SpikeTheLobsterWriting And Plagiarism
April 8th 2009 13:05
plagiarism –noun The unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work.
(Dictionary.com Unabridged. Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.)
Anyone who's written an article, editorial, opinion piece, newsletter or even just published a web page runs the risk of suffering from plagiarism. Stealing other people's work used to be a more involved proposal: the piece had to be copied or rephrased by hand from an original. However, with the advent of electronic documents and the Web, it's become a simple matter of copying and pasting text. There's even an entire web site of resources for teachers and lecturers, to help in educating students and detecting the activity.
Despite the huge number of web pages in the world, watching for plagiarism is, in some ways, easier than before thanks to search engines. By regularly checking for the presence of pertinent phrases, an author can keep an eye on who's using their work and ensure they are paid - or at least credited. However, more prolific writers soon find this tracking ponderous and time-consuming. How to make it easier?
An excellent tip I picked up a few months ago is to use Google Alerts. This is a free service that performs a custom search on a phrase of up to 32 words. Google subscribers - that is, anyone who has an account with them for any of their other services such as Gmail or AdSense - can also store their alerts, so that regular checks are run automatically.
Each alert is simple to set up. Log in and create a new alert, then copy thirty or so words from the article or other piece of writing into the text box provided. Don't forget to start and end with a double-quote character, so that the Alert looks for the whole phrase, rather than the individual words. You can then decide if you want daily, weekly or as-seen updates on changes: an email will be scheduled automatically by the service whenever it detects a new page with the text present. These go to your Google-registered email account and allow you to verify that the content is not stolen.
For artists and photographers, the Alerts service doesn't work: it only detects text. However, there are some alternatives. For smaller producers, there's a free manual checking utility over at TinEye which will search through a couple of billion online images to see if your work has been posted anywhere. You can either upload an image to check or provide a URL. The TinEye service will also check for resized versions and those that have been cropped, to an extent.
If you're producing a huge amount of work professionally, a more complete service is available through Digimarc. This is a subscription service which, for a monthly fee, provides digital watermarking for images, online storage, contact information for people wishing to use your work and a tracking system to see where your pictures are being used.
Should you detect plagiarism, the best option is always to contact the thief. You can check who owns any particular domain by using a 'whois' service, such as the one at DomainTools, where registration details are stored. These always include a contact email. I tend to send a plain email, stating simply that there is stolen content on their site, the URL of the content and three options: take it down, pay me (or credit me) or face the consequences. The majority of site owners will ensure the content is removed.
If they refuse to remove the content or do not reply, the next move depends on where they operate. Contacting their ISP will sometimes have an effect, since most ISP terms of service contain a clause regarding legal content. If they run Google's AdSense, you can threaten to report them to the search engine people and get their account banned - that'll make them sit up and notice! If they're in the same country as you, you could even go as far as taking legal action: internationally, this is obviously much more difficult.
However you deal with it, it's also worth notifying people who use the same publication service. They may want to check that their content is safe, too.
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Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
My simple explanation for plagiarism is "putting your own name on someone else's work". In the corporate world, managers do it all the time
What great information in this post. Thanks.
Comment by SpikeTheLobster
Wordophilia
Qwerk
Peanut Butter
Comment by Carolyn Cordon
Light Within
How do You Express Your Creativity?
Food Leaf
Hmmm it's all those nerdy people who post comments there that are boring, not the wonderful person who runs it. Something like that.
I hope you have a good attitude and are having a good day.
Comment by Damo
Then I was going to post a clever picture but that too was a problem.
So I now reduced down to using my own material.
Good subject but in this forum it will on deaf ears.
Cut paste
Cut paste
Cut paste
Ahhh now my brain will release some endorphins as I check my Karma points.
Comment by GlenB
Raw Fish
I am glad someone else cares about intellectual property rights.
I produce my own original content on rawfish and the images are all mine unless otherwise credited.
Good post.
Comment by Wilson Pon
Health 2 Know
Adventure Toes
Techno Stuffs
boxing sound
Business Rope
Fun Places 2 Travel
Comment by Damo
You must lack a sense of humor.
If I thought Spike was wrong I would write 'Dear Spike I think you are wrong and here is why.' However I think he is right.
Unfortunately if you care look at the state of many of the post that come through you will find a sizable percentage that are little ore than cut & paste jobs from other sites. If we start to get serious about the images then forget it. Very few come sourced and some people pinch them from other peoples blogs. There is a finders keepers mentality on the net that makes people blind. People plagiarize because they can get away with it.
People may agree and be concerned but I really do not think that will stop with the cut and paste blogging.
If people go to the effort of being original enough to put their own material then they are usually worth reading.
Comment by Mr Nice Guy
Pop Culturist
Pop Rock Factory
Janet certainly nailed it in one as well - and it not only applies to their memo's either. Surely there's some form of protection for intellectual plagiarism?
Cheers
Comment by SpikeTheLobster
Wordophilia
Qwerk
Peanut Butter
Damo: It's unlikely that anyone online has 100% original content or perfect citations on their site/blog, but it would indeed be nice if people would try. That's why most of my title images come from a royalty-free, no-citation site (or have a URL typed in them or something!).
Even worse, IMHO, is the word-change blogging. At least with copy/paste Google ignores the copy; when people paraphrase a little, they not only steal the content but also the traffic and potentially the money and so on.
GlenB: Damo cares as much as you or I, rest assured. Original content is king, as they say - which is why these little tools and sites are so useful in catching the cheats.
Wilson: Brilliant! I wondered whether the tool they provide was actually any good. It's great to have a first-hand opinion from someone using it - thank you!
MrNG: I went looking when I had two articles stolen from AC: there are good tools and serious people out there trying to reduce the copying. Unfortunately it's not easy on the Internet: one of my articles is still on another site, but because it's in China I can't do anything about it. Sigh.
Comment by zorlone
This is a very informative post! I have been using copy sentry, but it seems that there are other better options out there.
Creating original stuff online for a blog may often times be difficult, but with a little inspiration and some hard work as you said, a blogger can go a long long way...
Z
Comment by SpikeTheLobster
Wordophilia
Qwerk
Peanut Butter
Update: That's the Copyscape pay-to-detect service. I'd heard of Copyscape, of course, but not their plagiarism protection!
Comment by Morgan Bell
Science News
Deep Pencil
Business News
Movie Train
Artist Quirk