Plagiarism of articles is rife on the web. I have sufferred from this time and time again. And it’s very annoying that someone steals your work and either gives you no credit or the correct link-back. Worse still I have found some people actually claim it’s their own work!
Well I’m not a prolific article writer. Yet, nearly every single article I have written has been plagiarised !! (this will be too probably).
The chances are your article content has also been stolen, adapted or not credited to you.
Now I don’t mind if they stick to the Article Syndication Rules and leave in the writing credits and website links. Often I’m glad articles are published elsewhere – it spreads my message, my links or name to a wider audience. That’s all well and good…
…but some are deliberately stealing the content as an easy and free way to bulk out their own web sites and blogs for free, for their own gain and usually for SEO purposes such as gaining ranking for certain keywords.
Well the GOOD NEWS is…
the law and web authorities are on your side.
Firstly. How do you know if someone is using your content? The WWW is a big place yeah? Well you can use various tools to find content here are a few:
Google Search & Google Blog Search
Google Alerts
CopyScape
DMCA
1. Google Search: Learning how to use Google’s advanced search features can help you pin-point your article or duplicate content on other people’s web sites. Try searching for your article title in enclosed speech marks: e.g. “my article title”.
Often article theft appears in blogs where it’s easy for the site owner to copy and paste text into their blog software such as WordPress. Google has a Google Blog Search tool which I find excellent for finding author’s names, keywords in the article or the article title. Why not try some uncommon phrase that is in your original article, something that the Google Blog Search will find a lot easier.
2 Google Alerts: If you have a Google Account or Sign-on (if not, then get one, they are free) you can use their Google Alert Service. Google Alerts are automated search queries that you set-up yourself in advance and just wait until Google emails you it’s findings. It’s free and easy to set-up. I use this a lot and it’s amazing how I find a lot of duplicated articles / site content. Its helps more if you know Advanced Search techniques.
3. CopyScape: Copyscape is free and briiliant at finding web sites that may be using, copying or infringing your copyright material. It’s sole purpose is to search for copies of your page content on the web. You just enter your article’s URL or site address and off it goes to find duplicates. It even tells you how many words the rogue site has copied !
You can try it for free but if you want to use it a lot you can buy (very cheaply) search credits. Copyscape is invaluable for finding possible breaches of copyright. I use Copyscape and have found 6 or 7 perpertrators of stealing my content !!!
4. DMCA: The Digital Millenium Copyright Act have a ‘Take-down Service’ and will help you protect your work as well as bring pressure on the person(s) stealing your content. The DMCA’s sole purpose is to look at copyright infringments and help you resolve the issue. I use this as a last resort but it usually scares the culprit site owner to take down the article or stolen content.
Write An Email
Where possible, first get in touch with the rogue website owner via email with your evidence to request they cease and desist from using your content. Give them 4/5 days to comply and if they don’t they you can report their site to both Google and the DMCA.
As most people don’t even know about copyright or the possibility of a breach of law the above usually has a positive effect. I have tried this numerous times and had the results.
Finally don’t stand for copyright theft – it’s rife, but you can and should protect your work and get the credit for it too.