Do You Really Want to Steal Other People’s Content?
OK, it’s not the first time, and I guess it won’t be the last. Some friggin’ slug has gone and swiped a whole bunch of text from one of my articles and used it as his own – incredible!
And guess who gets penalised for it? Me!
This was from an article that I published back in ’04 / ’05 (not sure when) and I’d pretty much lost track of it until recently. When I found it again I thought OK, time to get this up in some of the article directories and see if I can draw some more mileage from it. And of it goes …
Only to get blocked at the first step because search results show that it has “identical content” to material already published. Huh? I’m left wondering how that is possible.
After enough research I find that yes, some slug *has* published chunks of this article as his own. Normally I wouldn’t give two-hoots, but the article directory in mind (naturally) suspends my account as a thief and a liar – aargh!!!
Finally I get it back together, and am able to show that the “offending article” had also been previously published correctly under my name on other websites, and so my account is re-instated… but why? Because some tool was too damn lazy to write his own material or get someone else to do it for him.
Here’s the real kicker… there are literally tens of thousands, probably tens of millions of pages of material out there that can legally and ethically be re-published with signatory of who wrote it – how hard can this be?
The question to be asked here is how far are you willing to go to try and make yourself “look good” on the internet? You know, we’ve probably all done it a few times with images… and how about our sales copy “swipe files”? Hmm. That’s a big one isn’t it (I’m know I’m not 100% innocent there).
Maybe it’s time that we became accountable for what we do Online. Just because there are recalcitrants out there who will take your stuff and “pretend” it’s theirs doesn’t mean we have to.
As leaders in the net marketing field we must stand TALL!!
PS. Notice that I’ve elected not to publish this guys website and “name and shame” him. Standing tall means doing more than just playing by schoolyard bully tactics.
(Question) – What are your thoughts on the way this goes on Online?
How to Make Money FAST! (Video)
Website Success Checklist
Product Creation Secrets
I’m yet to have this happen to me but I can completely understand the vehemence. I wouldn’t even know where to start to rectify a horrible situation such as this.
As a recording artist who’s so definitely anti-pirate that I’ve bored people senseless with my rants on the subject, I can certainly sympathise! However… I do remember one time in my teens, I wrote this awesome song, I could hear the whole thing in my head, I had the melody, the background, the chorus, it was all going on. I even wrote the lyrics out, it was a great song! I called it “Shake Your Foundations” and when I heard AC/DC doing it on the radio I realised what my mind had done. I hadn’t consciously heard the song… but I’d been playing my radio the night before and fallen asleep and so the song was in my head…
I was a bit disappointed, because naturally I was sure I had a hit, but sometimes your mind does take things and bring them into the light and we put our name to them because we’re positive – positive!! – that this is ours, and it’s awesome and it needs to be out there. I was fortunate, I realised in time what had happened before I made a complete fool of myself.
Maybe your sluggy friend didn’t. Maybe his brain recognised the awesomeness of your article, stuck it into his subconscious and he just wrote it out without realising he’d nicked it. Maybe he did, and he’s a mongrel. Your own post is an excellent reminder to us that sometimes the reason something is so amazing and well crafted not because our brain is wonderful, but because someone else has spent considerable time working on it.
Thanks Pauline, great reply.
“maybe… he just wrote it out without realising he’d nicked it. Maybe he did, and he’s a mongrel.” Yes… word for word
I guess I didn’t mention in my ‘rant (LOL), that all he did was remove the references to my business and put in his… then added his name. The article was identical. Dipshit! I have people steal my stuff all the time and put it on their own websites…. but at least they say it is mine.
- Paul
Hi Paul – what the fellow did to you is sneaky, unethical and lazy, but it happens all the time. I’ve been a victim of it too. One way around it is to use a plagiarism checker to regularly monitor if unauthorised identical content is popping up elsewhere. One of those services I’ve seen is copyscape.com (I have no affiliations with them whatsoever), and their free version is ok for a small site without many pages. The free one is labour intensive. Their premium batch search will monitor up to 10,000 pages and will send emails if identical content is identified. I don’t know the costs for that, but it’s something that I will investigate when I’ve launched my new site and it has grown enough to justify the expense. Regards, Geoff.
Thanks Geoff. Yes, http://www.copyscape.com is a great resource. I’ve used it often when getting others to write specific pieces for me. It’s a good bookmark to have handy.