Khalid Al-Zanki Confirms copy/pasting his content
Few days ago I posted on Posterous about the fraud Khalid Al-Zanki is involved with, which ended up with the help of friends and the social web being circulated around the web massively. Today Khalid has posted a blog post which vaguely replies to ours, and is ironically mostly a copy paste from Wikipedia, but that’s alright, at least this time he was clear about it. Now before I start my response to the article, I would to make clear of some points:
1- Few months before the post, I have commented on Khalid’s blog highlighting the massive copy paste in his site. He deleted my comment and never got back to me by email.
2- This time, when my friend MBH comment on his post after I published the photos, he deleted it again, but replied to him politely via email, confirming what his latest blog post tries to explain. You can see the details here with snapshot of the email.
3- Since we posted about it, Khalid never made any attempt to publicly reply to our claims.
4- His Twitter account turned private and is still at the time of writing. Obviously he didn’t want us to get involved in the discussions.
Now, his post is basically a copy/paste of the definitions of Private Label, Private Label Rights, and Royalty-free stuff. I won’t redo the explanation here you can read it off Wikipedia or his blog. But about his post, he smartly wrote it without any mention of what’s been going around in the blogsphere, or without specifying that his is how he got his blog posts and all the rest of the content. But why else would this post come out of the blue? If it’s not to reply to his critics.
So what does his latest post really tell us?
Khalid Al-Zanki copies his content from various sources. He claims to have legal rights in all cases that he does. But is it the case really? Are all his blog posts? His famous eBook, Terms of Use? All of these are copied? Even if legally, where does that leave Khalid Al-Zanki? The famous online marketing and product launch expert, who’s value is so high no company in Kuwait can hire him, according to him. it only leaves him with an About Page that is also a copy paste (see last post)! Did he have right for that About page too? If yes, what kind of a celebrity figure can’t afford to write his own few lines about him selves, or at least hire someone to write real personal biography that is exclusive to him?
It basically all sums up to the point that Khalid is a copy/paste person, and for that, I can’t understand the thousands of KD he charges for his expertise and talks.
From another angle, Private Label and royalty-free content are well known and quite legitimate. But to what extent and in what context? For example, I personally bought royalty-free music to mix with my videos, since I don’t have the skills, and I need legitimate music alongside my videos. But I own the main thing, the video, and I aid it with music. I could pay someone to write for my company or write a book under our brand. But never claim I personally wrote it, let alone brag about it all over the social networks. And what’s worse is when this book or content isn’t exclusive, and you end up seeing tens or hundreds of people claim to have written this content to them selves. Something is completely missing from all this… Credibility!
Things don’t stop here however. It’s not someone who is buying content to publish on his website and monetize the ads beside it, no. He is using it to claim it to him self, pretend to be skillful writer, man of thought and vision, something valuable that he can demand thousands of KDs for his consultancy to companies, who have fallen times and times for his trap.
I only got one last thing to say to Khalid… Thank you for admitting to it. It’s up to the people to judge now.
UPDATE (10:11 PM):
My friend MBH commented on Khalid Al-Zanki’s post and guess what? Khalid deleted the comment. You can still see snapshot here. Khalid once said that he never ever got a bad review. Guess this is how, he more or less meant he never lets a bad review on his site.
But that’s not all. I found this on his Facebook Fan Page status:
Most Arabs in the 3rd world don’t know about private label. Hmm, so this is how you cashed in on it? Buy your self lots of private label content from western world, post is here as yours, then charge big bucks for what you claim to know?
Luckily I know enough about Private Labeling, especially online, and I know enough to spot a scam when I see one. And thanks once again for bringing the Arab in the 3rd world up to speed with your ploy.
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Comments
I’d like him to reply to us publicly. All what he has done is hide and switch to private mode and his latest post was written in a general term, not even stating whether he’s talking about his own content or not!
BE A MAN AND REPLY!
I heard about this from MBH a while ago. I still in shock of how much this guy have accomplished without getting caught yet. Seriously those people who hired him for whatever reason, they don’t do some sorta of background check on him?
I never knew the guy until i heard this story. They should make a documentary out of him or something lol.
He’s not the first. Plenty online but I guess he’s the first to pull it off in Kuwait blatantly. There could have been others but they kept it on the down-low.
Bayya3een el 7achi lehom jimhoor… whatever you do, you can’t save anyone unfortunately :(
Rotsu: Yeah quite shocking how he talks openly with such big confidence. He thought this post of his would turn things upside down, like he’s unraveling some kind of mystery or something
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Abdulmohsen Alajmi, Hamad M.. Hamad M. said: A friend just emailed me a blog post about @khalidAlzanki being a fraud. Disappointing. Link: http://bit.ly/9bdVCK [...]
Thanks for spreading the awareness , and please please DO NOT stop the campaign until all the people out there whom deal with him know about the info there are getting and the real source for it , so they can decide to agree to or not and if they think that its ethical or not .they should decide not him
Thank You
Wow, that’s an encouraging comment abdullah! Thanks!
The thing is, so far only Bashar and myself have been writing about this problem. No else is helping in spreading the news apart from linking to the articles on Twitter!
We need more people to blog about this and more people to email the links not just use Twitter.
MacaholicQ8: First, where the hell have you been :).
Second, I wouldn’t have wasted the time if he didn’t kept asking for it.
MBH: Ofcourse he won’t stop. We just restrained him a bit. I also noticed an author who wrote polite comment on his blog asking for proof of right to use content… Guess what happened to his comment?
Seriously?! LOL!
Well, it was obvious since he kept his post general without mentioning that he’s using such content, or what kind of content is covered with which license.
I hope you got a screenshot saved for that lost comment :P
Been on vacation, now I’m back. Got any Fussssball games for meh? :P
Give the guy a break… NOT! Put him on newspapers! LOL xD
Imagine we contacted all newspapers no one wants to publish it
Soccer .., I’ll add you to my list :)
* newspapers will not publish your story unless one or more of the following:
** you can force it (you’re the editor, owner or influencer)
** there is clear financial gain greater than the possible financial loss directly and/or indirectly (this includes many people interested in the story therefore increasing circulation; something you can achieve if you further promote this issue online)
* a facebook page about this would be a great idea mainly due to the massive audience.
* many people have wanted to come out and say this but for various reasons have been quiet so your efforts are well appreciated if not publicly commended. (seriously guys this is a great job)
* IMPORTANT points about khalid alzanki’s rebuttal post:
** royalty-free and private label often, if not always, require that you cite the source even if you don’t have to pay for the content.
** nowhere does he mention his sources or policies and that goes against all professional writing standards.
** did he ‘copyright’ his website? is he effectively claiming as his own IP what someone else has written? if so then that’s in itself galling.
* a final note: there is much of this going on in the internet. caveat emptor: verify, check and confirm.
JD Sausalito,
Someone did suggest starting a facebook page that is anti-khalid but that’s too personal and too aggressive.
The idea was to expose his bad practices and ill-mannered behavior in replying to questions or certain situations.
I don’t know of anyone who wanted to do this, and as soon as Bashar told me about what Khalid was doing, I joined forces.
What sucks even more is that people aren’t spreading this enough in Twitter/Facebook/Emails.
Seems like people don’t bother with fraud until they become victims of it!
MBH,
How about making the facebook page or group focused on fraud prevention instead of a specific person and using it to educate people using specific incidents.
there’s a lot that doesn’t get published out here or is swept under the carpet all too often.
JD Sausalito,
Having a general page is too cumbersome because then we’d be forced to write about everyone, and people will rant if we missed someone.
Also, we’d expect people to send us evidence. Imagine the flood of emails. So what’s the solution? Bring in more volunteers? How can we trust them to be honest & unbiased?
In short: It’s too complicated once you consider all aspects & angles of the issue.
Personally, I do write reviews on things that I encounter. All it takes is for someone to search for ” review” but often people do that AFTER they had fell for the trap.
It really upsets me how many people are not aware of good and bad practices, that some would argue there is nothing wrong with spam for instance. So many people take any picture they want off the web and use it, even in our daily newspaper. Some even take the extra mile and watermark it as their own.
I think it’s a good idea to have a general page about good and bad practices, advise people how to go about copyright and other online stuff.
There are dedicated pages to copycats btw, like Bader59.com. But it’s more toward newspaper writers rather than online ones.
Hi all,
Ok so the guy copied pasted and has done a lot, but I have to say he is very smart when it comes to PR and getting his name out. The only point I would like to mention is he worked the PR stream, but for no one to realize that all his facts were opinion based, and I never saw any studies done on his site is a complete shame. Also please people if you are going to claim you’re a consultant show it on your site, I or anyone can spit out opinions but can we back them up with number, survey, any primary data that could prove our point?
Lesson from all these ask for numbers and facts
KWTMarketing: He kinda follows the Hitler strategy “Keep lying until they believe you” and it works. As you said I’m yet to see any number or field study cases.
I mean who are you if you can’t even write your resume, but have to steal it right? How can you teach people self improvement if you can’t do it your self?
He who can, does… He who can’t teach. That’s what people like Khalid are doing, as they brought down the term of online marketing to be synonymous for spam and fraud.
lol, check out his page http://www.alzanki.com/notify.aspx
and check “What Other Experts Say…”
funny thing is I did a search of these people and got their e-mail address last week, asking them do you even know this person..guess what they said lol. “he’s a fraud” sad they can’t take any legal actions againts him for using their names since he’s in Kuwait.
How can a person with a computer engineering degree get an F in “introduction to pc hardware” ? No comment.
rara,
Could you please email us or upload screenshots of those email exchanges?
You can remove your email, but the people’s email has to be showing.
Also, I would like to note that whatever problems he had in college should not be taken into account in his career. One cannot judge what kind of conditions or life problems that forced him to get bad grades.
I can’t believe he went to the extent of lying about credits as well…
rara: Actually, the sad thing is, these attributions are (at least some) are true. If not by word, Tom McCarthy and many others did testimonies for him (see videos).
This for me only means they sell their words for money. Khalid is a gateway for them to give talks and trainings here… Sad that such worldwide figures turn out like this.
Turns out they are all part of the Inner Circle
Wow .. That’s terrible!!!
The important question is:
Does he still call himself an author?