Fight Plagiarism With Web 2.0

So much of the blogging world seems to be about regurgitating news these days that plagiarism is a continual threat. Add in the fact that many online content providers don't understand that using someone else's content is wrong, plus sploggers, who steal your content on purpose to make a profit of of your work, and you have what has become a real problem. As a writer who needs to make sure your original content remains your own, how can you fight back?

It may seem at first that tracking plagiarism of your work in the never ending ocean of the Internet is impossible. Thanks to a variety of online tools and up and coming Web 2.0 applications, that is no longer the case. In fact, thanks to some unlikely sources, such as Twitter, you can be alerted to people stealing your content faster than ever before.

One new application for handling content tracking is Attributor. Their claim to success is a “fingerprinting algorithm” that hunts your content down online. This algorithm determines if your content is being used, if it is being used improperly and more. The nice thing about Attributor that other online solutions to content management don't have is multi format capability. It doesn't just track your words - it also tracks your images, audio files, video and more. Attributor is not free - expect to pay a monthly fee.

As a support to a program like Attributor, there is industry new kid on the block GumGum. GumGum has a slightly different goal than strict content removal. It hopes to a) track photo content being plagiarized across the internet and b) make it so photographers can reap monetary benefits from their images being used based on page loads. It will take a while for their database to grow enough to support that kind of monetization effort, and in the meantime the service is still useful for locating people who are abusing the privilege of using your images.

If strictly Web 2.0 isn't your cup of tea, maybe you'd prefer a blog plug in to handle the task. If that is the case, and you use WordPress, then Digital Fingerprint is the plugin for you. By inserting a simple digital fingerprint into your posts, you can prevent unauthorized use. The fingerprint gives you a hidden phrase to search for the find and thwart copyright infringers. I've been using digital fingerprint on my personal blog and it has already helped me find several instances where more than just a “quick snippet” of text was used.

There are old school ways to monitor content as well. Google offers one, called Google Alerts. By using this in tandem with Digital Fingerprint, I've had a much higher success rate at preventing splogging and other forms of copyright infringement. With Google Alerts you set up simple auto searches based on key words or phrases of your choice. Google Alerts finds offenders and sends you a daily email letting you know where the offense has occurred.

You can also try going at the problem “sideways”. Use programs not intended for content tracking to see what activity is going on around your site. Pay attention to your search strings and statistics and look for anomalies. Often, sites plagiarizing content will use your entire article, verbatim, then “cite” you at the end in a small link. That means they are drawing comments away from your blog entry to theirs, and eyeballs away from your ads to theirs, if your blog is monetized. Sometimes, just clicking on one of the referral links in your statistics that seems fishy to you will lead you to the offending splog or blog.

What can you do if you find someone stealing your content? First, determine if they are actually stealing. Generally, a good rule of thumb is that anything under a certain amount of words is fair game as a “quote”, as long as they cite you and link back to you. If they have stolen your entire post or image, or stolen a snippet but failed to cite you or link back to you, then you need to contact the plagiarist and get them to remove their unauthorized use of your content. How you contact them is up to you.

One thing I recommend: get a screen shot of the full screen showing your plagiarized content, with a time stamp. You may need this later if they resist your efforts to get your content removed. Once you have gathered the evidence, you will need to send them a cease and desist letter. After that, if they still resist taking down your content, you may have to look into getting a lawyer to help you, if you haven't already. If you arm yourself with enough tools, remain calm and take a step by step approach to content tracking, you will get your content use under control in no time.