Forgers steal bdnews24.com contents to accuse it of copyright infringement

Fraudsters have stolen reports first published by bdnews24.com, including the photos, and uploaded them on so-called blog sites to lodge complaints with the server management authorities of copyright infringement against the news publisher.

Hassan Bipulbdnews24.com
Published : 1 Jan 2021, 07:39 PM
Updated : 1 Jan 2021, 07:42 PM

A cyber security expert says some people have turned to plagiarism to bring false allegations maybe because they do not want the reports to remain on the internet, in public domain.

“Such incidents occurred twice in past 10 days,” says a spokesperson for bdnews24.com, “we have told the server management company that the claims are false and the complainants themselves violated the copyright law by stealing the contents.”

The latest of such complaints was filed on Dec 29, 2020 by a person, who used the name Masud Alam and claimed he runs a blog site - educationbangla.xyz.

He says that a report titled “Bangladesh orders four state banks to explain investments in Best Holdings” and carried by bdnews24.com on Dec 22 was first published on his blog on Dec 19. He has also provided a link to corroborate his claim.

The link leads to a page where the report, a verbatim copy of the one published by bdnews24.com, even with the same image, has been uploaded as a blog post of Masud Alam.

The first three paragraphs of Masud Alam’s post are enough for one to understand that he stole the contents with a fraudulent intent.

The blog post says:

“The Financial Institutions Division of the Finance Ministry has sought to know the ‘rationale’ of the huge amount of money invested by four state-owned banks in Best Holdings Limited, the company operating the five-star Hotel Lo Meridian in Dhaka, by buying shares at Tk 65.

A letter sent to the CEOs / Managing Directors of Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali Banks also sought to know the minutes of the Board of Directors meeting and the full picture of investment continuity in approving investment in Best Holdings.

The letter was sent to the banks on Tuesday under the signature of Senior Assistant Secretary Siddiqur Rahman from the BSEC and BICM branches of the Financial Institutions Department.”

bdnews24.com’s report was based on the Financial Institutions Division letter, which was sent on Tuesday, Dec 22. Other media outlets in Bangladesh also covered the development the same day.

But the complainant “Masud Alam” claimed he published his post on Dec 19, when the Financial Institutions Division had not sent the letter!

Sumon Ahmed Sabir, the chief technology officer at IT firm Fiber@Home, says it is possible to find out the file creation date of a page if the website is hosted by a top hosting service provider.

“But if someone sets up a server for their site, they can put any publishing date for an article and you can’t see the original file creation date if you want,” he explained.

What is the motive behind such action? Who stands to gain by fraudulently bringing allegation of copyright infringement over specific news reports?

“Technically speaking, it’s possible that someone doesn’t like your report or doesn’t want it on the internet. They can steal your report and publish it word for word with an earlier publication date on their website hosted by their own server,” Sumon offered.

“Then, they can complain to your site’s hosting service provider about copyright violation and put pressure on you to take the report down. If they succeed, their purpose will be fully served once they remove their stolen post,” he explained.

A controversial plan by Best Holdings to raise Tk 2.83 billion from the capital market has been under intense scrutiny since Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission in a letter on Dec 15 blocked Dhaka Stock Exchange’s attempt to let it debut through direct listing.

The complaint filed by “Masud Alam” is over one of the series of reports published by bdnews24.com on the SEC’s move and the subsequent revelations of other irregularities alleged in the Best Holdings fiasco.

His blog site has a total of 11 posts, with the first dated Dec 1, 2020.

bdnews24.com, the pioneer of digital news publishing in Bangladesh, has painstakingly built itself as the most credible source of news over 14 years.

There is a Facebook page with the name of Masud Alam’s so-called blog site educationbangla.xyz that has no post after it was created on Nov 17.

The Facebook page, however, contains a phone number. A person answered the phone when bdnews24.com called on Friday afternoon. 

The man at the other end identified himself as Zillur Rahman and said the number belongs to him. He also said he was a farmer living in Raiganj.

Asked about Masud Alam and the blog site, Zillur said he had no idea about any of these.   

“We get ‘legal notice’, emails almost regularly, purportedly from lawyers based in the US or other Western countries asking bdnews24.com to remove stories involving influential people, mostly from business. These stories, based on regulatory or legal action, are usually years old or in some cases recent... the purpose is to remove those stories from the World Wide Web because they feel these are damaging,” the bdnews24.com spokesperson said.

“They threaten legal action and often try to retaliate by posting absurd, defamatory charges against our editor-in-chief (Toufique Imrose Khalidi). Such legal threats at times follow verbal requests turned down by bdnews24.com authorities.”

Another person going by the name “Avishek Chakraborty” had sent another complaint to bdnews24.com’s hosting service provider on Dec 21. 

The complaint said a bdnews24.com report headlined, “Why Bashundhara Group chief's son acquitted of Sabbir murder charge: HC” and published on Apr 11, 2016, was published on his blog site avishekchakraborty.com on Feb 21, 2010.

In this case, too, the complainant has left an unmistakable mark of fraud in his own work. The first two paragraphs of the post read as follows:

“The High Court has asked why the verdict acquitting Bashundhara Group chief’s son Shafiyat Sobhan Sanvir and four others of charges of murdering Humayun Kabir Sabbir, a director of a concern of the conglomerate in 2006, should not be overturned.

The court issued the rule on Sunday on hearing a petition filed by the State challenging the 2011 verdict.”

If the complaint were to be taken at face value, then Avishek published a report in February, 2010 on rules which the High Court issued on challenge to a tribunal’s verdict passed in 2011.

The so-called blog site has only four posts, three of which, including the photos, are stolen from other news publishers. Two of the reports have 10-year old publication dates when the reported incidents had not even occurred.