A couple of days before, (just before when I wrote Pakistani Blogs shamelessly copying content from Pakium) I got a phone call from MSN Pakistan. Did you get that ? MSN PAKISTAN ! Yeah think how big it would be. The guy introduced himself to me as THE EDITOR OF MSN PAKISTAN. My instant question was: Which MSN Pakistan ? he said “the official one” I said there is also one MSNPakistan.com which is not in any way associated with the Giant. But he insisted that he is from the “official one”. I hinted that if he is talking about PK.MSN.com that opens by default in Internet Explorer Browser. He said “oh yeah, you have got it right”.
Anyhow, the guy said that he had got my phone number from “someone” in a “Youth conference in Islamabad” . I named a guy, to whom I imagined, can recommend me in conference. He said NO NO and changed the topic. He started with :
“we are looking for some online writers who can contribute to our great portal(MSN PAKISTAN). We need the voice of youth and their write ups, so I was just wondering if you can write for us on any topic ranging from Politics to Economy of Pakistan. Whatever you choose!. “
Now I was confused as if someone had given that guy my number, but didn’t introduce me or atleast told him that I actually belong to Entertainment and Blogging industry and I have nothing to do with other topics such as Politics and Economy etc. Then he said that its upto you to submit your articles whether on daily basis, weekly or monthly. We will then edit and if possible feature on the page of MSN Pakistan.
I asked curiously, Do you even know about my own website ? What I run ? he said, NO what’s that ? I said its pakium.pk and you should visit it right now to understand that I am not just a wanna be blogger or some one who is running a blogspot blog.
During this telephonic conversation, I also went to MSN Pakistan (PK.MSN.COM) and clicked on its Entertainment section. The stories that were covered there had nothing to do with Pakistan or its entertainment industry. It was flooded with Hollywood and Bollywood Stories. I thought it would be a good chance and platform to add Pakistani Entertainment News onto a reputable online publication like MSN.
I asked the “MSN Pakistan Editor” that yes I am willing to write articles exclusively for your publication. But I want you to place my intro/Bio at the end of my article (just like things happen everywhere in contributing post or in the world of guest blogging). He hesitated for a few seconds and then replied, oh yes “Hum Koshish Karen gay jitnee courtesy day sakain aapko”.
By that time, I was really happy that my blogging voice was going so far that MSN Pakistan approached me itself. I asked for the procedure of submitting an article to him. He told me, “we have a backup site where we first accept the submissions, then later on we feature the stories onto MSN portal.”
I said okay fine, please tell me where can I send my articles? He said we will give you login details and after logging in you will submit your article in the system. The site and login details he gave me was for the website Statetimes.net . I tried to check the credibility of States times, it had the ALEXA RANK of 1,000,000 something (that depicts that portal is not popular and hardly get 500 visits a day).
I logged in to the system, it was on a WordPress CMS that I had been using since 2007-08. I then started to take a look at the stories of that news portal. Clicked on Entertainment section and to my shock, my own blog posts and that of my publication, Pakium were copied there DITTO. I was like WTF, how can they do this without my consent. I was boiling like a cooker on this deceiving behavior of him.
“How can the guy, who just called me, can do such thing to me ? So, he pulled my content first and then picked my number from Advertise page and convinced me to Write for him”
How can an A-hole copy my own written stuff and then can expect and contact me to write for him.
Under my articles on Statestime, the name of that Lier was written. Mr. H
I was deeply shattered on this act of Mr. H. I just sent him an email:
Mr. H,
You should not LIE while expanding your business and making new contacts in Industry. You have been ripping content off from our site without any permission and courtesy. You also said that you belong to MSN Pakistan. This is extremely unethical ! and I can’t believe our own people can go to such low standards.
Kindly remove the following two posts and other that you have ripped from our blog:
http://www.statestimes.net/2012/02/geo-films-to-release-%E2%80%98london-paris-new-york%E2%80%99-in-pakistan/
http://www.statestimes.net/2012/02/riya-sen-and-veena-malik-are-love-rivals/
Else, I will be notifying to the Editors of Hindustan Times, Times Of India, Pakistan Today and all other publications, whose content has been plagiarized on StatesTimes.
I hope to see some quick progress in this regard.
Thanks.
Regards,
Danish Mughal
The guy could not reply or call me back on this, But he did show somehow show dignity by pulling off the content that I had requested to remove.
( Note: It all happened almost four days ago , today when I visited PK.MSN.COM It shattered me again as another popular post of ours was topping on MSN Pakistan portal in “Most Viewed Posts” section and Pakium was given NO CREDITS AT ALL for its write-up)
This post is continued and the next post is gonna completely expose the folks at MSN Pakistan with “Proofs” Stay Tuned on our facebook page . You can also tweet me your comments/question on @unodanish
Updated: Here is the next post with Proof: MSN PAKISTAN steals content from Pakistani Blogs/Bloggers
