Is Someone Stealing From You?
by Linda Rink, President of Rink Consulting
They say that imitation is the best form of flattery. Perhaps sometimes, but not when your words are used by someone else without any credit given to you. That kind of imitation is called plagiarism.
Copying content without acknowledgement from a website, blog, or other published communication is unethical, whether or not the material is copyrighted (and if the material is copyrighted, it's illegal). Just because it's "out there" on the internet does not mean it's free for the taking.
Is someone stealing your content? I'm not an alarmist, but there is probably more unauthorized copying going on than we realize.
Case in point:
Recently I was researching white papers for a project and came across three advertising agency websites which posted the same E-zine article as though it had been written by a staff member. One gave the original author credit (although in very small type). The others did not. Not identifying the author is clearly plagiarism, and makes me question the professionalism of the offending agencies. Would you want to do business with them?
How do you know if you are a victim?
There are specific internet tools that can help, and many of them are free. Some allow you to check both documents and web pages. Here are a few popular ones:
- www.plagiarismchecker.com
- www.duplichecker.com
- www.copyscape.com
- www.doccop.com
You can also do a quick Google or Bing search, using quotation marks around your text.
Copycat domain names are also a form of stealing. Want to see If someone has set up a domain name very, very similar to yours? Check www.GoDaddy.com or www.domaintools.com.
What can you do to minimize the chances of being plagiarized?
If your content is extremely valuable to you, you should protect it by registering it with the U.S. Copyright Office (www.copyright.gov). Then be sure to prominently display � and the appropriate language on every page of the document. Short of that, diligence is your best weapon, so periodically run your content through one of the online plagiarism checkers.
Are you guilty?
I suspect that most cases of plagiarism are due to laziness or simple unawareness, rather than malicious intent. Try this experiment:
Type this phrase into Google Search, with the quotation marks: "We are a full-service accounting firm dedicated to providing our clients with professional, personalized services and guidance in a wide range of financial and business needs." I just got 93,400 results. All 459 displayed entries seem to be legitimate accounting firms. Granted, this phrase is pretty generic and not a unique creative thought. But did 459 firms really come up with these exact words on their own? Doubtful. Chances are, someone read the description elsewhere and thought it sounded pretty good--good enough to use for themselves. You can see how easy it is to do.
Make sure that your staff understands the seriousness of plagiarism, so that they do not inadvertently pilfer someone else's work. Depending on the content, even paraphrasing can be construed as plagiarism. When in doubt, run the proposed text through a plagiarism checker to make sure it does not closely resemble someone else's published work.
Final note
I'm not a lawyer, so I can't give legal advice to those of you who have uncovered plagiarism of your written material. Plagiarism is not technically a crime, but it is unethical. Copyright infringement is very specific and can be either a civil or criminal offense. What actions you can take will depend very much upon your particular situation.
Questions? Contact me at [email protected].
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