Plagiarism - Is there any way to stop it?

Could someone here please explain me that how to check that someone is stealing our original content. Is there any website or tool available. I hurts when someone copies your content without any prior notice.

-Nitin

I would suggest that you don't bother too much about others copying your content. You will see that most of the ones that copy content are feed aggregators which you cannot stop. The remaining ones - it is impossible to keep track of every website (for free) and see if they are copying your content.

If you don't mind paying for such a service, check out http://www.copyscape.com/. They monitor your site's content and mail you whenever someone copies your content but it is not free. I don't know any similar free tools.

Hi Nitin, I think Ranjith has answered you well. And always remember - Immitation is a form of flattery. 

Just to add up to the few lines Ranjith added, you can opt to select a few lines of one of your blog posts, and try searching it with google. A lot of times, Google comes up with results in case one of your posts has been plagiarized. This is one sureshot way, as, using this beyond copyscape failing, I've reported a few plagiarist Indibloggers.

Thanks Ranjith sir

Ranjith sir, bless us with some more information. Do you think rewording an article amounts to plagiarism?

sir 

According to me, in some cases, it does. In other cases, it doesn't. If we are talking about creative writing, then it is definitely plagiarism. If it is some tech guide, I doubt if it falls under plagiarism, especially if both the articles are just a sequence of steps. No matter who writes the article, the steps involved in installing, say MS Office would be the same. But if every other detail like problems that might arise during installation, troubleshooting etc are also copied, then it is plagiarism.

As another example, consider two articles which show how to divide two polynomials. I think it would be wrong to say one of them copied from the other. 

@Ranjith Sir, Anant Sir: IMHO, anything that you haven't created yourself, is plagiarism. Even if it means describing a way to installing Windows on a PC. Unless you have written the entire instructions and taken all the screenshots yourself, (in short, created the content yourself), it'll amount to plagiarism (if you've copied something without due permission), even if you're telling how to make maggi. 

* Correction: anything that you haven't created yourself (and used without the due permission of the original author), is plagiarism.

CK I myself am not too sure about this thing....

Consider another example. Suppose a movie producer has released rights of his songs to public. A types the lyrics and puts them on his blog. B also types the lyrics himself and puts them on his blog. C copy pastes from A. Did C plagiarise? Sometimes, I feel that he did. Sometimes, I feel he didn't 

Ranjith, maybe, this is where something being released in public domain comes in.

That being said, it's unethical, or better - a sin copying any work in public domain and claiming it to be yours.

In your example, both A and B wrote the lyrics on their blogs, but since the original writer/composer of the work was someone else, it'd amount to plagiarism if they claim it to be their own work, even if it were a derivative of the original work, they'd still need to acknowledge the original work!

DISCLAIMER: All the points posted here by me are purely my OPINIONS, and I, in any capacity, am not meaning or asserting that whatever I am posting is what is truth.

Well, for me, rewording a tech article does not surmount to plagiarism specially news items. If it were, then we would just have one tech news website around the entire Internet. By the way, since I post news items on my blog, I do follow a couple of websites regularly and at times have seen them simply copy paste it from their sources like PTI, Reuters or AFP though giving a credit to them. I don't know why I tend to equate copy-pasting (or typing alike) to plagiarism in whatever form it is, even if the source is cited. If it weren't for plagiarism, they could cite the weblink to these news items rather than posting the whole article and appending it with "Courtesy: XYZ" or "With inputs from: ABC". The ad money they earn for locking in a reader to their post or at least a fraction of it should actually go to PTI, Reuters, AFP or sundry.   

Anant, afterall, the news items are not created by these websites, so, they have no other option, but to copy from others who do directly get the inpuuts from brands and such. Plus, if you are doing it with permission, it shouldn't be an issue at all.

@CyberKID Though I am not sure if any individual or organization would give someone else permission to airlift their articles, be it news items, yet if it does happen so, they stand acquitted from my side. But what I really meant is that they paste many news items word-by-word rather than even rewording it. It hardly takes 10 to 15 minutes to reword a news item and more or less its a part of their daily job. Probably, it has become a part of their tradition too and no one stands questioning it so they don't pay heed.

It's however, a different story for tech bloggers engaged in blogging about new products and services, but there too, most brands, if not all, do create stuff for journos, outlining the specifics of the product or service.

Same is the case with usage of Data/Facts, most of which can't be created by individuals, and most of which is in the Public domain, so, there's no need to use that information to use in one of the articles. Even then, it's advisable to cite the original source to the data that you used, so as to enable the user/reader to be sure about the data.

I think I'm safe. Since my poetry is so bad I called them Pomes not Poetry and my writing is alsmost unreadable....

It may be that these people don't realise that blogging is a creative art. They just think "hey it's on the web. I can just put it on my blog" They don't stop to think about ownership because cut and paste is so easy. The've heard that blogging can make you money and they want in. They don't realise that to make money you actually have to put up your own ideas and comments. Actually, sorry. I take that last bit back. A lot of bloggers have blogs so full of ads and followers that I have to search for the content which is pretty bad most of the time. But hey - look they have a million followers (I have less than 200), 100,000 visitors a day (My best day was 888), they make money off the ads they host ( I make 0).

So I can take my "quality" over "quantity" approach and smirk all the way to write the next post that no one will read and marvel at the fact that my IB Status is in the low 80s (finally). Don't ask me why.

There are some tools that can prevent copying from blog page .. I saw tht on some hindi blogs and tried to get one such widget for myself .. but cudnt ..

So while surfing Indivine I came across this blog..it has a few posts on cricket, so obviously I had to read.  Now here is the nub, the posts seemed as if they were written by journalists/reporters, you know the type that you read on papers/magazines.  To quote people verbatim would mean that the blogger had been around interviewing people.  So I let Detective Google do some sleuthing for me.  One blog post was a straight lift from TOI (The Times of India) and a report from BBC Online with an occasional sprinkling of hindustani thrown in to make it look original.  The other just used a report from CNN IBN and added a sentence here and there.  These are top rated Indivine posts.  So obviously there is no check in the algorithim for plagarism when you submit a post.

So obviously there is no check in the algorithim for plagarism when you submit a post.

Nowhere it is mentioned that IB checks for plagiarism in IndiVine posts. it is not easy and costs a lot of money if IB wants to implement it. 

If you believe that the blog should be removed from IB, contact IB: Contact / IndiSupport

Thanks Ranjit, maybe I will.  I mean the article is a straight lift and really should acknowledge sources.  How does one deal with these people - shame them? Harrass them? Or take the 'what goes of my father' approach and ignore the posts.

Done.  Used the link provided by Ranjit.

check google for anti copying html codes.

i am using anti text selection, anti picture select, anti cursor positioning and no double click html code so there is no provision to select, copy or double click anywhere on my blog... people say these restrictions might affect my readers but what the heck... its my content and i have every right to protect it even if it means losing readers.

i genuine ones would understand 

Thank you.. useful info.. I was looking for this feature... 

But then, at times it becomes hard for genuine readers to use/follow your content. Given everything, you still can be copied, given that most of these "plugins" or workarounds work with the help of javascript, and once javascript is disabled, your blog has nothing sort of "protection" to save for anything you pointed out.

Good response from Indiblogger "We have deactivated this blog pending an investigation."

Yeah, they do respond pretty fast in these casea. Good work Subroto, IB Admins, BTW.

Plagiarizm is an incurable disease Saru. Long back, I had written a blog about it. I will share it with indibloggers soon. I don't think, there's any permanent and potent remedy for this vice which has spread like an epidemic in the field of writing and blogging.

I guess you just missed the date of the last post in this thread, and the date of the creation of this thread.