Online Plagiarism

Online plagiarism.

I know that a majority of companies, almost daily, have had content stolen from their website(s), email templates, advertising material, etc …

Even I have been a “victim” but I must admit … it fueled my ego infinitely more than my temper.

They say imitations are the best form of flattery.

Personally … I say if they used my work as a template but at the end reads, looks, and has a different rhythm than mine … so be it. In a perfect world a reference would be nice but overall I’m glad I could help.

United States Copyright Office

Content is automatically protected under copyright laws as soon as it is "created and fixed in a tangible form".

Registration is only necessary if you choose to file a lawsuit.

They’ve stolen my content … What should I do?!?!??!?!?

I like to look at their site and gauge their level of plagiarism.

Did they even try to modify it at all or just change the name of the company and the font?

Does the website look professional or just a copy and paste job with images?

Are they out of focus and pixilated?

Do they know you personally?

Are they a client or colleague?

Is it just copied and pasted as content without an author or did they actually sign it off as their own?

There are plenty of mitigating factors.

Look at all the information you can and make an educated decision based on the malice of the act itself. Keep in mind that while plagiarism is the obvious trait of a person who lacks ethics, morality, and work ethic … it is still not a criminal act.

If they are hosting with GoDaddy then you can take the following steps;

If you want you can contact GoDaddy (or whoever is hosting the site) and explain to them the issue you can, but they will just request you to send a claim to CopyrightClaims@GoDaddy.com .

Here are the details if they are hosting with GoDaddy.

B. Copyright Claims

1. If the Complaining Party would like to submit a copyright claim for material on which you hold a bona fide copyright, Go Daddy requests that the Complaining Party substantiate such claim by providing Go Daddy with the following information via email to CopyrightClaims@godaddy.com. The words "Copyright Claim" should appear in the subject line. A copyright claim can also be submitted by mail to: Copyright Agent, Go Daddy, 14455 N. Hayden Road, Suite 219, Scottsdale, AZ 85260

To be considered effective, a notification of a claimed copyright infringement must be provided to Go Daddy and must include the following information:

1. An electronic signature of the copyright owner, or a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive copyright that has allegedly been infringed.

2. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works on that site.

3. Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit Go Daddy to locate the material.

4. Information reasonably sufficient to permit Go Daddy to contact the Complaining Party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the Complaining Party may be contacted.

5. 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.

6. A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the Complaining Party is the owner, or is authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

2. For Copyright Claims, upon receipt of appropriate notification from the Complaining Party, pursuant to Section 1 of Copyright Claims above, Go Daddy will remove or disable access to the material that is claimed to be infringing.

3. If the Complaining Party provides Go Daddy with appropriate notification, pursuant to Section 1 of Copyright Claims above, including information reasonably sufficient to permit Go Daddy to locate and remove or disable the material in question, or includes information concerning repeat infringement, then Go Daddy will forward the Complaining Party's written notification to such alleged Infringer and shall take reasonable steps promptly to notify the Infringer that it has removed or disabled access to the material.

http://www.godaddy.com/Agreements/ShowDoc.aspx?se=%2B&pageid=TRADMARK%5FCOPY

Want to complain with Google AdSense?

http://support.google.com/bin/request.py?hl=en&product=adsense&contact_type=lr_dmca

Regardless of any precaution you may take there is the high possibility that at any moment anyone can duplicate your online content and use it as their copyrighted material.

With the use of some clever thesaurus work and sentence rearrangement and they saved themselves the time it would have taken to pretend they had an original thought themselves.

In my experience, I've found that most people who are discovered to be plagiarists are not themselves the culprit. They made the mistake of hiring an outside IT team to build their website and come up with “original” content.