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How to deal with plagiarism

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Plagiarism is a serious problem for artists, writers, photographers, authors and a lot of other creative professionals. People get angry when someone copies their creative work and make money out of it. Fortunately, there are certain easy methods to deal with such violators.

Be aware of your content

In order to prevent plagiarism, you must be aware about where your works have been published. Your content might either be published in a single website or in several websites. In order to find the copycats easily, use the search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN etc. Type a random line from your content in the search index and analyze the results. If more than one website is found with your content, then bookmark the websites separately. Go through such websites and find whether they have used your entire article or just a paragraph or so. As search engines use word-to-word search techniques, duplicate contents or reworded contents of your creative work might not be listed there. However, you can look for duplicate works of your content through websites like Copyscape, Plagium, Dustball, etc. They might also offer professional services for a nominal fee.

Contact the copycat

When you have identified that someone has copied your articles, the next step is to contact that person and ask him/her to remove the copied contents. Most of you might think that it’s quite impossible to contact the violators. Some people may believe that even if the copycats are contacted, it will be quite useless. That’s not true. In fact, finding your copycat is quite easy, if you know how to proceed. When you are aware about the websites where your contents have been published, you could easily find the mischievous persons. Every website will be registered through their web-hoster or domain-name provider. You may use websites like Whois or Wmtips to get the contact details of that particular website’s owner. As the initial approach, send a courteous email to the owner with your problem and ask him/her to remove the copied content immediately.

Contact the web-hoster

If you don’t receive any reply within a few days from the website’s owner, and if you still find the copied content displayed in their website, the next step is to approach that website’s hosting service provider. Send an email to the web-hoster about your copied content, mentioning the details about the website hosted by them. As web-hosters are quite strict about their website’s contents, most probably your problem will be solved at this stage. However, you must provide sufficient document and proofs to show them that you are the original creator of the copied contents. Use web archives to find when and where your articles have appeared first. If you are the genuine creator, your content will appear first. Send those proofs to their hosting service provider. If they accept your proofs, they might flag the offender’s website and issue warnings as well.

Report to search engines

If you are not satisfied with the previous step, you may send a ‘Cease and Desist’ letter to the violators. If you don’t get reply from them, send the letter to their web-hosting provider. If you don’t get sufficient support from the violator’s web-hoster too, then you must approach the search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN etc., to stop displaying the infringing websites in their search indexes. However, there is a procedure certain to make this report. You must file a formal DMCA complaint with the search engines along with a copy of your proofs. If your proofs are accepted then the search engines will block the offending websites from their search lists.

Approach the advertiser

If you don’t get the required support from the search engines as well, then you might approach the offending website’s advertiser like Adsense and Bidvertiser etc. As a lot of money is involved in advertising businesses, the advertisers will definitely take serious actions against the offender; however, you must prove your case strongly. To mention, you may consider this solution as the final option. Because, the offender might have copied your content by mistake, or someone else might have done the copying work. The advertisers may ban the violator’s account permanently, which might make him/her lose his/her monthly wages. Think well before you proceed with this step as the consequences will be quite severe for the offenders. However, most of you will find your solution at the second or third step only.

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