If there’s one thing writers worry about, it’s that their work will be copied and republished without their permission. Even when their work is original and unique, there’s still the fear of being copied, particularly if it’s a bestseller. While it’s great to know that your work will be cherished and appreciated, it’s an entirely different matter when your work is stolen and published without your consent.
The Importance of Attribution
When you see content being republished online, the first thing you should do is check the source because the chances are, it was stolen. Before you start worrying about the ethics of the matter, consider that Google Search engine optimisation (SEO) has turned into a way of life for many businesses, and without a doubt, it’s a lucrative one. When it comes to SEO, whoever publishes the most content online (generally speaking, blogging) usually wins the Search engine rankings with a bang.
With that in mind, it’s easy to see why content is being stolen; someone either wants to make money off your work or they want to usurp your positions in the search rankings. Either way, they’re going to go all in to secure the most up-to-date and comprehensive versions of your content. This inevitably means all your previous work is going to be dug up and republished online – often with no credit given to the original author.
In a nutshell, the importance of credit when it comes to digital content cannot be understated because it establishes the originality and credibility of the content. Without crediting the author, you’re essentially doing work that is of no value to prospective customers.
How to Find Out If Your Work Has Been Stolen
When you discover your work has been stolen, the first thing you should do is contact the website or blog owner and demand that they take down the copied material. Once they’ve removed the content, you can assess how serious an offence this is and determine how you want to proceed. Believe it or not, not every case of work being stolen will result in you getting your content reinstated. Some website or blog owners are just that little bit too eager to show off their content or are so disorganised that they’ve lost all control over their sites. In those cases, you might have to be the one to put the boot in and show them who’s boss.
The Reasons Why Your Work Is Being Stolen
There are many reasons why your work could be stolen online, and it’s important to know what these are before you start worrying about the ethics of the situation. Let’s take a look.
SEO Opportunities
If your work is being stolen online, it probably means the content was initially published somewhere obscure that no one has ever heard of. In which case, the person either wants to make money from your work or they want to become famous by linking to your content organically (that is, without doing any paid SEO themselves).
In the first scenario, they’d need to out-SEO you to secure top spot on the search engine results page (SERP). In the second scenario, they can just get lucky and hit upon the information marketer’s clichéd “Jack of all trades, master of none” scenario.
Content Farms And Copyscape
If you’ve ever seen something similar to Buzzfeed or Upworthy and thought “that’s really boring, I’m going to write something that’s more entertaining”, you’re already familiar with the content farms that exist solely to get web traffic and social media engagement by throwing together random, often controversial snippets of content designed to grab your attention. These are the kind of places that will try and cash in on your success whether you give them permission to or not.
If you’re writing for the purpose of being published, you’ll no doubt have heard of the menace that is Copyscape. Forbes has estimated that around 75% of all content published online is lifted almost verbatim from other sources without proper attribution. In other words, it’s probably safe to say you’ve experienced plagiarism in one form or another.
Link Buzz And Social Media Fuego
If social media is what you use to access the internet, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about when I say link buzz is a big problem. It’s estimated that around a third of all content generated through social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook is now fed through to news websites and magazine articles. As a result, link buzz has turned into a race to the bottom where everyone tries to outdo each other by creating the most eye-catching content to attract the most links.
This content is then used to secure higher positions in the search engine rankings, resulting in even more content being published online without proper attribution. It’s a vicious circle that’s turned into an epidemic.
If you think these kinds of things only happen to bestselling authors and movie stars, you’d be amazed what can happen to average Joes and Janes who happen to be in the right place at the right time with the right content. The key to avoiding this issue is by taking the time to build your own digital footprint and securing top spot on the SERP’s for your chosen keywords. In other words, creating original content that people are willing to share and link to.
As much as we’d like to believe otherwise, there’s no way of knowing for sure if your work is being stolen online until you make the effort to find out. The only way to find out if your content has been copied is to do a little research into where it came from and who’s been interacting with it. Armed with this information, you’ll have a much better chance of knowing whether or not you should be worried about the ethics of the situation.