Plagiarism rejection for unpublished content

[SpikeWyatt]

So here's an intriguing question (for a referred CCer, not me): he just had a rejection for plagiarism, but the article in question has never been published anywhere. He bought full rights to it from someone and decided not to use it himself, so put it on CC to resell it.

I've run the content through three separate plagiarism checks and it shows NO hits anywhere. So my suspicion is that someone tried to sell it on CC, it didn't sell, then he bought it, didn't use it, submitted it here and it's shown a hit against *internal* dupe checks, not online ones.

He hasn't stolen it, it's not published, it's his content, it's not a duplicate of anything online (or even close). Internal penalisation seems a bit harsh, especially if the original author removed it, so it's sitting in the "invisible deleted content" pile.

Assuming that's the case, what can he do?

[Lysis]

This is a good question. My little internal blackhat mind thought of buying the cheap, underpriced articles on here and reselling them for higher. Glad I didn't go through with it.

"Your friend" probably should have asked before doing something like that, and even so, if you play that game you should have known that they'd probably not be OK with it. Pretty much no one lets you arbitrage.

[SpikeWyatt]

This is a good question. My little internal blackhat mind thought of buying the cheap, underpriced articles on here and reselling them for higher. Glad I didn't go through with it.

Nothing black hat or underhand at all. It's unpublished content he bought (for pretty much the same price, as it happens, thank you for your obvious unspoken accusation of surreptitious activity) and then decided not to use. He didn't buy it on CC, so it's not like he's trying to screw a CC writer - at least not as far as he was aware.

"Your friend" probably should have asked before doing something like that, and even so, if you play that game you should have known that they'd probably not be OK with it. Pretty much no one lets you arbitrage.

All questions of arbitrage aside, why is it showing as plagiarism when it isn't? The main thing isn't even acceptance: it's the accompanying email. There's a HUGE difference between "This is plagiarism and will get you thrown out" and "We've had this submitted (and deleted) before: we can't be sure who owns it, so we can't accept it". One is account-threatening, the other is a "sorry, can't do it".

And it's not my content or me who submitted it - he's my referral, he asked me, I posted the question. You really should take something for that paranoia.

[Gail Kavanagh]

Actually I have always thought that CC was paranoid, stepping back and slapping on a gas mask every time a submission smelled the slightest bit suspect. After reading this I am not surprised any more. You mean so called writers buy cheap content for full rights and try to flog it off as their own? Do they ever wonder why it was so cheap in the first place? Lysis obviously did. Basically the only people who pay you good money for manure are gardeners. In writing, you are actually expected to do that well if you want to get paid for it, and buying and selling poor content just makes you a second hand dealer. Tell your friend to take writing seriously and he might do well.

[Isabelnewth]

WAY harsh, Tai.

[SpikeWyatt]

Actually I have always thought that CC was paranoid, stepping back and slapping on a gas mask every time a submission smelled the slightest bit suspect. After reading this I am not surprised any more. You mean so called writers buy cheap content for full rights and try to flog it off as their own? Do they ever wonder why it was so cheap in the first place? Lysis obviously did. Basically the only people who pay you good money for manure are gardeners. In writing, you are actually expected to do that well if you want to get paid for it, and buying and selling poor content just makes you a second hand dealer. Tell your friend to take writing seriously and he might do well.

Thanks for taking the time to spew pointless venom. If you learned to read, you would see that this is not the case - but if you're still struggling, I can try to explain it with small words. Now run along and troll somewhere else.

[Lysis]

WAY harsh, Tai.

lol I love you so much right now.

[Lysis]

This is a good question. My little internal blackhat mind thought of buying the cheap, underpriced articles on here and reselling them for higher. Glad I didn't go through with it.

All questions of arbitrage aside, why is it showing as plagiarism when it isn't? The main thing isn't even acceptance: it's the accompanying email. There's a HUGE difference between "This is plagiarism and will get you thrown out" and "We've had this submitted (and deleted) before: we can't be sure who owns it, so we can't accept it". One is account-threatening, the other is a "sorry, can't do it".

And it's not my content or me who submitted it - he's my referral, he asked me, I posted the question. You really should take something for that paranoia.

You realize that plagiarism is more than "write content that doesn't show up in copyscape?" I've caught writers plagiarizing who told me that their article passes copyscape. Switching out words in someone's original content is still plagiarizing.

It's a bad idea to try to arbitrage here. They are very strict on plagiarism as they should be.

[Abbamay]

I'm confused about where the content originally came from. If your mate bought it from someone for full rights then ended up submitting it here, I guess it was initially posted somewhere online for him to find it and buy it. So my guess is that's why it was flagged at CC - it has already been somewhere on the Internet for buyers to look at it, so it shows up now as unoriginal. Does that make any sense?

I like the Clueless quote, Isabel - haven't seen that movie for ages!

[Isabelnewth]

I am an old Englishwoman, but Clueless is in my top five films, and I believe it has many lessons for us all.

[Abbamay]

It was based on Jane Austen's Emma, as you probably know! Very English.

[SpikeWyatt]

I'm confused about where the content originally came from. If your mate bought it from someone for full rights then ended up submitting it here, I guess it was initially posted somewhere online for him to find it and buy it. So my guess is that's why it was flagged at CC - it has already been somewhere on the Internet for buyers to look at it, so it shows up now as unoriginal. Does that make any sense?

Thanks for taking the time to actually think about this and answer. You question makes sense, yes, but your assumption is incorrect. He bought a batch of content from a writer he hired specifically for the task. He used most of the content, but not this particular article. It has never - as far as he is aware (which, of course, may be the problem) - been published. I checked it with four different plagiarism checks, one of which I coded myself, and it shows up negative.

You realize that plagiarism is more than "write content that doesn't show up in copyscape?"

Surely plagiarism is the wrongful appropriation of content, which this is not... though I can see why they would be careful about intent and all that stuff. That would explain the email, though I would be interested to see how much CC content is ghostwritten...!

I think I'll have to make that assumption, since CC will never answer.

[LauraGinn]

I bought an article from here ages ago and when I later decided that it didn't fit my needs, I submitted it for sale again with no problems. So I doubt that would be the issue. It's likely been online somewhere and is showing up in the search engines - maybe even as a cached result.

[Constant]

I'm confused about where the content originally came from. If your mate bought it from someone for full rights then ended up submitting it here, I guess it was initially posted somewhere online for him to find it and buy it. So my guess is that's why it was flagged at CC - it has already been somewhere on the Internet for buyers to look at it, so it shows up now as unoriginal. Does that make any sense?

Thanks for taking the time to actually think about this and answer. You question makes sense, yes, but your assumption is incorrect. He bought a batch of content from a writer he hired specifically for the task. He used most of the content, but not this particular article. It has never - as far as he is aware (which, of course, may be the problem) - been published. I checked it with four different plagiarism checks, one of which I coded myself, and it shows up negative.

You realize that plagiarism is more than "write content that doesn't show up in copyscape?"

Surely plagiarism is the wrongful appropriation of content, which this is not... though I can see why they would be careful about intent and all that stuff. That would explain the email, though I would be interested to see how much CC content is ghostwritten...!

I think I'll have to make that assumption, since CC will never answer.

We generally won't comment on the specifics of a plagiarism incident on the public forum in consideration of the writer's privacy, but if you want to have him contact Support we'll be happy to look into it.

[SpikeWyatt]

We generally won't comment on the specifics of a plagiarism incident on the public forum in consideration of the writer's privacy, but if you want to have him contact Support we'll be happy to look into it.

He did, as soon as he got the email. Unfortunately, support rarely responds, which is why I came here on his behalf.