PT PlagiarismToday

How to Prevent, Detect and Stop Content Theft

WordCamp Dallas 2008

PT PlagiarismToday

About Me

• Webmaster, Author and Journalist

• Not a Lawyer

• Resolved 600 Cases of Plagiarism

• Founded PlagiarismToday in 2005

• Work as a Copyright Consultant

• Most Frequent RickRoll Victim 2008

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What is Content Theft

• A Misnomer

• Copyright Infringement

• Several Works

• Unattributed/Unlinked

• Anti-Creative Commons

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Why Deal With Content Theft?

• SEO Problems– Duplicate Content– Reduced Ranking

• Licensing Issues

• Unfair Competition

• Emotional Reasons– Mine! Mine! Mine!

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Who is Doing This?

• Spam Bloggers– Automated Scraping– RSS Feed– Large Spam Networks

• Human Plagiarists– Take Less Content– Have More Trust

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Primer on Copyright

• Set of Exclusive Rights– Copy– Prepare Derivative Works– Publicly Display/Perform

• Fixed to a Tangible Medium

• Life Plus Seventy Years

• Copyright Registration Optional

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Primer on Copyright

• Fair Use– Purpose of the Use– Nature of the Copyrighted Work– Amount Used– Effect on Potential Market

• A Defense, Not a Right

• No Magic Rules

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Dealing With Content Theft

• Three Pillars– Prevention– Detection– Cessation

• All Three Are Important

• No Two Strategies Are the Same

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Prevention

• Anything Done Before Content Posted– Deter & Reduce Content Theft– Not Eliminate

• Copyright Notice

• Copyright Licenses– Creative Commons– Other Licensing

• Self-Linking

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Multimedia Prevention

• Watermarking Images– Balance Visibility– Be Creative

• Image Hotlinking– Mindful of RSS Readers

• Video/Audio Not Major Concerns– Yet…

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WordPress Plugins

• Copyfeed (wordpress.org)

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WordPress Plugins

• Copyfeed (wordpress.org)

• Digital Fingerprint Plugin (maxpower.ca)

• Antileech (redalt.org)

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PT PlagiarismToday

WordPress Plugins

• Copyfeed (wordpress.org)

• Digital Fingerprint Plugin (maxpower.ca)

• Antileech (redalt.org)

• RSS Footer/RSS Entry Header

• Numly Plugin (numly.com)

• FeedBurner/FeedSmith (feedburner.com)

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Detection (Fantasy)

• Google Alerts– Static/Keystone Content

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Detection (Fantasy)

• Google Alerts– Static/Keystone Content

• Digital Fingerprints– 1mdj3j5b3rdn5n2vcu– Unique

• Copyscape/Bitscan

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Detection (Fantasy)

• Google Alerts– Static/Keystone Content

• Digital Fingerprints– 1mdj3j5b3rdn5n2vcu– Unique

• Copyscape/Bitscan

• Future Companies

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Detection (Reality)

• Idiot Spammers– Trackbacks/Pingbacks– Akismet

• Blog Searches

• The Dime Gets Dropped

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Cessation For Nice Guys

• Cease and Desist Letter– “Stop It” Letter– Stock Letters Available– Various Tones and Requests– For Humans Only

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Cessation

• DMCA Notice to Host– Digital Millennium Copyright Act– Provides Safe Harbor to Hosts– Offers an Easy Means for Content Removal– Requires a Very Specific Notice

• Other Countries– Similar Laws in EU, Australia, etc.

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Cessation Part Deux

• DMCA Notice to Search Engines– Google Has Special Requirements– Yahoo/MSN/Ask Consistent– Allow Up to Three Weeks for Removal

• Counternotices– Very, Very, Very Rare– Lawsuit is Only Response

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Things Not To Do

• Link to the Scraper– Scrapers Love Links– Almost as Much as Traffic

• Cause a Fuss– Works Inconsistently– Legal Issues

• Not Back up Threats

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Bottom Line

• Content Theft is Bad– Mmmmkay

• Does Not Take a Great Deal of Time

• Does Not Require an Attorney– Cases Involving Fair Use– Cases Considering Lawsuit

• Does Not Require Me Either

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Wrapping Up

• Brief Overview

• Find Out More– PlagiarismToday (http://plagiarismtoday.com)– Blog Herald (http://blogherald.com)– Copyright 2.0 Show (http://copyright20.com)– WordPress Podcast (http://wp-community.com)