I received an interesting email a few days ago.
It was from someone who had found a couple of my articles plagiarized on a self-published author’s Facebook fan page.
Naturally, I was curious. Upon following the link, I did find two of my articles—one of them with a slightly different title, the other with its original title. The woman had named herself as the author of the articles, and had not given credit or linked back to Write It Sideways in any way.
Okay. So, I was a little miffed.
I wrote her a polite note asking her to credit me and link back to my site.
What happened next shocked me, although perhaps I’m naive to not have expected it.
With no real expectation of what I would find, I plugged a short excerpt of those same two article titles into a Google search, and came up with another (unrelated) site that seemed to have used my work.
Lo and behold, there were my articles again. Only this time it wasn’t just two articles.
Nearly all of the content on this site for the past three months was made up of my writing.
The person in charge of this blog had taken at least 17 of my posts, slightly changed the titles, posted large excerpts of my writing interspersed with a few thoughts of her own, and put her name on them. A few of them were cut and pasted word-for-word, still signed with her name.
What’s worse? This blog’s About page claimed it was officially connected with a self-publishing company. The company’s Facebook fan page had some of my plagiarized titles in their feed.
I sent the blogger and the company separate emails, and heard back from the blogger within 24 hours.
She gave no explanation but expressed her apologies, and has since removed all of my work from the site. However, I haven’t heard anything back from the company.
What is plagiarism?
Wikipedia says:
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as “the wrongful appropriation, close imitation, or purloining and publication, of another author’s language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions, and the representation of them as one’s own original work.”
So, we’re not talking about simply using someone else’s work, but using it and then claiming you wrote it.
What can you do about it?
After some time to consider things, I’ve decided this online battle with plagiarism is one I’m not going to actively fight.
Why not?
- There’s nothing I can really do about it, other than ask them to take down the work or credit to me.
- Being angry over something you can’t change saps a lot of energy. I’d rather use that energy for something more productive.
- No one can build a successful blog on blatantly plagiarized content, because sooner or later they’ll get caught.
- It doesn’t matter whether you put up a copyright notice or not, people will still use your work and put their name on it.
Some bloggers, like Leo Babauta of Zen Habits, have uncopyrighted their material, which means people are free to use it, change it, distribute it, and do basically whatever they want with it, and not have to give the author credit.
I’m not going that far. I understand the reasoning behind uncopyrighting your work, but I’m not going to tell people it’s okay to use my stuff and take the credit for it.
That said, will I go searching for plagiarized content on a regular basis? No. I won’t waste my time. If someone brings it to my attention, as in the case of the email I received, sure—I’ll check it out.
These are my personal feelings on the issue at this point in time, but that doesn’t dictate what you can/should do in a similar situation. You can help protect yourself by putting a copyright notice on your blog, and by regularly using a plagiarism checker. Or, you can uncopyright your work and forget about it.
What’s the proper credit etiquette?
Anyone who has taken a high school English class knows what plagiarism is, and why it’s wrong. But what about ensuring we’re giving our sources the type of credit they deserve?
Even if work is uncopyrighted, we have a moral obligation to credit the author.
- If you want to quote another blog, use only a short excerpt.
- Mention the author’s name in conjunction with the quotation or excerpt.
- Add a link to the author’s website, if they have one.
- If you want your readers to read another blog post in its entirety, use a link to direct them there instead of copying and pasting their entire post.
- When using someone else’s thoughts or ideas, mention them and add a link to their website.
Like all writers, I love it when people use my articles as springboards for their own posts, or share links to my work. I hope people will continue to do that in the future.
Your turn
What would you do if you discovered your work had been plagiarized? How do you feel about uncopyrighting? Are you guilty of not giving proper credit when you use other people’s work?
I monitor my creative works and take action when I can. The action typically results in spending a couple of minutes to file a DMCA Takedown Notice. The notice is a formal letter to the host of the website informing them that they have my material on their web servers. In all but one instance the work was removed quickly.
I wrote an article last month outlining my process on monitoring my work, which can be found at the following URL. http://www.waltinpa.com/2010/09/03/monitoring-your-creative-works/
When it comes to crediting people for their work, I generally try to use as little of the original article as possible. That little snippet of material comes with a link to the original article and acts as a sort of teaser for people to read more.
Thanks for sharing your process, Walt. That’s a great strategy, and it sounds like it works! I, too, try to use as little of an original article as possible to encourage them to head over to the other blog.
While it shouldn’t surprise me that someone would plagerize someone else’s work – probably every teacher can attest to that – it does surprise me that they would cut and paste entire blog posts and claim them as their own. I wish you were able to give names, but I understand why you didn’t. It’s not flattery (as in imitation is flattery, this is stealing. As a blogger, I will now be more alert and aware. Thanks for pointing this out to us.
I decided not to give names because in one case, the blogger got back to me immediately, expressed her apologies, and removed the content. So, even if I had given a name and provided links, they would take you to empty pages now. Also, I did check some of her other content which appeared to be original, and I don’t think she’ll be doing it again.
This is disturbing. How hard would it have been for these people to simply give you credit and link to your blog? Instead of stealing your work? I wish you would give the names of the blogs doing this so we know to avoid them.
If the Facebook woman doesn’t take down my work soon, I probably will add her name to this post in an update. But, as for the other blogger, this is what I said to the last commenter:” I decided not to give names because in one case, the blogger got back to me immediately, expressed her apologies, and removed the content. So, even if I had given a name and provided links, they would take you to empty pages now. Also, I did check some of her other content which appeared to be original, and I don’t think she’ll be doing it again.”
We’re talking about a blog with very few readers, so I doubt she’ll be stealing our audiences by using our content. It’s more a matter of principle.
If I quote a blogger, a magazine, a website – I give proper credit. I give multiple proper credits. Fair is fair, and I expect the same in return. In fact, I’ve received comments before asking for permission to use part of my work. Yes, beforehand.
I can’t think of the site, but there’s a plagarism checker somewhere out there on the web. One of my college professors told us about the site, and used it. He caught more than one person trying to cheat.
There are several plagiarism checkers available on the net. If you do a search for “plagiarism checker,” you’ll find a few in the first results. I’m not sure if they can detect work that’s been slightly reworded, though. For example, if “23 Websites that Make Your Writing Stronger” was rephrased to “22 Blogs that Add Strength to Your Writing,” I’m not sure that would be caught. But maybe. They’ll certainly catch any word-for-word stuff, though.
Wow, how disturbing Suzannah. I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but how these people can claim to be writers when they don’t actually write is incredible! I guess the Internet is like all communities; it contains ethical and less ethical inhabitants.
You’re right, Benison. Most writers would never dream of using someone else’s work without crediting them, let alone slapping their name on it! But, for every 10,000 honest people, there’s always one dishonest one, I guess.
Interesting post. I think you’ve handled it pretty well.
Something similar happened to me too and I’ve always followed it up, very politely – ‘please pay or take down’, is my line. I once discovered a reproduced piece in its entirety and the website concerned agreed a credit and a fee – a nominal one, I think it was US$80 we settled on. Another similar site removed three pieces of my work when I pointed out what they’d done.
I can’t help thinking we all, as writers, have a responsibility to follow up such incidences. The public is generally ignorant about copyright, and I forgive them being so, but if we don’t point out to them the value of what they’re taking when they do this, then they’ll not learn. Further, if we don’t, then we’re not valuing our own work enough either.
Thanks, Alex. The blog in question would definitely not be in a position to pay a writer’s fee, considering its small readership. If I’d been plagiarized by a well-known blog, I might have asked for one, too! Like I said, I would follow-up on plagiarism that was brought to my attention, but I won’t bother wasting time searching for it.
I take my hat off to you for being so calm! I have a fiery sensation of injustice in my belly and it’s not even my work! I can understand why you don’t name the person. If you did then all of us would look them up so they would get a lot of hits on their blog and that would only encourage them to steal more content from other users. I don’t think my blog is theft-worthy yet, but if I found out someone was stealing it and getting more hits than me I would probably try to name and shame. If it ever happens I’ll keep your Zen response in mind!
Actually, I wasn’t so calm at first, Natalie 😉 It’s only after a day or two to think about things that I realize it’s not worth my time. I am very glad I decided to keep names and blog links under wraps, though. In some cases, calling someone’s attention to the fact that they’re caught is enough.
This is disturbing. I’ve been writing for many years and I still can’t understand what people expect to accomplish with this kind of blatant plagiarism. They certainly can’t build a career on other writers’ work because if they are found out, their career goes into the toilet.
Exactly! I think it’s laziness in a lot of cases.
The last part of this is really helpful. I was so nervous the first time I referred to another persons blog that I emailed them to make sure it was all okay. I just referenced them in ways I saw other bloggers doing it, but I would have loved to have had a little set of rules like this.
A true writer would never want to purposely plagiarize another writer.
It’s difficult to understand how you could sleep at night if you did it on purpose, yes.
Excellent article. I think I’ll paste it into my blog and slap my name on it. I’m a professor – it’s astonishing to me how difficult it can be to get this concept into my students’ heads – ANY use of another’s words or ideas without giving full credit is plagiarism. I’ve had entire articles pasted from the Internet and the student lists the source in their references. “But I cited it.”…I have found that the program TurnItIn is only about 60% effective in finding plagiarized work. I also use dogpile.com and google.com. When I just KNOW it isn’t the student’s own work, I am determined to hunt it down.What a waste of time.
I use Google Alerts to find out who’s doing what with my online published work. It’s not as fail-proof as those plagiarism checkers, but works nevertheless.
You should question your motivations for putting free stuff in the public domain in the first place.
Intelligent writers write to be paid. If they’ve been paid, and someone plagiarises the material later on, well, they’ve already got what they wanted out of it. Money. The parasites don’t matter so much.
Why chuck free material into cyberspace? Why not spend your valuable time writing material you’ll be paid for before anyone sees it, instead?
Yes, intelligent writers sometimes write to be paid, but I know a heck of a lot of intelligent writers who put stuff out on the internet and make nothing for it (or very little in the way of ad revenue). I could probably list a hundred published writers, editors, freelancers, and agents who write quality articles for their blogs. That doesn’t mean they don’t get paid for other writing they do, though.
Also, I don’t quite agree with your thought that being paid makes any difference to how you feel if someone plagiarizes you. To me, it’s just as offensive.
It’s a growing problem. Although I’m not sure it’s always intentional. Someone quotes me, then that piece gets quoted, tweeted and retweeted and nobody’s quite sure where the article originated. Sometimes bloggers are pleased when I show up and say “hey, I said that–thanks for quoting–but I need a credit.” Googling your titles as well as your own name helps keep an eye on things, but you’re right that sometimes titles get garbled.
Hey Anne,
I’m always pleased to see my work being used, even if someone says, “Hey, I found this somewhere but I can’t remember who wrote it.” I think you can often tell with it’s not intentional, or when people just don’t know any better–and I’m not too concerned about that at all. But, when you take someone else’s article, slightly change the title, then use the entire thing word for word and slap your name on it…well, that looks to me like they meant to do it! As a teacher, I can often tell when students don’t understand they’re plagiarizing, and that’s easily fixable. Thanks for stopping by!
Well, my situation is a bit different as my blogs are under Creative Commons by-sa-nc license. So one is free to use it and remix it as long as they give credit and share them under the same license. It feels natural to go that way. We all quote each other and make derivatives from each other’s work. That’s how culture develops. But if one makes money out of my words, I’d like to have my share thankyouverymuch.
I’m not obsessing with plagiarism and it’s good to see I’m not the only one. After all, one can’t steal every my idea. And I’ll always have more. After all, original artist come to the surface.