Answer: They all provide feeds to distribute content they do not own.

While this has gone to great lengths to improve usability of these sites and has helped simplify thousands of people’s lives, it’s also created a headache for many content creators.

Because, since these forms of distribution are outside the control of the content creator, they have become popular targets of scrapers and spammers that love the keyword rich content these APIs and feeds provide.

Powerless to stop them, bloggers and Webmasters can only sit and watch as their words are plagiarized, used to peddle junk or generate artificial search engine credibility.

The Problem

If you run your own Web server or use a paid host, you have a great deal of control with your site. If you find that someone is scraping your feed, you can take steps to stop them.

However, once that content leaves your site, it is completely out of your control. If a search engine decides to offer an RSS feed or a third party site offers an API, those who want to steal your content rather than read or use it are free to do so with relative immunity.

Google, Technorati and Icerocket have all shown relatively little interest in putting a stop to this kind of scraping. Though they do a decent job keeping the results out of their own search engines, they seem to be fairly happy providing a stead stream of keyword-rich content to the spammers to anyone else that might pick it up.

This, in turn, has put copyright holders in a strange bind, forced to make a decision between protecting their work and the services they depend on to get their work out there.

An Easy Choice

Consider the choice most Webmasters face. They must either:

1. Prevent all search engines, especially blog search engines, from accessing your feed and submitting it to their APIs or
2. Deal with some amount of summary copyright infringement

The choice is painfully simple. Outside of the most die hard copyright extremists, who generally dislike search engines in the first place, most will choose to deal with any infringement that may come up, handling cases as needed down the road.

Still, there has to be an easier way. Outside of copyright and plagiarism issues these sites create, they also generate large amounts of spam, hurt legitimate users of services such as Blogger and generally pollute the Web.

These sites are using our content and distributing it to others in an easy to scrape. They have a responsibility to at least try and prevent the bad guys from taking advantage of it, even if they don’t seem to think so.

(Somewhat) Ideal Solutions

Generally speaking, everyone loves these APIs. I use several Technorati feeds to help me keep track of copyright news in the blogging world and would certainly be hard pressed without them. Those feeds have also helped me discover new blogs, many of which I subscribe to now, and I know of at least a few that have found this site through the same means.

The challenge becomes finding a way to protect these feeds from abuse without affecting their functionality. It sounds like a difficult challenge, but it isn’t impossible.

Here are some possible solutions that at least some of these sites could use:

1. Easter Eggs – As discussed earlier, copyright Easter eggs can be a great way to prove ownership of a work when many similar ones might exist. However, in this case, it can be useful to prove scraping. All one has to do is insert random feed entries that are fakes into their topic feeds. The post URL will lead to 404 pages and the original entries never existed (404 errors are surprisingly common in these feeds, few real users would even notice). Any site that shows up with those Easter eggs is a scrape and, once the ping for the bogus entry is received, the search engine can block the site from accessing its feeds again.
2. Identifying Yourself – If you see a site that is clearly scraping from a search engine or another third-party API, it can be tricky to tell which one. Is that a Technorati feed or an Icerocket one? There’s no easy answer. These feeds needs to identify themselves and let the public know where it is from. That way, abuse can be reported to the appropriate site.
3. Headline Only – The small snippets used by most search engine feeds is completely useless to the average reader. Out of fear of violating copyright, they often use only a few dozen words of the post and it’s a random part of the post surrounding the keyword in question. Either making the feed headline only or using the actual summary of the post, which might not contain the keyword at all but gives a better idea of the article’s topic, would thwart scrapers entirely while still making the feed useful for the rest of us.
4. Unique Feed – Finally, rather than having every user use the same feed, have every user create their own. The feeds would be identical but could be earmarked by Easter eggs or some other tag. This would make it easy both to report the misuse and shut it down.

Even though all of these steps are fairly simple that could easily implemented without much cost or time, they likely won’t. These search engines and services have shown a general disinterest in protecting the content they have been entrusted with.

This, in turn, has left bloggers and Webmasters to fend for themselves.

Practical Solutions

The problem of third-party scraping isn’t as major to most bloggers as traditional scraping due to the limited amount of content stolen. However, it doesn’t mean that bloggers can’t or shouldn’t take steps to reduce this kind of content theft. If nothing else, helping to stop search engine spam will make the Internet a better place.

Besides, in some cases these third-party feeds can cause a great deal of problems for copyright holders, especially when visual works are involved.

So, until such a time when search engines patrol their own services, here are some tips to reduce content theft via third party feeds.

1. Watermark All Images – It’s pretty simple. Place a watermark on all images you submit to Flickr and add some a credit slide to all videos you place on Youtube or Google Video. That way, even if they are scraped via a feed, any viewer can easily locate the original source.
2. Digital Fingerprint Plugin - The Maxpower Digital Fingerprint Plugin, which has become a rapid favorite of mine, may not be entirely useful here since the fingerprint would have to be close to the keyword. However, it can work will help more than FeedBurner can with this type of scraping. Sadly, this is just out of FeedBurner’s control though some of their Feed Flare extensions might also be able to help.
3. Give Yourself a Byline – Though these feeds usually present the portion around the desired keyword, it still favors the first paragraph of the article, especially on shorter works. It might be worth your time to give yourself a quick byline at the top, so at least some of the scraped sites will present attribution.
4. Report Scrapers – As I talked about in my previous article, reporting spam sites to their advertisers and their hosts is probably the best way to handle such matters. You can also report the site to the originator of the feed if it can be discovered, they might take an interest in it when directly confronted, but hitting scrapers in the wallet still hurts the most.
5. Choose Services Carefully – Some search engines are better about this than others. Though most of the big names are a worthwhile trade, others seem only to serve the spammers. Use cloaking and robots.txt to prevent unwanted sites from using your content. If they are generating APIs with your content and are being scraped without offering anything in return, it might be time to opt out.

These aren’t satisfying steps but they are the best ones that Webmasters can reasonably take. No reasonable person is going to advocate shooting yourself in the foot over relatively minor instances of content theft, but it still may be worth taking some extra precautions, especially if you frequently write about topics that are considered spam-friendly (mortgages, financial information, prescription drugs, etc.).

Conclusions

For most bloggers, this will be a rare and relatively minor problem. The keywords most spammers target are pretty narrow in scope. However, bloggers that fall into those fields regularly probably have reason to worry.

Also, photo bloggers, especially those that use Flickr, and video bloggers, especially those on sites like Youtube, have reasons to worry as well. Though the search engine benefit of such content is slight, save perhaps on Google Image Search, the risk of content being separated from attribution is much higher.

None of this is worth obsessing over, but it is worth thinking about and guarding against. If simple steps can protect content without impacting usability, there is no harm in doing so.

It’s just a matter of knowing when to draw the line.

Tags: Attribution, Content Theft, Copyright, Copyright Infringement, Copyright Law, Photography, RSS, Spam, Splogging, Splogs, Technorati, Icerocket, Google

However, there are times in which ezboard itself will be required to step in and help with content theft issues. Boards get abandoned and forgotten by their operators, even as posts continue to flow in, other boards contain old infringements only recently detected by search engines, sometimes forum administrators may be uncooperative, and finally, as in my case, the operator him or herself might also be the plagiarist.

That makes it good to note that ezboard, despite a rough customer service reputation in other areas, seems to be about spot on when it comes to matters of copyright infringement.

Filing a Complaint

Filing a copyright infringement complaint with ezboard, compared to other providers, is relatively easy. All you have to do is locate their “Legal Issue Request Form“, fill out the pertinent information and then paste in your full DMCA notice and submit it.

For me, resolution came within about seven hours. Once the work was removed and I received confirmation of that, I tried to close out the ticket that is automatically created by submitting a legal complaint. However, the system would not let me for some reason.

While the process of filing a complaint is not as easy as LiveJournal or other services that help with the writing of the DMCA notice, it is still vastly easier, more efficient and friendlier than the bulk of Web hosts.

One Minor Problem

With all of that being said, there is one minor hangup that I have about ezboard. However, it is a simple thing to fix.

To make a long story short, their information on file (PDF) with the U.S. Copyright Office appears to be out of date, turning four years old yesterday, and no longer produces a response.

Thought heir Legal Issue Request Form is easy to locate from their home page, many still rely on the USCO’s database to guide them. It would seem prudent for ezboard to update their DMCA information as soon as possible, if for no other reason than to ensure safe harbor status.

Conclusions

All in all, I consider ezboard to be a borderline hero. There are a few things it could do better, but it is far beyond most Web hosts in this matter.

Though ezboard has taken a great deal of flak for recent problems, including a hack on its servers last year that resulted in a significant amount of data loss, this seems to be an area it excels in.

My only hope is that it is able to keep up this level of support as it transitions its services into Yuku and adds more social networking features. It’s likely that its role will become much more important after those changes are completed and administrators no longer control the vast majority of content posted.

Tags: Content Theft, Copyright, Copyright Infringement, Copyright Law, DMCA, ezboard, livejournal, Plagiarism

Why Myspace if Vulnerable

First off, in fairness to Myspace, they do comply fully with the DMCA and they are not the only such site out there. I plan on doing a host report on Myspace and several other such sites soon and, from what I’ve seen, Myspace is actually very cooperative. The only reason that I am mentioning them by name is because they are by far the most popular.

On that note though, the nature of these sites can make them very difficult for copyright holders to work with. First, the sheer number of ways one can publish content produces a challenge in and of itself. One can post a blog, publish info in a profile, put up picture, embed audio/video, use custom HTML or post comments on other people’s profiles.

Second, one’s ability to contact the plagiarist varies wildly depending on the site and the person involved. Some members post all of their contact information, including IM names and Email addresses, while others post nothing but vague personal information. Though most social networking sites offer some kind of personal messaging system, one usually has to be a member to access it and the reliability of such a system for handling communication as important as a cease and desist is suspect and, since no paper trail is produced, 

Finally, content spreads like wildfire through these sites and confusion often arises as to who the original author is. Sometimes people get the wrong idea about what they can and can not do with a work. Worse still, any conflict that gets started on such sites can spread rapidly as well, making one’s life very difficult.

These variables make handling plagiarism cases on social networking sites both unpredictable and difficult. Where once, a cookie cutter approach worked 95% of the time, now each case has to be treated as a unique beast. What works in case A can bring a disaster about in case B.

What to Do?

If you find yourself dealing with a plagiarist at a social networking site, you need to first seriously consider getting an account at the site. Even if you don’t use the account or the site ever again, seeing areas that are hidden to the general public could be a great asset, either exposing more plagiarism or offering new avenues of contact. Besides, when dealing with these cases it’s usually important to have all of the information you can.

From there, you have to make a tough decision. Notifying the admins, either through an abuse complaint or a DMCA notice, will generally get results but several hosts have proved very uncooperative and, in other cases, such a method fails to address the root of the problem.

On the other hand, sometimes contacting the person directly is easy and effective. However, contact information the person might not be available and, even if it is, making such a post puts you at risk of an unneeded backlash or attack. While fear of a backlash should never prevent someone from effectively protecting their work, one certainly shouldn’t introduce unneeded drama into their lives.

Personally, whenever I approach one of these sites, I follow the following series of steps to determine how to handle it.

1. Examine the situation -  Take a look at how the work is being used, where it is being used and in what context. This is especially valuable if you allow some reuse of your work.
2. Learn About the Plagiarist – Social networking sites make it easy to learn about the people who own the site. Learn how old they are, where they are located in the world and how they prefer to be contacted. All of this information can be especially useful if you’re going to write them.
3. Study the Site – Read a little bit about the site itself, its terms of service and how it handles copyright infringement claims. Not only will this help you make a decision about how to proceed, but can offer you a direction if you do decide to contact the host.

From there, you can make one of the following decisions:

1. Contact the Host – If the plagiarism is severe enough (the volume of work taken is very great), and the host is cooperative, then contacting the host might be the best solution. This is also the way to go if a cease and desist letter didn’t work, there is no contact information available for the plagiarist or if the plagiarist has not been active on the site in some time. Also, consider this method if the plagiarist is from a nation with loose or unenforced copyright laws as the host will likely be on more familiar soil.
2. Contact the Plagiarist – If the infringement is relatively minor or could be a mistake, it’s probably best to contact the plagiarist first. The tone of the letter will depend on the situation itself, though most cases will still call for a full cease and desist letter. Regardless of the tone though, one should use caution when sending notices through on-site messenger services. Always request a copy of the letter for your own records and, if one isn’t available, make a backup yourself.
3. Post a Comment – One of the more interesting options is the ability to post a comment. This can be an effective but gentle way of handling cases where the person posting the work is more likely confused than malicious. This can breed cooperation and help promote your own site some. Also, many times the person who posted the works will inform you of another site, often times a malicious one, that is posting your work and muddling the issue.
4. Do Nothing – Sometimes, the best thing you can do is nothing at all. If the plagiarism is likely to cycle off after a few days and be very difficult to handle, it might be wise to walk away. An example of this would be a minor infringement in a comment on another person’s profile. In those situations, you would have to hassle an innocent bystander to get the works removed and contacting the admins would be an unneeded burden as the comment will likely cycle off in a few days. Walking away can be painful, but if you’re dealing with many instances of plagiarism, it frees you up to handle other cases.

Of course, even with these loose guidelines, there are always exceptions. With social networking sites, more than ever, it’s important to be flexible and look for inventive ways to solve problems. I resolved one stubborn case by notifying the heads of an online group he was a member of and another by informing admins of a variety of other rules the person was breaking.

By keeping your eyes open, looking for alternative solutions and working with both admins and other members, you can resolve cases on social networking sites with minimal time or drama. Still, though there’s never been a set way to handle plagiarism online, now there’s even more possibilities to consider.

Conclusions

In the end, though the shift to social networking sites changes the game, as any such shift does, it’s still very possible to get plagiarism issues resolved.

For the new tools that help both legitimate users and plagiarists alike can work both ways and help you track down/stop plagiarism. All that’s required is a little bit more flexibility and, sometimes, a bit of creativity.

Neither of which seem to be in short supply on the Web. 

[tags]Plagiarism, Copyright Infringement, Content Theft, Copyright, Myspace, Xanga[/tags]

However, during all of this, I began to notice a new trend in online plagiarism, It seems that the preferred avenue for plagiarists is shifting once again. Instead of blogs or personal home pages, plagiarists are following the rest of the Web and moving more into social networking sites, the king of which is Myspace.

This presents new challenges for plagiarism fighters and opens up both new possibilities to plagiarize and new possibilities to fight back.

A Brief History

Though plagiarism online is probably as old as the Internet, it hasn’t always been such a nightmare for content creators. At first, Web sites were difficult to create and only the most knowledgeable and best-positioned could create one and doing so took a great deal of work. The early sites were plain, tedious and usually only consisted of content deemed "worthy". Few, if any, would waste such effor to plagiarize others.

As the Web evolved, personal home pages became a reality. Anyone with a Tripod or Geocities account could set up a site and showcase it to the world. While this brought some plagiarism with it, the search engines were much simpler (thus eliminating the need to have lots of content) and the effort required was still fairly high. Though anyone could create a site, it was a time-consuming task only attempted by the more technically adept. So, though the Web was exploding, plagiarism wasn’t a major deal, save for artists that produced Web-page friendly graphics, which were often stolen for use these new Webmasters.

However, the rise of message boards and forums changed the game. Now anyone, with the click of a mouse, could publish content to the Web and have a built-in audience. This extension of the classic newsgroups brought on a wave of plagiarism felt strongly by poets and other short-piece writers.

This translated, somewhat slowly, into the idea of blogging. Blogging provided the same point-and-click functionality of forums but with the benefits of having your own site. Where forums were usually moderated, sometimes very strictly, blogging provided a kind of independence that that helped bring on a new wave of citizen journalists and, sadly, the scourge of splogging or spam blogging. Plagiarism, both written and visual, began to take off. Search engines compounded the problem by making content even more valuable and pushing the plagiarism problem to writers of longer works including articles and even lengthier stories.

Now, with social networking sites, the problem has reached a new level. These sites have blogs built into them, but also offer a chance to post photographs, audio clips and videos in the page itself. These sites, like blogs, are largely unmonitored and operate, in many regards, like traditional personal home pages in terms of enforcement.

Basically, that means if a problem isn’t reported, there’s no hope of it being stopped.

While this brings about a new age of personal expression, it brings with it headaches for authors and other content creators, even those that allow reuse of their work. Enforcing copyright and preventing plagiarism in the Myspace age is a very different proposal than even the blogging one.

The Shift

When I first started tracking plagiarists of my work, which is mostly poetry and short literature, about three years ago. Most incidents, around 75%, were on personal home pages and the rest were on message boards with a few full domain sites thrown into the mix.

Then, cease and desist letters worked very well. Most personal sites included contact information, including email addresses, and those cases that could not be resolved that way were handled by contacting abuse teams or notifying message board admins.

As of a few months ago, that same majority, once again about 75%, were owned by blogs and diary sites. Personal home pages, social networking sites and forums shared the rest with the usual sprinkling of domain sites on paid hosting. 

This changed the tactics considerably as many blog sites don’t publish contact information or even offer their users the chance to do so. Where once well over half of all cases were resolved with cease and desist letters, contacting admins, either via abuse reports or DMCA notices, became the most effective method.

However, within these past few days of searching, the percentage has shifted again. Now, approximately 40% of all plagiarism incidents I’ve noticed are on social networking sites, another 40% on blogs and the rest is occupied by a mix of personal Web sites, forums and domains.

This has caused my tactics to shift once again. Since social network sites offer more avenues of contact, cease and desist letters are becoming more common again. However, more than ever, each host and each case has to be taken on its own account No longer is there one dominant method of handling plagiarism, but a strange mixture of several methods ranging from filing a DMCA notice to simply posting a comment.

Because, if this latest evolution of the Web means anything to content creators, it’s going to mean that we have to be more flexible and more adaptable than ever. There is no longer a single solution that fits all cases.

This concludes part one of this series. The second part will be posted tomorrow.

[tags]Plagiarism, Copyright Infringement, Content Theft, Copyright, Myspace, Xanga, Social Networking, Web 2.0[/tags]

I was informed about someone plagiarizing one of my poems on the site. I investigated and, sure enough, someone was using my poem “97 Percent” as their own. The funny part, if there is one, is that the person entered it into a contest and won, taking home the gold trophy and 300 points.

Flattering, to be certain, but still grating.

I informed the admins there, as I always do, and got a response within fifteen minutes, even at the early morning hour I submitted the complaint. The matter was handled swiftly and, within about 20 minutes of the initial complaint, the infringing work was down and the matter was, in my opinion, closed.

Personally, I never expected the moderators to do much more. Even though I did a thorough search, I couldn’t find any other works of mine stolen and it seemed to be an isolated incident. However, the moderators went ahead and voided the contest she won, reopening it for those who’d already entered it, and took down the other works in the account.

In the end, they did more than what was fair for myself and they did a great job looking out for the others who entered the contest. They are truly an example for other sites to follow…

I clicked the link to see which ticket was still generating interest to find that it wasn’t even my ticket causing the ruckus.

Apparently, what had happened was that one of the users I had filed a complaint against had his journal temporarily suspended and, when he was allowed to start using the site again, returned to his old ways. GJ.com, not waiting for a complaint, made the suspension permanent.

Too many times hosts take short cuts when dealing with copyright issues. They remove the work in question, scold the plagiarist with a form letter and move on to more important things, never checking back or involving themselves in the process. They only want to do what they are absolutely legally required to do and not an inch more. That’s what makes DMCA letters such a necessary evil.

It’s nice to see a large site not only take a real interest in plagiarism but to use their time, energy and resources to engage in a follow up not required by any law and then acting without a complaint when further infringement was discovered. GreatestJournal.com, much like LiveJournal.com and DeadJournal.com, has a very effective way or reporting copyright issues and seems to deal with it appropriately.

In an Internet full of cop-out admins and form letters, it’s nice to see some personal attention given to a serious problem. I hope they keep it up.