Constant Content

Hello everybody, I'm new here, and this is my first post. Web Magazine may have the solution to stopping or discouraging article theft. I came across this article at a lawn mower repair shop. The magazine was dog-eared and smudged with grease, but the article title on the cover was worth getting my fingers smeared. After reading the article, my first reaction was to tear out the two pages, but the angel on my "write" shoulder quickly pointed out that what I was about to do was another form of article theft. Before I could brush him off my shoulder, he added that the article may probably be online, and it was.

I think the writer, Dennis Gaskill, may have an effective solution to article theft. Here's the link:

http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/ ... thief.aspx

[quote="abbara"]Hello everybody, I'm new here, and this is my first post. Web Magazine may have the solution to stopping or discouraging article theft. I came across this article at a lawn mower repair shop. The magazine was dog-eared and smudged with grease, but the article title on the cover was worth getting my fingers smeared. After reading the article, my first reaction was to tear out the two pages, but the angel on my "write" shoulder quickly pointed out that what I was about to do was another form of article theft. Before I could brush him off my shoulder, he added that the article may probably be online, and it was.

I think the writer, Dennis Gaskill, may have an effective solution to article theft. Here's the link:

http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/ ... thief.aspx[/quote]

That article is quite good...more people at CC.com should read it and carry out with those simple but quite effective "weapons" to detect their property, if stolen.

The workers behind the scenes at CC already use method #2. Embedded into the text of each article is the phrase This content is the property of -author name here - and is being used without permission. I paraphrased, but you get the idea. The exact phrase should be on your log in page. Just go to Google alerts, type in the phrase, and it will alert you anytime that phrase appears on the Internet. And the Google trick - method #1 - is a good one, but for people with a lot of articles here, it does become time consuming.

But don't forget that content thieves can still get around the listed methods. Just recently, someone stole a whole batch of articles by fraduently paying for them, I believe. It's good to keep an eye on your work online to make sure it isn't stolen - just remember that no method is 100% effective at deterring content thieves.

The support crew here is also very good. If you do find any articles that you believe have been stolen, used fradulently, or not used according to the condition of the licence sold (ie Usage licence sold but the customer has taken your by-line off), you should contact Support here first. Support can then undertake the negotiations with the website owners etc rather than individual authors contacting the website owners, (which is against CC policy). CC has more clout than an individual author, and I have found the crew here to be tremendously helpful on this issue.

Support also has instigated the changes such as the automatic notice inserted into every article for the google alert for authors in past months and is working closely with other people in the industry (such as AC) to prevent further instances of fraud. CC does work to protect authors from the unscupulous beings out there in the wide wilderness of the web. As Amy said, no method is 100% guaranteed but CC support does try to protect authors.

Contact Support first on any issues you do have about the use of writing submitted to CC.

Just keep in mind as you're searching for the text of your articles that when someone purchases full rights, they can do anything they want with it. The purchased pieces can be used once or twenty - it's completely up to the customer.

I occasionally search for the articles I've written. I rarely do a search for the articles which were sold for full rights, but I do have some vanity. It's nice to see your work even if your name doesn't appear on it.

Also, keep in mind that a simple title search isn't very effective half the time, unless you have a very unique one. Once of my articles, 10 Reasons to Savor Being Single," is a pretty generic title, so remember to search for the text as well. If you do come across your work being used without permission, write down the site's name, do a whois search, and send that information to support. When I found a lot of our work being used a while back, support was on it within 24 hours - contacting the site owner and the domain's hosting company. The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) is a pain most of the time, but it can also work for you.

Hi abbara,

Thanks for the heads up. That article was an interesting read. It's always great to get new ideas on how to catch content thieves. So please do contact us if you have any problems with your content being found elsewhere on the web.

As Hayley, mentioned we do use hidden text as well as making article detail pages un copy paste-able. In fact if you look at the page code on the article detail pages you'll see that the article text isn't even there. That said, we can always improve and it's great to get new ideas. Thanks for posting these ideas.
-jrichards
Support
Constant-Content