Online content theft is just plain nasty. Fight it!
I mean nasty in the eww-Jerry-Springer kinda way. It’s the kind of offense that should force perpetrators to flee town out of sheer embarrassment and an overwhelming fear of finger-pointing. But besides it being the lowest of the low, stealing content that has been copyrighted and claiming it as your own is also wrong, selfish, short-sighted and potentially very damaging for the copyright victim AND the thief himself (after his devious ways have been detected and acted against).
The thing is, more people get away with this than we realise. ‘Plagiarism’ sounds like such a soft, harmless act, when in actual fact it is just as serious a theft as robbing a bank or stealing a car. Some thieves copy a paragraph here and there, while others lift the whole enchilada and simply go to the extensive effort of replacing the author’s name with their own. Thankfully, when it comes to text content, there are a number of ways of tracking down this particular brand of cybercrime.
1. Google is your friend. Take a sentence that features an unusual turn of phrase or a scientific or legal or unique proper noun, put it in quotation marks and search away. If you have regular phrases you want to check up on, subscribe to Google Alerts for automatic email updates whenever someone publishes something (that Google can index) that includes one of the terms you’re keeping an eye on.
2. Use Copyscape or Plagiarism Checker (both free) to search for copies of your content by simply entering the URL of the page you suspect has been plagiarised.
3. Submit some of your content to EssayRater - another free service that checks the text you submit for any duplicates on the web. If you’re trying to the do right thing and write an original piece that doesn’t plagiarise in any way, this should be your first stop.
4. If you use WordPress, create a digial fingerprint for your blog using this plugin to protect your content against splogs that scrape your RSS feed for free content.
When it comes to multimedia content, the options start to dwindle, because many of the techniques can be sidelined by smarter pickpockets, who simply open the content in an editor and re-save it with slight alterations. But here are a few things you could try:
1. Start things off with a simple Google search for your original filename/s, tags, title and description (often left unchanged between stealing it off your site and uploading to a blog or social media community).
2. If you’re looking to protect photos, try inserting an invisible digital watermark. This software will tackle batches of photos at a time and allow you to check for your hidden watermark on an image you suspect was stolen from you. It also claims that removal of its watermarks are impossible.
3. When all else fails, include a visible or audible watermark. This will translate into more effort on the part of the thief, who will need to crop or edit to try and get away with it.
The bigger question is what to do once you’ve tracked down the theft and identified the person or company behind the deed. Plagiarism Today has a few stock letters that are free to use and communicate quite effectively to the guilty party that you’re less than impressed with the situation.
Start off by sending them a cease and desist letter, and take it couple of steps further by also sending letters to their online hosting company and major search engines as well, which could certainly go some way to teaching the nasty little infringer a lesson. Take note though that these templates need customising to reflect the South African legal scenario.
If you get no response, it’s time to speak to a well-informed digital rights attorney to help you fight the fight. Some of the bigger firms in South Africa include Adams and Adams, Spoor and Fisher and Buys Inc. One specialist attorney tackling these kinds of issues specifically is Paul Jacobson.
Ultimately, fighting content theft is an uphill battle. But the more we stand in the way, the more the race to stealing our content becomes a 10km marathon instead of a 100m sprint.
Tagged as content theft, copyright infringement, online plagiarism + Categorized as Everything
Thanks for the link and the mention Jason. I’m probably one of a couple lawyers who specifically focus on the Web and digital media and it is both an exciting and challenging area!
Thanks so much for these helpful tools. They are fantastic!
Hi,
Very interesting article. I’ve recently found my SmallCaps.co.za website a target of copy/paste into forums and other sites…
I became aware of this via a google alert and followed it to a forum where people were actually discussing it.
A very interesting read:
https://www.psg-online.co.za/DiscussionForum/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3078&KW=smallcaps.co.za
It got even more interesting when I joined the discussion.
Good article, tho!
Kind regards,
Keith
@Paul More power to you for dedicating your practice to the online space and giving it the focus it needs to be dealt with fairly.
@Jess Great - if you find any that aren’t listed here, please add them. Or share your experience with any of the tools if they’re extra helpful.
@Keith It happens all the time. At least you’re watching out for it, and dealing with it in the best way possible: as it happens, in a firm but friendly way. You can always pull out the big guns if they comply
Great post and something which we have all had the unfortunate experienced of.
At the risk of being nailed for self-promotion I would recommend the likes of BrandsEye (or even Google Alerts) to track press releases and good content. Simply tracking certain obscure phrases from your content should be enough.
The truth is that people are going to re-distribute good content [this is the Internet!] so its a matter of making sure that you know about it and make sure they link back and attribute the work to you
In terms of action against the evils of plagarism there two mechanisms which we have used in the past to great effect 1) warn that you will go public… when their reputation is on the line they very quickly change their tune 2) warn with a take-down-notice - people are scared to death of legal stuffs…
Cheers,
Tim
@Tim Yeah I mentioned Google Alerts but should’ve added Brandseye as a more complete solution - thanks for the comment!
Hey Jason
Great article - thanks. Some solid advice contained herein. We recently had an instance of a similar thing when we found out that someone was selling the download of our textbook; something that we give away for free. I was furious, particularly since we’re really proud of the fact that we licensed it under the Creative Commons!
Fortunately though, we found out and requested that the company remove it which they did. And I felt better after I blogged/ranted about it on GottaQuirk.
Hi - nice read and good looking blog. I’m in Cape Town and I’ll be launching soon an app to add to your list of tools to fight copyright infringement.
@Jason. It is hard to cover everything especially since tech changes so quickly. My question is do you know what is being copied from your site? (Self-promotion coming up in 3..2..1) Tynt’s Tracer can tell you just that and it is FREE. (I warned you about the self-promotion).
@Tim I it is ok if you it is relevant and helpful. BrandsEye seems like a great company.
Cheers all and best of luck.
Trevor