What is sixmanga.me and why is it hosting all of our comics?!

[echosrift]

Hi all. I'm relatively new to Tapastic. I write the webcomic Echo's Rift (echosrift.com) and started posting it here, about a week ago. Well I just received a google alert saying Echo's Rift was mentioned on a site called sixmanga.me. And believe me, I was surprised to find my WHOLE COMIC THERE (at least everything that has been published on Tapastic so far). I searched for some other comics I follow on Tapastic and sure enough, they were all there, too.

Examples:
Echo's Rift
https://tapastic.com/episode/501745
http://sixmanga.me/manga/Echo_039_s_Rift/819474

Enkido
https://tapastic.com/episode/397574
http://sixmanga.me/manga/Enkido/541324

Scurry
https://tapastic.com/episode/272359
(link removed bc I can only have five links but trust me, it's there)

There are even comics written by Tapastic Staff!

Now, I can see from the code that they are not actually hosting our images, but they're serving up the same Tapastic links. I don't see anywhere that says they're affiliated with Tapastic which means they are allowing users to view and subscribe to our comics without any artist compensation.

I know there is a way to allow people to embed Tapastic comics. But this looks like they are just scraping Tapastic and serving up the same content.

Has anyone else run into this? I did a forum search but nothing came up. I'm guessing that if I'm so new, and MY content is already on there, then yours is, too.

[J.Lovelace]

Uh-oh... isn't that one of the infamous phishing sites?

Just a week ago or so I was told about that other site that sells posters of people's art from Deviantart, and by just clicking the link to the site and browsing there, I was notified by Yahoo a bit later that somebody tried to hack my account...

Please be careful, it might be the same kind of thing!

[eslameldeeb]

Also, how can my pages be available to be downloaded from there while it can't be on Tapastic?!
@STAFF, look into this please

[spadesart]

wtf??? my comic is on there too. who's putting that on there??

[J.Lovelace]

Quickly run an antivirus and your internet protection programs, in case it's a phishing site.

[echosrift]

Thanks. I actually clicked on subscribe bc I wanted to see what would happen and it said something about agreeing to email notices (but didn't ask for my email). I backed out of there pretty quickly. Fortunately I have double verification on my email account, so I think I'll be okay.

[Emma]

I'm in a state of "wtf" and "lol" right now. Why are they doing that?

[J.Lovelace]

I hope you will be fine! O:
I freaked out so much when I got targeted, I am still unsure if any of my data was stolen or not, I don't wanna go throught that again, nor want any other people to be in danger.

[Kayke]

My comics are up there too >:(

I emailed them requesting they remove them. I'll keep y'all updated if they respond.

@michaelson, it looks as if they're definitely being stolen from Tapastic, because the cover images/thumbnails they used are from Tap and not my own sites. I don't know if there's any action that Tapastic can take to safe guard against this kind of theft?

[Aspie_Gamer]

Just checked out the link. Pretty much every comic here you can think of big or small is on there. On one hand, "Yay! Free promotion!", but on the other hand legally speaking, I'd like to think that a site would ask if its okay to host your comic on their site especially if there's no financial compensation on the creator's end.

[echosrift]

Yeah I noticed that, too. I have way more content on my site right now, so it's clearly just the tapastic stuff. Plus the image links are the same.

FWIW, I ran some malware software and everything's clear. Scanning for viruses now which will take a while, but so far there are no infections.

[echosrift]

Yeah it's DEFINITELY shady.

[noxfox]

Awyeah, Consuming Darkness was stolen too! \o/
WELL I guess I'll be putting a sweet watermark now, like "if you're not on Tapastic, you're reading pirated a page"
I find it hilarious though, because they get the warnings for nudity as well, displayed like they're standalone pages xD
Totally noooot suspicious

[echosrift]

Hmmm a watermark is not a bad idea.

[respheal]

Sup guys, I work in webhosting so I can provide a little bit of a solution for you guys if you want your content taken down (I checked and this site isn't hosted with my company, although it would have been hilarious if it was since I could nope them so hard for this--I mean, heck, what better proof of stolen content than having my own damn comic on it).

This site is using Cloudflare, which means the actual host is obscured. However, when Cloudflare receives an abuse complaint it forwards the complaint on to the real host to resolve. You can find the Cloudflare abuse form here: https://www.cloudflare.com/abuse/form

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

Even mine's on there and I'm a nobody! What the fuck, man?!

[echosrift]

Thanks. And yes that would be pretty hilarious. XD

[UrMom]

Huh, most of my comic is on there too. The way it is set up reminds me of when Comic Rocket first started up, they took comics from sites like SJ and Comicfury and pasted them on their site. It wasn't meant to be a theft thing, but so people can use their site as a directory, they even gave links leading do the original hosting site. But considering there being no way to contact the site owners, no way to claim or put links on your comic, I honestly can't tell what this is.

[tayo_rafferty]

1 page of one of my comics is there and everything else is absent XD.

[respheal]

Nah, the difference with Comic Rocket is that it's just an iframe. The traffic still actually goes to your site. This site is legitimately stealing traffic from the comic owners.