Plagiarism – I Just Got Robbed!
Some people have described the internet as the new Wild West, full of opportunities yet fraught with danger. There’s just no way of policing everything that happens within its boundaries. One of the most frequent crimes that happen over the internet is plagiarism.
Plagiarism and intellectual property theft is a common concern facing webmasters over the internet. It’s really quite simple for someone to steal content – whether it’s an article, a video or a podcast, and post it as their own on their blog or website. But make no doubt about it, it’s illegal and it has a number of negative implications.
Why should you worry?
The first and foremost thing that you should know is how plagiarism can affect you. Contrary to what most bloggers and webmasters believe, having your content stolen can have negative implications to your blog or website.
There isn’t any concrete evidence that search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing can trace which content is original and which is the duplicate one. In most instances, both the original and the duplicate content are downgraded.
A lot has been said about Google’s Panda update and part of this is its focus on quality content. And having duplicate content can seriously damage a website’s ranking.
How can you find out if content has been copied?
The most effective way of knowing whether your content has been copied or not is through simple Google search. You can type in and search the exact title of your article and/or some portions of the article. We’ve all heard how people sometimes spin articles to get a new article but some are just lazy and post it lock, stock and barrel on their website.
You can also make use of CopyScape, a simple search website wherein you can find out whether your content has been copied just by typing your content’s exact URL. One of the most frustrating things for a writer is to find his article has been spun. It takes time researching, writing and editing a single article while article spinners only require a few minutes to turn this into a “unique” one.
Article spinning software even has the uncanny ability to show the “uniqueness” of the spun article. This has long been a practice among many webmasters aggressively pursuing a backlinks campaign for their sites.
Things to do if you’ve been plagiarized
1. Contact the website owners first – privately
Confronting the website who has stolen your content publicly isn’t the smartest thing to do – in most instances, it’s the dumbest. It’s not familiarity breeds contempt but it’s contempt that breeds contempt.
The best thing to do is the contact the website owner privately through email or through the website’s contact forms – not in the comment thread. Explain to the website owner that your content is copyrighted by virtue that it’s your creation and ask him/her to kindly remove it from the website.
2. Start gathering evidence that you’re the rightful owner of the content
If the website owner does not respond or responded in a negative way, there is no other option but to file a complaint. However, doing so isn’t that easy. You should first gather evidence supporting your claims that your content has been copied. This could be done by submitting proof of when you’re content was posted. Any similar articles posted at a later date could be considered as plagiarized. Remember, the burden of proof lies with the accuser, so be ready to prove your accusations.
3. If everything fails, file a DMCA complaint
A Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 or simply the DMCA complaint deals with copyright infringement acts over the Internet. The DMCA act is a US copyright act that can help in banning a particular website or content from search engines. You can file a DMCA complaint directly to Google in as a last resort.
How to prevent being plagiarized?
Prevention is better than cure is an old adage that continues to be true. Hence, you should put effort in protecting your blog’s content. You can disallow copy-pasting from your blog or better you can install plug-ins that help deter people from stealing your content. However, even with the best efforts preventing our intellectual properties from being stolen is impossible. The only thing that we could do is to make it more difficult for people to simply copy and paste our articles. Being proactive and making it an effort to check for duplicate content from time to time helps us address this concern in a timely fashion.
A simple 21 year old guy who loves blogging and having infinite passion for technology. Founder of 
nice article quite intresting thn for this nice share
vishvast recently posted..Ice Cream Sandwich already ported to Samsung Galaxy S II and LG Optimus 3D among others
Hi Rojish and Sussane. Thanks for the great work you people are doing here. You’ve just mentioned the menace that has been happening all over the net and we need to find a solution to it sooner than later.
Olawale Daniel recently posted..Apple’s Black Friday 2011 deals revealed: discounts on iPad, iPod, iMac, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and accessories
This is worst kind of robbery mostly because it is very difficult to catch the culprits and bring them to justice. Btw use of fatpings for prevention is a good option.
Zack recently posted..Free yahoo site explorer alternatives
Thank you for dropping a comment. Yes, I think this is a topic that continues to affect netizens especially us bloggers.
Hey Suzzane,
Nowadays, most of the lazy bloggers are simply just copying other author article’s content and it makes me feel got bullied. Since I am also a blogger, I already one article that really looked like mine but I didn’t done any ways to react because I don’t know what to do after seeing it so I just ignored it. But thanks for the tips, that I learned a lot form it.
lacarpet recently posted..The Various Kinds of Gas Fireplaces
As the owner of a content creation company, it’s clear to me that many marketers are so frustrated by all of the duplication and copying of content. 100% original and unique content is very valuable in the SEO world, and is worth every penny!
Interesting article! Plagiarism is very pervading when it comes to content. If you take any topic and type in google then you will find only first five sites that have unique content. The rest of them have all copied content.
Leonor Miller recently posted..Bras ergonomique Ergorest
Now a days lots of peoples are copying content from blogs its very dangerous to handle such things as a webmaster so ,I suggest you review any guest post while publishing on your blog
Play safe and become safe
Saurabh Mukhekar recently posted..Get Best Black Friday 2011 Offers-Deals with GoDaddy,Hostgator & Netfirms
There are many people and as well as hackers! I really hate them. This will be a lesson for all of us to be careful.
Shikha Singh recently posted..simple animation software
Copying contents have became a major problem of today’s web world. Search Engines, especially Google have taken some strong steps to penalize copied contents. Hope they will become more strict about it.
Jonah recently posted..How To Create Techno Beats
yes.. it cannot be control.. just control C and control V.. then publish.. without any credit to the original writer..
zik recently posted..Selecting An SEO Company
Copying content has got much easier with rewriting tasks at the peak. What ever content is there, people easily rewrite it and there is no proof against them. This has given a boost to plagiarism.
Steve recently posted..Know How to Fall Asleep Fast
Plagiarism is inevitable and one must use the tricks mentioned here. On my blog I put the text in image form so that it cannot be got even from the source. Thanks to these tricks that bring copying down!
John recently posted..Will My Ex Come Back ?
Thanks for writing this informative blog post. Plagiarism is really a troublesome factor in the internet world.
Jaison recently posted..My first animated image
Plagiarizing sure is one of the despicable things you can do. Even more so, it is just stupid. Why would you steal someone’s words, when you can cite or refer those same words, thus making your post more intertextual/-active.
djtremolo recently posted..issue ★35
Thank you for your sharing. I learn a lot from your page. Although I have not meet with this kind of bad thing, it is necessary for me to learn about it.
Now a days, plagiarism is regular problem for bloggers. This article will add huge information.
Ahsan recently posted..How To Make Google Plus Page
i just today hear and learn about plagiarism i am new in online marketing you really explain very excellent a very nice and good thanks
ioana moise recently posted..windows 7 key
Great post, Suzzane. Plagiarism is definitely a big problem on the internet just because of the fact that is so easy, like you said. I am happy that Google’s latest algorithms are designed to be able to be better at identifying duplicates and affect those sites rankings. But it is still better to be proactive from our own side as well by using the plugins that disable copy-paste for example. Even though it won’t discourge all thieves, atleast some will be hopefully.
-Jean
tires recently posted..How to stay safe while driving on wet roads
Plagiarism is one of the correct place to find out whether its steal content or original article on here. So, have to write our own ideas, thoughts, and information on the article, so it will be more helpful to all the people in the wide.
Kavya Hari recently posted..Amazing News For Webmasters!
Good advice. Have you ever had your work plagiarized?
Matt Kinsella recently posted..Top 12 Tips To Improve Your Life
Most often some people who are lazy enough don’t make their own but copy post on the net. I was ask once by my niece what to do if things happen this way-PLAGIARISM. For sure I already have an answer to that.Thanks for this post, you have made it clear for readers about what plagiarism means and how one can determine if their article was copied.
Hi Rojish and Suzzane,
At first I thought your content was really plagiarized! Plagiarism is really hard to detect in some situations, but having Copyscape is really handy. I have a question though – what if you saw another website wherein your content was posted, but in the end of that post, your link was put up as the source. Is that totally okay? Even without your permission? Thanks in advance.
Felicia @ No Deposit Poker recently posted..WPT, EPT, GSOP Live: 11 Days of Poker in Prague
Nice article. I was really think your contents were robbed
Kriskiantoro recently posted..Ban Terbaik di Indonesia GT Radial
Really good article, thanks sharing. As someone who used to look after a couple of black hat style sites I can also add the the webmasters do not like to have any attention brought to their sites. They often do not know that they have used your content as its quite often done via automated tools. If you contant the webmaster and ask them to take the content down they most likley will as if they do not then it will draw more attention to their black hat goings on and even other sites on the same IP etc, etc, etc.
lizza recently posted..TV on your mobile
I think there are more ways to find out if your content way stolen. I blogged about it long back, might be useful.
http://www.geeks4share.com/2011/04/how-to-find-your-stolen-content/
Nice post rojish, as always
Praveen recently posted..5 WordPress Plugin To Increase Blog Comments
Well this is really alarming and I hope this is a help to most writers…Thanks for the great post and information as well…
title is catchy !
shyam jos recently posted..Top 3 web browsers for android
What I really find amazing is the fact you can have an article on your website for years and find someone that recently stole the article outranking you for the article. How can Google not fix this after all this time?
Sandy recently posted..philosophy Miracle Worker Miraculous All-Over Brightener and Dark Spot Corrector
Some people specialise in that type of thing, abusing googles trustrank! It is so annoying.
lizza recently posted..Stop your heartburn
Plagiarism is everywhere…You just have to keep an eye on it every time you edit your work…They are just watching and waiting to find a very good content to copy…
Ricci Sionil recently posted..Steve Jobs – Why I Am Not Sad For Him.
Suzzanne,
Thanks for this write up on how to protect yourself if you have been plagiarized.
Sometimes it seems there are so many scraper sites out there, if everyone spent a little time trying to do the right thing and make life difficult for site scrapers this would stop being an issue.
Steve@Affiliate Marketing Tips recently posted..How to Increase Your Google Website Traffic by 30.01% [Traffic and Conversion #3]
These are the problems that is difficult to deal with especially those whom is trying to copy your post because it gets high traffic.
matt recently posted..LG Optimus Android Phones Price List Philippines
I can relate to this in so many different ways. I can not count the number of times that I have been plagarized and could not do anything about it.
Disabling copy and pasting can be very annoying to users and make you lose links. When I post on a topic I may want to include a snippet from a blog or two with various points. But if they disable copy and paste I most likely won’t (and I always include a link back).
Also I imagine most theft is by automated scrappers of rss feeds and disabling copying probably doesn’t work.
It is annoying that some people just steal others work and try to pass it off as theirs.
John recently posted..MySQL Performance Tuning Tips
That sucks when you content is stolen! How do you prevent copying and pasting? Is there a plugin?
Writing Inspiration recently posted..How to Squeeze Writing Inspiration from a Stone
hello
Plagiarism is very helpful in detecting the right article and unique contents.thanks 4 ur nice article
vishvast recently posted..Samsung Ambushes Nokia in Smartphone War
I never been in Plagiarism. Robbing else’ work is a very bad idea. You can be penalized for doing this so.
Hanna@Digital Camera Review recently posted..PANASONIC LUMIX FS30 REVIEW
hello Suzzane Edwards,
thanks for sharing your experience with us
sai krishna recently posted..Hostgator India Discount Coupon Code January 2012
Hello Suzzane, In response to #1 (Contact the website owners first – privately). If this approach ends up in a flat out denial or no response at all.
1b) Determine how they’re monetizing their site and contact their biggest source of revenue, like affiliate merchant or network. Tell them what’s going. In turn, they will most likely contact the plagiarizer. This should get the ball rolling toward the situation getting remedied.