Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
“Copy from one, it’s plagiarism, copy from two, it’s research.” Wilson Mizner. That actually is not true. Even if you take chunks of blogs from four or five different sources and publish them as is, it is still plagiarism.
As a business person who shares your content online through social media channels, you know that the search engines do not react favorably to duplicate blog content. If you want to achieve a high ranking in the search engines, you need to continually publish original content that in no way resembles the content of others.
The work that goes into the writing
Writing an original blog articles requires a great deal of time and effort on your part. A really effective and helpful blog article has accurate information, is relevant to the needs and wants of the people in your niche whom you are trying touch, must have strong research to support it, must be grammatically correct, must hold some serious value and must be interesting enough for other people to want to read it and then look for more articles from you to read. Additionally, you must also have the correct type and amount of keywords in your blog article as well as having them placed strategically so that they are recognized favorably by the search engines and will be placed high in the rankings.
If your article is written correctly, that means that it needs to satisfy your readers and the search engines. In other words, it must look pretty and actually be effective at the same time. You should not expect the first draft of the article to be the last draft. Once you have written what you think is your final draft, it is not a bad idea to sleep on it overnight and then go back to it. Inevitably, you will find additional content that you want to tweak.
Once your article is perfect in your eyes, you will syndicate it to article directories and social media channels that are appropriate for your niche. Your reward for doing that will hopefully be good-quality back links that will lead back to your website, where your readers will start to get to know you and your business better and with whom you will form relationships.
Taking the easy road
What has just been described is what happens in the best of all possible worlds. Unfortunately, that is not what happens all of the time in this world. In this world, many people read the content of other people, really find it interesting, and, in their desire to build their own online reputation, lift those articles directly and at times in their entirety, and post them on their own website as their own content. They don’t give any thought to proper attribution or credit to the proper person at all. There are even those people who plagiarize entire articles and state plainly that they are articles that they have written without any help from anyone.
If the benefit of the doubt were to be given to the alleged plagiarists, maybe it can be assumed that those people didn’t realize that they were copying from other people (or even doing anything wrong at all). Because the Internet seems like a free-for-all platform so much of the time, it is sometimes hard to remember that copyright and ethical issues actually exist and must be adhered to.
Calling it what it is
In reality, when people plagiarize, they are stealing. They are stealing the words of others. Many times, those words were hard to come by originally. They are also stealing the website traffic that occurs as a result of the articles themselves. That traffic is the reward for having creatively expressed ideas in written form with the intended objective of being a valuable resource to other people. That information is based on the level of expertise of the subject matter expert who has genuinely written the article.
The way in which the Internet is set up makes it easy to understand how it could be a breeding ground for plagiarism. As with any important and vast vehicle for communication, along with the inspiring, brilliant and sharp individuals who want to share their knowledge, there will always be the people who want to profit without doing any of the work. If you remember the children’s story “The Little Red Hen,” the concept is identical. In the story, the little red hen found a piece of wheat and asked for help with turning it into flour and eventually into bread. She got no volunteers among the farm animals for the work. When she asked who would help her to eat the bread, all of the animals volunteered. They all wanted to reap the benefits without doing any of the work.
What to do when you find out that your work has been plagiarized
You have an obligation to yourself and to your business to take some kind of action if you find out that your work has been plagiarized. Sometimes you will want to confront the plagiarizer through a private Email message, sometimes you will want to confront the plagiarizer in a more public manner online and sometimes (if you actually happen to know the person) you will want to take a more direct route, such as a phone call or a face-to-face meeting. Whichever method you choose, you are giving the plagiarizer a clear message that you are aware of what he or she is doing and that they better stop doing it immediately. Many times, merely drawing their attention to the fact that you know will be enough to make them stop.
Conclusion
We all understand clearly what plagiarism is and why it is wrong to plagiarize. Of course, this should not stop you from feeling free about continuing to post your articles for the benefit of others. If you want to share what other people have written, remember to give the proper credit and a back link to those people who have worked so hard to come up with the article in the first place.
We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. For a complimentary assessment of your online presence, let’s have coffee.
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Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Linked Strategies
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
I have seen this first-hand through a local LI group that I belong to. I had previously respected the guy for his writing ability and common-sense insights, but having previously read the blog post for which he claimed ownership elsewhere, (and saw him accepting the praise from other members for it) that respect evaporated. He took the article, chapter and verse, then posted it on his own blog as his own work……
Not certain what we can do about it short of calling the plagiarist out on it and notifying the source of the material that this has happened
Posted by Steve Favill
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Telecom Professionals
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Adding just another perspective to it – Raw facts and figures is DATA, DATA once processed provides us INFORMATION, INFORMATION aligned properly providing solution to a myriad of problems gives us KNOWLEDGE, KNOWLEDGE established over time which can be resued to put together a new theory altogether provides us with WISDOM.
Bottomline – If we reuse facts and figures from exisiting Knowledge or Wisdom it cannot be plagiarism!, on the other hand using data and information from other sources without consent or knowhow of the originator is surely plagiarism.
Cheers…
Posted by Avishek Chakraborty
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Social Media & SEO
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
great article. I would recommend all readers of this article to start using copyscape.com
copyscape scans your content and checks for plagiarism.
get ready for a shocking result the first time you run a scan.
Posted by Hendrik Rommens
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Freelance Editing Network
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Good article. I just found a site that copied my ENTIRE website to theirs, even using my copyright notice in their intro blurb.
I would recommend that any writers who have bylined articlesonline check youreader.com to see if they've been copied there. Dozens of my articles have.
Posted by Cheryl Probst
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Publishing and editing professionals
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Only if you present them as your own words. If you cite the source, then they are proper quotes.
Posted by Carol Roberts
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Social Media Marketing Mavens
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Interesting article. As a published author, we have to be very careful about citing the works we use and blogs are great sources of good information.
I wonder how easy it would be to find plagiarists out there that have stolen components of our writing.
Guy
Posted by Guy Powell
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: The Blog Zone – A community for bloggers
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
The article misses what can be done to prevent further value passing to the thief. A lot of content is stolen to feed "Made for AdSense" (MFA) sites. The best weapon is the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Complete the procedure for complaining to Google, Yahoo (while it lasts) and Bing. I have been through this. Once you fax your assertion (under pain of perjury), the URLs will be removed from the index. It is rare that the thief will mischievously file a counterclaim to get reinstated, but for most of these people, legal threats mean little, as they are often out of your jurisdiction. Even if you don't live in the US, the DMCA works for you because Google and Bing data centres are in the US.
Having made the DMCA complaint, then you can decide whether legal recourse is worth the effort.
Here is a good article (no connection with me) on the subject – http://www.circleid.com/posts/how_copyright_violators_are_removed_from_search_engines/
Posted by Ash Nallawalla
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Creative Designers and Writers
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Great topic. My blog posts have been reproduced by many others. Some give credit, some provide links, others simply republish the content as their own. Besides asking politely or threatening the perpetrators, I suspect there is very little an individual writer can do to force anthoter individual (likely in another country) to remove the content from their site/blog. If there is a realistic solution, I'd certainly like to hear it!
Posted by Steve Bain
I hate autoblogs (or made for adsense sites). I like Steven Bain’s idea. Something I will try the next time it happens to me.
I'm more surprised by WHAT is illegally copied. I think everyone should focus more on writing something worthwhile.
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Direct Marketing Association "Official"
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
If you take from several sources, post them online as is, and you don't give credit and commentary; then yes. It is plagiarism. And a blogger who does this consistently will be called out for it by the community at large and their readership will tumble.
Posted by David Stuck
Plagiarism from Blogs is quite unethical. In case one wants use some information, then the least one can do is to cite the reference, give proper credit and quote the url backlink.
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: The Blog Zone – A community for bloggers
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
So Michael, what is YOUR argument about this topic?
@Ash – I really appreciate your input: it's useful to know something that can be done. I doubt anyone will lift my content, because it relates directly to other work of mine, such as my books and my research, but you never know – as you said, for AdSense seekers, content is content.
Posted by Rosanne Dingli
Rosanne,
I am not sure what was your intention by capitalizing the word YOUR.
Thank you Ash for the good tips. This is the exact purpose of having a discussion.
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: B2B Marketing
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Plagiarism is high in todays web2.0 and social media environment….original thinkers are lost in this copy -paste world. Have you seen statuses on FB and other social media sites … the same status is rotating among your group or friends and will pop up after every few days ,and you will think OH did I not comment on a simialr status earlier …:)
Posted by Sue(Sujata) B
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Group: Books and Writers
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Yes, giving proper credit to the original writer and a backlink are a must.
Posted by Vikram Karve
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Freelance Editing Network
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
there is a search box at the top of the page on youreader.com. I just entered my name and it turned up dozens of results. I am now in the process of filing DMCA complaints with Google Adsense on the site. Here is the link to the DMCA: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=dmca_complaint
Dozens of Suite101 writers have filed complaints with Google since yesterday and apparently there are sometimes difficulties accessing the site. But keep trying if they've taken any of your stuff.
I should note I am only filing on my website and my S101 articles, as I own the copyright. When I've found articles I've written for other sites, I have notified that webmasster since they own the copyright.
Posted by Cheryl Probst
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Creative Designers and Writers
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
There has been a lot of talk about this issue this year. Even large news organizations like the NY Times, have been caught on the side of the perpetrator with trying to publish everyday, volumes of words. Others contend that it's becomes the way of the Net to "re-publish" to get the word out to a larger audience, as long as authors give credit to original sources.
Here's an example, http://blog.ithenticate.com/2010/03/new-york-times-plagiarism-nature-or-nurture/
Posted by Jarvis Grant
I think it's important to also look at copyright infringement.
As Carol R. pointed out, if you cite the source, it's not plagiarism. However, depending on how much content you use, it may still be copyright infringement. Generally, if you post a little bit of someone else's work in order to make a point, comment, etc. that's considered "fair use." Ergo, not copyright infringement.
Think of book reviews and research papers, or bloggers who quote other blogs in their work. Cite the source, and use only a small amount, and it's neither morally nor legally incorrect.
However, post the whole thing, or significant amounts, and it doesn't matter if you cite the source or not, it's still illegal copyright infringement.
Unfortunately, so many people online don't actually understand that. They think if they cite the sources, they can copy stuff in as is and 'it's okay." I had someone post an article I wrote – in its entirely – on their blog and they didn't understand why it was wrong. They kept arguing that they didn't need my permission to post it online because they had kept my name on the article. They really did not understand copyright at all!
I began to suspect I was dealing with a child (we were emailing back and forth), so in the end, I compromised: they had to add "copied with permission" on the bottom and link back to my site. Maybe not the best way of enforcing copyright, but, at least a good way (I hope) of enforcing the idea of asking for permission first.
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Publishing and editing professionals
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Yes, it's plagiarism. In reality, there's not a lot you can do about it and even less you can do that's worth the time and effort..
Turn it to your advantage if you can. Write the offending blogger for example, point out that the words are yours, and ask that you be credited. That's not going to help all the time, but even if it happens only 1 time out of 4 or 5, you get something positive out of it.
Posted by Robert Goodman
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Group: Freelance Editing Network
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
If my Web site shows up in the search, does that mean they are stealing its content or just that it shows up in their search engine?
Posted by Sue Kern
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Publishing and editing professionals
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Send a bill for reprint rights. Get a lawyer friend to advise you on wording the demand letter. I'll bet the plagiarized copy disappears in a flash.
Posted by Kathleen Much
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Group: Publishing and editing professionals
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
It isn't enough to ask to be credited for our own work. The plagiarized material has to be set off in quotes as well as credited or attributed to the original author.
Apparently, there are more and more people these days who think that anything they see on the Internet can be copied and claimed as their own, and who don't see anything wrong with doing so.
If you can show that someone has plagiarized your work in their blog, you also should be able to make the plagiarizer take down those posts. Get a lawyer friend to help with the wording of a cease-and-desist letter – or combine Kathleen's suggestion with mine, to give the offender an option.
In addition to doing anything possible to make the plagiarizer either remove my material or put it in quotes with proper credit, I also would "out" the person wherever I could – in Twitter, here at LinkedIn, at Facebook, in my own blog if I had one, etc.
Posted by Ruth E. Thaler-Carter
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Group: Freelance Editing Network
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
This is outrageous! They have hijacked all of my Web sites and my husband's as well. It's unbelievable. I have contacted a literary copyrights attorney about this situation to see if we can file a class action lawsuit against YouReader.com. I'm also concerned about what constitutes copyrighting one's Web site. We had a discussion in another group I am in that just putting the copyright symbol with the date and the name of your site is not enough. They said you have to literally download your site to a CD and mail it to the Library of Congress for a legitimate copyright to be assigned to your site content. Does anyone know if this is true?
Posted by Sue Kern
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Creative Designers and Writers
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
.
What a great topic!
I have some questions.
What is your best way to research ?
How do you organize the information ?
How would you refer, benefit from or translate
that information to produce your own blog?
These are perhaps some of the old rules
that we may want to revisit
Das
Posted by Das Menon
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Professional Bloggers
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
It's not plagiarism if it's properly quoted and the original author is referenced in it. Plagiarism is defined as the work being used and misrepresented as your own work. If you're concerned about people utilizing any of your content, use a Creative Commons license that ensures they request your permission first. If they do not, then you can pursue them under the DMCA.
Posted by Douglas Karr
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Creative Designers and Writers
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Most countries recognize copyright, Steve. If the perpetrator is not responsive to your initial request, you should be able to go to their webhost and inform them that site x is hosting illegally acquired content. Most web hosts are very quick to take that sort of thing down. There are exceptions, but since most websites are hosted by a small number of hosts, it's actually not that bad. Usually.
"Research" is using small bits, quotes, etc. from another piece. That's generally OK under fair use if the work is credited. Grabbing an entire article is illegal, and you can and should sue for damages if needed (especially if it's someone like the New York Times!) to protect your work.
Posted by Kevin McLaughlin
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Group: Creative Designers and Writers
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
I find the complaint mildly funny.
Creative writers and designers who are engaging with the new community of the World Wide Web should be ready to accept that the old rules of copyright and intellectual property infringement aren't designed to protect you. If they can't accept that, then they should get out of the kitchen.
"That's a licence for piracy and IP theft, you ignorant fool!"
No, it isn't. Because big businesses still have the legal heft to retain control of their own IP. But it does mean that if you're a small operator (like me!) without the financial wherewithal to defend your work against plagiarism and IP theft, then you need to become more creative in your approach to protection.
There are a number of strategies available to the independent designer, and discovering new ones and new strategies is part of the exciting new world of the Web. But to share one, you can call upon the loyalty of the community that supports you: they can be relied upon to spread the word that such-and-such a blog has ripped off your work, posting the fact in comments, emailing the author to demand a proper citation. They can be relied upon to draw your attention to those ripping off your work, enabling you to spread the facts to others. Your work still gets spread, you gain attention and renown for your work through the followers of those ripping you off, and yet those plagiarists don't have to be dragged into court to comply.
What's that? You don't enjoy the loyalty of a following of dedicated fans? Well, then you need to start building one. One aspect of sharing work on the Web is that it is a community act and, if you aren't engaging with the community, through forums, message boards, FB groups, LinkedIn networks (ofc!) and, it needs to be emphasized, a real-life presence on the scene (conventions, art shows, book signings, classes, voluntary work…) then you're still working on a obsolescent paradigm.
Posted by Robey Jenkins
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Group: Creative Designers and Writers
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
The problem seems to be we've been told we can include quotes, but then in many publications it says "…no part of this may be reproduced without written permission…" We've been told it's ok to use our own words to revamp what someone else has said.
My Edublog is based on many experts opinions and others, without the use of their quotes (and I am careful to give accurate quotes and include their names and where it was published) I'd be working off my own opinion. That isn't fair to readers, I feel they should have as many views as possible to make intelligent decisions.
To me, when you use someones work, you give them proper credit by including their full name, the full name of the article/book, and anything else that identifies it properly.
People have used my Edublog and if they give me proper credit for my personal work, that's ok with me. I've been asked by two other bloggers if I minded being quoted–I didn't–I gave them my blessing. A couple of professionals wanted to use my personal ideas and quotes from my articles to help their clients. To me, this is the highest form of a compliment.
What is wrong is someone using and bashing your work, not allowing you to know what they are actually doing–that's an underhanded person. Activity such as this should be handled legally. Or when someone uses your work to financially benefit (or in the case of students to benefit for a grade).
In some cultures, plagiarism is not understood. I found this out while teaching college students from outside of the U.S.
I agree with Das, we need to revisit and publish, teach, and inform people of the rules which are very confusing.
Posted by Judy Anne Cavey
I agree and to try to combat this I use copyscape. Its a service which alerts your stuff has been plagiarised. You can get varying degrees of alerts and notices from them to let you know your content has been stolen. If you are serious about your content it’s worth it. On the other hand you may spend much of your time stressing that you content has been stolen and dealing with all the letter writing and threats and admin trying to deal with it all. Its not pleasant. So far this has helped me with 5 worthwhile detections and 5 removals of plagiarised content.
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: The Blog Zone – A community for bloggers
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Any tips for how to find out if your work is being plagiarized?
Posted by Tam Harbert
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: The Blog Zone – A community for bloggers
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Tam – what would you do if it were? My own opinion is that if you are not prepared to do anything about it – or rather, if you cannot afford an expensive court case – perhaps it's better not to know!
But you can highlight and copy a paragraph out of what you wrote, put it inside quotes, and google it. If it comes up, and you were not the one to post it, that's a start. There are also online checkers like duplichecker.com (it's a free one).
Posted by Rosanne Dingli
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• Group: Medical Marketing & Communications Group
• Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Interesting article. My gut sense — not a professional, researched opinion — is that fighting those who steal your work purely to build AdSense sites is a losing battle. Fighting other writers who steal your work is probably a lost cause, too. Except once you realize a writer depends on the work of others, would you keep reading him or ever hire him for a job? I wouldn't. Trust is hard to win and easy to lose.
Posted by Peter McEllhenney
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• Group: Creative Designers and Writers
• Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
If the blogger ignores you the web-host company will not. Email them and complain. Many hosts now have plagiarism rules governing their host users.
Posted by Anastasia Zoldak
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Freelance Editing Network
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Just wanted to post an update to this YouReader.com issue. I heard back from GoogleAdSense today. They corrected the problem. My sites still come up in a search on YouReader.com, but when you click on the site name and brief blurb, you are taking to my actual web site. So my site content is not longer "hijacked" within YouReader's ad frame.
Posted by Sue Kern
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Social Media Marketing Mavens
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
@ Guy – a simple search on socialmention.com or even Google should give you some results.
Unfortunately, many people still believe that everything that's on the internet is public domain and therefore not subject to copyright laws. And those who are aware, apparently believe they'll never get caught. At any rate, why take the risk when attribution lends more credibility to any written piece?
By the way, what is the correct and definitive "style" for citing a blog?
Posted by Lisa Szwec
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Social Media Marketing Mavens
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Lisa, I sing bass/baritone in our church. Next time I'm up your way it would be great to hear your choir. 🙂
Generally, the link to the blog and the date are important. That's what we've used in our book. As soon as I see what our publisher used, I will send it on.
Thanks
Guy
Posted by Guy Powell
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Social Media Marketing Mavens
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
Ok there are two points here;
First if you don't have to sign in to a community or a peice of work isn't behind a password protected entry of some sort, current international law regards it as public domain, irrespective of your authoring of it. The exception to this is art, music and diagrams but not written words. Posts in LinkedIn would not classify as public domain a blog post that is freely accessed does, the standard is that if google can index it – its public.
As such there is in law no 'plagiarism' when you copy an accessible blog posting, the exception is if the material you post is already copyright by being normally published – that is why news media ensure there online articles are substantively what is in their print media. By the way this is also the test of 'public' that we use when undertaking netnographic research when deciding if we need to seek permision to use posts. Bottom line if you don't want it accessed or copies don't post it an open site
Despite this i would agree that using citations to road map where your ideas have been distilled from is always the best approach to take.
Posted by Andy Whalley
You spent way too many words explaining what plagiarism is – we all know that part – and little on what to do. The people that steal as blatantly as you describe could give a damn that you're unhappy. It takes a lot of effort to stop them and it's often realistically impossible – something you neglected to touch upon.
If someone who uses your work without attribution doesn’t agree with you that you have any rights to material that you’ve posted online, then you can try a different approach and point out that for them to be using your content while making it look as if it’s theirs, or making it appear as if you’ve somehow given permission for people to reuse the material (when you haven’t), is kinda dishonest.
The concept of intellectual property doesn’t always translate well between cultures, but the concept of dishonesty does. Some people are proud of being considered an outlaw (“Hey man, I don’t follow no rulez!”), but few people are proud of being considered dishonest, especially if the reason why they wanted to use your work in the first place was to enhance their own reputations.
No, Andy, “publicly available” does not necessarily equate to “public domain”.
FYI, Google escape prosecution because they argue that their actions as an indexer count as “fair use”, because people reasonably expect their online content to be indexed as a matter of course, and because anybody who //doesn’t// want their content to be indexed can assert their right to be “off-Google” by using the “NOINDEX” tag in their webpage header. The major search engines honor the NOINDEX tag because they don’t want to be sued. If you don’t want to be Googled, it’s easy. You just say so, in a standardised way, and you magically vanish from the third-party indexes.
Similarly, if people want to put their material online but assert copyright, then if you deliberately disregard that copyright, or worse, republish and assert that it’s NOT copyright, then you may have just committed a serious offence under copyright law. If Stephen King puts a sample chapter of his next unpublished book online, then you should assume that it isn’t public domain unless he says so, and you should assume that he’ll sue your pants off if you republish his copyright-noticed piece without permission just because you were able to get to it without signing anything.
A publisher who turns someone else’s blog into a book without permission is almost certainly going to get sued.
If you’re scraping sites for net research, then your legal department has probably already checked and made sure that what you’re doing counts as “research”, and research tends to be given a wider latitude with regards to “fair use”, because research is widely considered to be a Good Thing that adds value to society.
The determination of what constitutes “fair use” depends on context, for instance, it’s difficult for us to be //too// precious about the ownership of short comments posted on a someone else’s public discussion site, or on Twitter. Copyright law regarding letters and general correspondence (especially public correspondence) is more open to interpretation, and social media sites tend to warn users that they’re agreeing to their content being reused in multiple ways when they sign up.
But a significant article uploaded to someone’s own personal blog or website is another matter entirely. Different context, different reasonable author expectations, different social norms, different default legal ruling.
If you’re going to give advice about the law, please read the relevant legislation first. The “rules of thumb” that your company’s legal guys may have distilled for you as good guidelines for your own particular line of work won’t necessarily translate well to the law as it stands for a lot of other people operating different types of business.
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: On Startups – The Community For Entrepreneurs
Discussion: Plagiarism of Blogs: What to Do
@Yian, I agree that if they're just quoting other sites, they'll eventually close down. The problem is in how long that could take. If the blog is weekly, it could take several months for the lack of an authentic voice to become serious. It's hard to be fake for long, and it does become apparent quickly.
Posted by Walter Daniels
Via Biznik
Posted by Teresa Tullio, Kirkland, Washington
It does take a lot of work to come up with creative content so often! Even with copyright warnings I find that people are copying my content without credit almost daily. The worst part is they also download photo images that I paid for! I don't know how to stop it? Very frustrating 🙁
Via Biznik
Posted by Jim Dickeson, Mercer Island, Washington
I was plagiarized. It was worse than theft. I felt violated.
It was an article I'd written a few years ago. I stumbled across it on the internet with credit going to someone else. Doing internet searches of phrasing, I found it in several other places, all giving credit back to the (wrong) souce. Fortunately, thankfully, I also found a few older references to my original article.
I contacted the source. I won't name them becasue it was not their fault, but the fault of one of their employees. I provided evidence, and they quickly removed the content. Then I went back to the other places it showed up and was surprised how quickly they either removed the content or, better, kept it but giving me credit. They were bloggers and emagazines, and they understand well how plagiarism can tarnish their reputations.
@Teresa, you should put copyright fine print on all you publish, whether to protect your original content, or to protect other's content that you have legally purchased.
I once worked on an eLearning project that originated with some PowerPoint slides from a federal government agency. I first noticed that nearly all of the images oddly had hyperlinks. Alarming was that they all lnked to Yahoo image search pages. I followed several back to the original source, and all were copy protected and had not been legally used. Evidently, someone federal employee simply snatched a bunch of images from Yahoo searches, with no regard to intellectual property, and without bothering to removing the implicating hyperlinks. One of the images even had the stock photo agency's watermark on it.