBTC and Cointelegraph I and others have seen him steal articles including typos from sites like Cryptocoinsnews, Coindesk, Bitcoinist, Bitcoin Magazine, etc.
Before you call others out in public you may want to clean your own porch first as it is just as dirty.
Plagiarism is a disgusting blight in the blogo-sphere as well as news media in general and needs to be eliminated.
In this case your complaint is on spot but your saying Cointelegraph is the Blackbelt of Plagiarism goes way too far. While Allen the Editor and Nina did not handle the issue correctly and should be called out for it and fired the whole site is not a den of theft.
The Bitcoin industry is still nascent and growing. By tearing each other down we do nothing to forward the industry in general. It’s time to stop the sniping and work together to eliminate the problem. It is time to stop employing people like Joe, Nina, Allen, and others.
Now you are learning how PH Madore feels when his articles are plagiarized and paraphrased on here. You understand how JP Buntinx must feel when his articles show up on here under your writers names. You get the feeling that you are not being heard like when Jamie Redman has his artwork showing up here with no citation for the work. You are seeing how frustrating it can be when Venzen has his work at market analysis show up here without being acknowledged as the source. You are finding like Kyle Torpey that it is not good to have your hard investigative work show up on another site like NewsBTC with no mention of his hard work and diligence that uncovered the info. You get the feeling of loss when news you have broken first is paraphrased or outright copied like Stan Higgins must feel when his work shows up here under your writers names.
Why do I name so many writers? Because at one point or another in this last year their hard work has shown up on this site under your writers names with no crediting of the source.
What is more insulting is that you take your readers for idiots who don’t notice when we are reading the news on the many news sites that NewsBTC articles many times are the same one we read earlier on other sites nearly word for word. You think we don’t notice when the main image in an article is the same one from another site who created it and yet there is no credit.
While you do get some of your own new news on here first too often it is not. To call others the Blackbelt of Plagiarism again goes too far when you do not police your own site for the very same thing.
Maybe it’s time to work together and eliminate the writers who do it and the editors that allow it instead of tearing down don’t you think?
I am sure you will delete this as it exposes the hypocrisy of your article but the advice is sound. You and other sites that allow this kind of behavior from your editors and writers should stop throwing stones and clean up instead.