Bouncing Back After Being Plagiarized

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The more professional exposure you have, the greater your chances will be of being plagiarized. It makes logical sense that that would be the case. However, understanding the logic doesn’t make it any less painful if it happens to you.

The ill effects of having your content stolen

There is almost nothing worse than working hard on producing great-quality content only to discover that someone else stole your content to benefit their business. It is incredibly frustrating and it feels like such a violation. What is even worse is that nowadays, the plagiarizers have absolutely no shame. Often, they don’t even bother to change any of the content. That is taking laziness to new heights! Plagiarism covers a very wide range of infractions. If the person uses your content in any way without attributing it to you, the person is plagiarizing. What is worse is that if someone steals your content, you could lose your rankings in the search engines. It is bad for you all around. So, how can you reverse the situation if it has happened to you? Before this discussion goes any further, it is important for you to realize that the solution will not be completely realized in a few minutes. It will take some time.

There are several steps that you can follow in order to correct the situation.

  • Gather the evidence: If you are convinced that you have been plagiarized (you may be able to determine this by the amount of traffic that you have visiting your website), it is a good idea to look for duplicate content (that resembles your content) online. If you are not sure how to begin searching for duplicate content, you should begin by copying a few sentences from your content and then search for identical content on the web. Make sure that you put quotation marks around the content that you are searching for. If you happen to find your content online on other people’s websites (or some other aspect of their web presence), your next step is to find out exactly how much of your content has actually been stolen.

  • Document the evidence: After you have determined that your content is indeed out there in someone else’s hands, the next thing that you will want to do is to document the information. It is an excellent idea to put all of the information into a spreadsheet. The websites that you will want to focus on the most closely are those websites on which you have found your content copied almost word for word or totally identical. You should also pay close attention, in that case, to what else you can find on those websites. It is also a really good idea to try to determine how badly the plagiarism is extended.

  • It is time to confront the offender: Once you have been able to identify your stolen content, it is time to confront the violator. In most cases, sending an Email to the offender will be enough to stop them from repeating the offense. However, it that doesn’t work, you may wish to consider sending them a strong letter through the mail or have a lawyer do it for you on your behalf.

  • What to do if the pages are not removed: If you have gone through all of the suggested steps up to this point and you are still finding that your pages are being used by other people and those people refuse to listen to reason, you are probably going to get tough! At this point, the other person is infringing on your copyright. You own that copyright. It is important that you understand that copyright infringement is a serious violation. If it is discovered, the search engines will remove the person’s content for him or her.

  • The plagiarism challenge with content syndication: If you happen to syndicate your content and you have voluntarily given another person permission to copy your content, if may be a bit more challenging. If that person has totally copied your content verbatim, your content is more vulnerable to being stolen than otherwise. Some wise advice for you on that is to syndicate very carefully and make sure that all content that you syndicate contains a good-quality backlink to your website.

  • Remember to protect your content well: It is important to keep in mind that each person is ultimately responsible for his or her own content (of course, each person owns the copyright to his or her own material). An effective way in which to do that is by clearly communicating that you own the copyright to your material. You should make sure that your content has a copyright symbol and publication year (on each of your content’s pages).

Conclusion

It is critical that you protect yourself as much as possible against plagiarism. It is important for you to understand that fixing the problem if you have been plagiarized may take you some time. It is a process just like any other process. You will need some time to devote to resolving the issues. You will need time to research whether you have been plagiarized, time to figure out your plan of action and time to eventually make the problem go away. It is important that you understand that you must be patient and devote whatever time and effort it takes to fix the problem. It will certainly be well worth it. Plagiarism is an ethical as well as a legal issue and if you are the object of such behavior, it is important to push back as effectively as possible. It is important for you to try to anticipate what the other people are doing before (or at least while) they are doing it. If you can determine how they think, you will be one step ahead of the game.

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Author

  • Carolyn Cohn

    Carolyn Cohn is the Co-Founder & Chief Creative Services of CompuKol Communications. Carolyn manages CompuKol’s creative and editorial department, which consists of writers and editors. Her weekly blogs are syndicated globally. She has decades of editorial experience in online editing, and editing books, journal articles, abstracts, and promotional and educational materials. Carolyn earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo.

13 Responses

  1. Bernard Zimmermann says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Jewish Professionals
    Discussion: How Do You Handle Plagiarism?

    Often just publicly showing you wrote it first and calling the other person a copier is good. It works for me.
    By Bernard Zimmermann

  2. Steven Hutson says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: “Write It Down”-A Website for Writers
    Discussion: How Do You Handle Plagiarism?

    I’ve had several blog posts lifted without my permission. In every case it brought me more website hits, more book sales, and tons of online followers. I couldn’t have planned it better if I tried.
    By Steven Hutson

  3. Mike Duncan says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Small Business Web
    Discussion: How Do You Handle Plagiarism?

    Nasty business Plagiarism, there will always be someone prepared to steal you good content to benefit themselves, copyrighting is your only hope of protection, works the same for any idea, invention, logos or even whole brands, they can all be plagiarised and passed off as someone else’s
    By Mike Duncan

  4. Craig Pollack says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Consulting Success
    Discussion: How Do You Handle Plagiarism?

    There is such a fine line between plagiarism, content curation, and just being inspired by somebody’s work.

    Ex. I just read a marketing sales letter where somebody challenged me to calculate the unique visitors to my website and then write down on paper my goal for next month. He challenged me to double my traffic. And, of course it is his advice and (probably) paid course or system that will be the key to accomplishing this goal.

    If I write a sales letter to my market (mortgage loan officers) and use the same concept of challenging them to write down how many real estate referral loans they funded last year and challenged them to double or triple it by this time next year, am I plagiarizing?

    How many of the other guy’s words can I use before I have crossed the line?
    By Craig Pollack

  5. Allison Maslan says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: “Write It Down”-A Website for Writers
    Discussion: How Do You Handle Plagiarism?

    Carolyn great information, plagiarism we often forget that these things can happen. Sometimes people are not so nice in the writing field. I agree with Steven that you find solutions and a way out somehow.
    By Allison Maslan

  6. John Byron says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Consulting Success
    Discussion: How Do You Handle Plagiarism?

    I recently found someone on LinkedIn that copied my resume. The person in question used all of the same verbiage replacing his employment history. I did work with this person years ago.
    By John Byron

  7. Esko Haavisto says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Consulting Success
    Discussion: How Do You Handle Plagiarism?

    Like they say here in Finland- there are passangers to all trains and then there are those who stay on the pier. These copy-cats do not have all the Indians in their canoe.
    By Esko Haavisto Market TouchFinland

  8. Esko Haavisto says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Consulting Success
    Discussion: How Do You Handle Plagiarism?

    And I do not mean inspiration, but copying an entire c.v.!!!
    By Esko Haavisto Market TouchFinland

  9. Ron Le Vine says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Small Business Web
    Discussion: How Do You Handle Plagiarism?

    Under Copyright law, anything you create is automatically copyrighted for a period. I believe that period is one year but I could be wrong on that.

    If you are posting content to your website, submit it to the Search Engines immediately so they can log it. Google, at least, will punish plagiarizers by pushing them down the Serps.
    By Ron Le Vine

  10. Dirk Dieters says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Consulting Success
    Discussion: How Do You Handle Plagiarism?

    I had a consulting firm doing hundreds of business analysis’ for small businesses using 20-50 pages of material copied directly from my book! The threat of a law suit generated a very satisfying settlement.
    By Dirk Dieters

  11. Rich Soracco says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Consulting Success
    Discussion: How Do You Handle Plagiarism?

    Our competitors copy from us all the time. They change some words; but, one can see where they got it. (e.g. we talk about an “Educational Spectrum” and they changed those words to “Informational Continuum” and do the same with the rest of our spiel.)
    So far the market has sorted them out, though. When they don’t get the results the client expects — GONE.
    By Rich Soracco

  12. Patrick Barnes says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Small Business Web
    Discussion: How Do You Handle Plagiarism?

    @Ron you are incorrect. Here’s a guide to UK law: https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law

    Use Copyscape to check your blogs and write to anyone who steals your work. I had a blog post lifted wholesale last year and sent the culprit a quick note asking for a licence fee and to take the post down. It was gone 15 minutes later.
    By Patrick Barnes

  13. Daryl Gerke says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Consulting Success
    Discussion: How Do You Handle Plagiarism?

    Once had a “wannabee” competitor copy our entire website verbatim, changing only the name/contact info. Could not believe it!

    Had our lawyer send him a letter. End of problem.
    By Daryl Gerke, PE