Copyright | Plagiarism & Content Theft

Copyright is one of the hottest topics on the internet from defending your rights fighting against plagiarism and content theft.

Every day new articles debate discuss and defend the rights and wrongs of copyright. There are some web sites talking about nothing but copyright... Plagiarism Today - A Site About Plagiarism Content Theft and Copyright Issues Online. Got to love the disclaimer... I am not a lawyer nor anything close. I am just a legally-minded Webmaster/Writer frustrated with the plague of plagiarism online and doing something about it.

No-one likes it when they find someone else has stolen their hardwork regardless of whether its writing pictures or design. On one hand its a compliment but in reality it is theft plagiarism and content abuse.

Three Sides of Copyright and Plagiarism

1. How to Stop Plagiarism
You can't! You can remain vigilant in searching the internet for your content but the mere fact that your content appears on a web page it can be copied (plagiarised) and reproduced elsewhere.

2. How to find if your content has been plagiarised
There are a number of methods that can be used to search for reproduced content. Copyscape [free and paid version] and Similar Page Checker - webconfs.com [free] enable content searching of the web although Google is just as good.

Copy [Ctrl + C] a line of unqiue content from one of your pages. Paste [Ctrl + P] the line into Google search box and enclose the line with quotation marks [""].

Example: "Here is a line of my unique text enclosed in quotation marks"
The Google results will exactly match what is between the quotation marks.

3. What to do if you find your content has been plagiarised
The first step is to contact the owner of the web site [email notice] and request the content be removed. The first place to look for contact information of a web site is the contact page or run a WHOIS [com.au] report for the domain name which will include owner and hosting information.

In most cases the content will be removed without further contact but if it is not then the next step is to contact the host of the web site alerting them to the theft. Almost always content theft will be breaking the terms and conditions of hosting and the hosting company will force the content to be removed or the web site shut down.

If this does not work then you have a fight on your hands. We see elsewhere that Written Notice is a good step. If by this stage the content has not been removed we cannot see how a letter in writing is going to have much affect but maybe it is worth a try.

Search Engine Contact - Since content is often stolen to boost search rankings getting the thief de-indexed will remove a major motivation for his leaving the content in place. See link below to Digital Millennium Copyright Act [google].

Unfortunately the remaining step is to legally claim infringement and sue for damages and profits.

What is Copyright �

Fundamentally copyright is a law that gives you ownership over the things you create. Be it a painting a photograph a poem or a novel if you created it you own it and it's the copyright law itself that assures that ownership. The ownership that copyright law grants comes with several rights that you as the owner have exclusively. Those rights include:

:: The right to reproduce the work
:: to prepare derivative works
:: to distribute copies
:: to perform the work
:: and to display the work publicly

Plagiarised source: Plagiarism Today

Plagiarism - the news get worse!

Few people realise if Google or Yahoo discover an identical page of content then it will almost certainly ban one of those pages often banning the original or authors page not the copycat!

Copyright � Plagiarism | Content Theft

Copyscape: Not Ready for Prime Time
As much as I love seeing people take a stand against Internet plagiarism and work on new ways to use technology to fight the fight Copyscape isn't the 'invaluable tool' it's testimonials claim. Rather it's just another pay product that can't outstrip what clever Webmasters can already do for free.

False Copyright Claims
Copyfraud is everywhere. False copyright notices appear on modern reprints of Shakespeare's plays Beethoven's piano scores greeting card versions of Monet's Water Lilies and even the US Constitution. Archives claim blanket copyright in everything in their collections. Vendors of microfilmed versions of historical newspapers assert copyright ownership. These false copyright claims which are often accompanied by threatened litigation for reproducing a work without the owner's permission result in users seeking licenses and paying fees to reproduce works that are free for everyone to use...

10 Big Myths about copyright explained

An attempt to answer common myths about copyright seen on the net and cover issues related to copyright and USENET/Internet publication.

copyleft - Wikipedia:Copyrights

The license Wikipedia uses grants free access to our content in the same sense as free software is licensed freely. This principle is known as copyleft.

Copyright Infringement Notification

If you find information on this web site that you believe infringes on your copyright you can file a copyright infringement notification by sending a written communication (button below) which:

i. Identifies the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed and also identifies the material claimed to be the infringing material.

ii. Identifies you the complaining party by way of a postal address telephone number and an e-mail address.

iii. Includes a statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner its agent or the law.

We request you to not make any claim which you know is not accurate or correct.

We may on receipt of the notice send the same to the person who provided the allegedly infringing content.

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