The Internet And Plagiarism
We live in a wonderful age if you are someone who likes the modern technological gadgets coming out. We have high run internet, Flash movies, instant news reports, and a plethora of data available all at the touch of a keyboard.
The predicament with peer-to-peer “sharing” of copyright protected songs is well documented having been fully covered in our media today. We all know the demise of many download sharing sites such as Napster that were allowing many to share their purchased works with others in violation of the license on the music discs.
There is another problem today that the majority may not realize is happening and it is fast picking up speed. Many see something on a website and then desire to execute a gash and paste version of it in their text program, add their name, and maybe, impartial maybe, change a word or two before reposting it to another area claiming this work as their own.
This is illegal and is a form of plagiarism and it fast gaining in the theft department on the internet.
Just because you can read it and just because it is easy to find a printed copy does not make it free for redistribution by you, particularly if you fail to credit the author and provide links to the original article.
There is software being sold called “Article Dashboard.” This is software that allows an individual to provide a place for “authors” to post interesting reading material to a site. The owner of the site gains income for advertisements posted on the site displaying this information. (This article does not believe the software is at fault, but rather the individuals who are purchasing the software without fully understanding the ramification if a plagiarized article ends up on their site, which it will.)
Many have “Terms and Conditions” that are not being read. Each article submitted MUST be the ORIGINAL work of the one submitting it. Stealing it off the internet using copy and paste does not qualify for original work.
In addition, these sites using software such as this do not require any contact information from the “authors” submitting works. The sites I have checked that post articles state they will determine which submissions will be posted to their area, yet many do not take any steps to ensure they are not receiving the stolen works of others.
I have also found that many of these sites do not provide any manner to contact them except through an online email do. This form requires entering a 4-character code to ensure your submission requesting removal of your article is not mechanically generated. Yet each attempt results in failure claiming you entered the code incorrectly. Otherwise you have no manner to contact the website manager.
However, if you find your works are displayed without your permission on these sites, you do have a way to try to resolve this.
Your first option is to always contact the site displaying your works. If that fails, get the name of the website. Do a Google search for “Whois” and use one of those sites. Network solutions offer one among others available. Enter the URL (only the main part, www.sitename.com) in the search.
Search the results for your domain ownership. Gather a contact point, THIS IS NOT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE DISPLAYING YOU protected works, it is the people who are providing the situation for the group or individual that IS displaying your works.
You must always be polite in contacting these people. In many cases they are not aware that protected items are displayed and usually if you follow their procedures, they will rectify the problem and remove your works.
If you do a Google Search for Article Dashboard, currently there are 5,480,000 results.
Here are some examples:
Five days ago I discovered an article I had posted to Helium had been stolen, slightly reworded (only changing a generic term to a company term) and reposted on a station using Article Dashboard.
I promptly contacted the place through the link provided, that worked. I provided the website my article was posted at, including the date it was posted as well as the link to the article on their position. I informed them I was the true author and had not been asked for nor granted permission for my works to be used on another site. I requested immediate removal of the offending article.
Taking it one step further, I found that the “author” – Astonish Reviews – had eight other articles, all of which I was able to ticket to other sites and the original authors. I sent an email to each author showing them the link where their work was posted and the link I had found to their original works and informed them if they had not granted permission, it had been stolen without their knowledge.
A search of Astonish Reviews on Google turned up over 1,000 links. Each appeared to be to an article which I suspect many were plagiarized from unsuspecting authors.
The modern site I contacted started giving me excuses. First I was informed they were unable to locate the content and author on their site. I responded with an email that pointed out if you hover over the “author’s” name it gave a four-digit ID code and the article had a six-digit ID code. Then I was told they did not know how to edit the SQL database to remove the offending work.
The following day I was informed they would be delayed several days because their site was moving to another host and the database manager would need to handle the problem. Then an “oh by the plot” I had a death in my family of a cousin, so I will be unable to do anything until four days from now.
I informed them that they should be careful of free input they receive and make every effort to verify it is indeed original work – minor time spent with Google would have been able to let these people know before they accepted the post into their site that it was stolen.
I further informed them of the responsibility they had to make every effort to remove my work and to provide me any information they needed from me to prove I was indeed the author who had written the work. I have received nothing disputing my ownership with them.
However, of interest was the comment that “they are protected under the Communications Decency Act” (CDA) from any possible action on my part.
It is my understanding the Communications Decency Act refers to material that is pornographic in nature which my article does not contain any reference to. However, on the off chance they were protected, I located the FCC’s version and read.
The site displaying the work is protected up until the time they are notified of the problem. At that point, it seems their protection ends and they are required to remove the work. Thus, the site who is trying to hide under the CDA’s skirts lost that protection once informed the work had been stolen and was displayed without permission.
Based on that, I did the aforementioned search for the alleged author’s name and found a second site, also using Article Dashboard, which had the same article posted as well. This one I could not contact and had to instead contact their ISP who is obligated to hold the work once I have successfully established ownership. That is pending at this time.
For those who write articles, take time to protect your works if you retain ownership. If you do not care, then CLEARLY post that the work is freely available for any and all to redistribute and/or do whatever desired with your work.
If you wish to maintain these rights, mark your article as copyright protected. There are other ways you can try to keep a check on your work.
You can go to www.google.com/alerts and situation up an alert that lets you track your article if so several of the words appear in another site. You are allowed to enter up to 32 words to retain (slit and past the first few or pick a select sentence or two from the body that pertain to the subject.) Generic sentences will result in many groundless responses.
Bear in mind for each alert you setup you will receive an email during the designated period if something is found. If you have 100 articles, you could feasibly receive 100 emails each day (if that is the option you selected).
Reviewing them is simple. Honest open the email, look at the heroic words in each hit. If they are all together, verify it didn’t hit on your article.
I can go through a list of about 100 in a few minutes or less, barring finding a questionable article. The effort is well worth it if you glean your work stolen and on display on another site, particularly a site that is making income, distributing it without crediting you or being used for less desirable reasons than the article may dictate.
There is also a website, www.articlechecker.com that can help to determine if your work is duplicated without your permission.
There is one final way to protect your work and give the proof you need of date of authorship. There is website www.NRS-Online.com which registers (not with the copyright people) but in their database the date, time, and works you submit. You can submit in text, files, or other formats. Once this is finished, which is simply done through your web browser, in the future, when a work is stolen, you have the database which can be used to verify you have the work registered and give the dated proof of your work.
Honest remember, works on the internet; from photos, to cartoons, to articles; are not free unless they specifically state they are in the free domain. However, also bear in mind that information posted on Wikipedia and sites like that may be free, but pasting an article copied from there is not an article you wrote and still violates the rules.
Read the shapely print before you post an article you “lifted from someplace else.” If it states “this must be original work written by you” then you cannot use Wikipedia articles as well.
For those utilizing the Article Dashboard software; make your article submitters provide valid contact information. Do not use any article without first verifying you have a design to reach them if a questioned work is posted. You should be able to contact anyone contributing information to your site.
Even though you may not have written the article (or lifted it) you ARE responsible for removing it once it has been demonstrated the article was not free for posting to your site. In addition, you may be required to provide proof of revenue (and to share it with the original author) the article may have generated. You may also be required to deny all of your clients and advertisers of the problem.
You MAY be legally liable if the article is registered copyright protected including monetary damages if you do not choose the article from your plot in a timely fashion.
Like the internet, browse the wealth of input available, but do not capture nor beget easy for others to steal (by allowing it to be posted to your site making you responsible for removal) the work of others.
It may force you to spend more time ensuring your articles are proper by an original author, but it may prevent you from receiving emails and letters that open with “Cease and Desist” and are followed by legal terms you may not be familiar with.
If you operate one of these sites, engage whatever time now to verify your sources have not posted plagiarized material you are distributing. If you do not, you may soon find out you are unknowingly distributing plagiarized words from others, and one day it will be discovered. Hopefully it isn’t your best selling article that could cost you your income with having to piece with the REAL author.
Do not sit idly by while others make off with your work, unless you do not care (which I refer you to the statement to ensure you clearly mark your work as free on the area). Bewitch the time to follow through and force sites hosting your ill-gotten work off. Only when authors band together to make sites earning money from your hard work remove your work, will these sites take the time needed to ensure they only post original material by the true author.
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Filed under Email Hosting Solutions by on Nov 11th, 2010. 
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