That being said, I would love for you to reach out to me and get me to review your site, service or product. I’d be more than happy to do so. I actively encourage you to write me and let me know what you’re doing because, especially if you’re working as a stealth or semi-stealth startup, I likely have no idea about you and could use the information.

However, of all the companies that write me very few actually get a mention on this site. While some companies, like PlagScan, actually run the gamut and get both a mention and a screencast, most don’t even make it to a blog post.

So, if you’re thinking about contacting me to seek a review of on this site, I want to tell you what to expect and how to increase your chances of getting a writeup on PT.

Step 1: Making Contact

Making contact with me is very easy. Simply visit the Contact page on this site, and drop me an email either via the contact form or via my email address.

Bear in mind though, I usually like to only talk about products and services that others can use, meaning that they are at least in the beta stage of development. If you want my feedback on a project that is in an earlier stage, you may want to check out my consulting services for developers as that may be a better fit.

Basically, any review I do on PT, ideally, will be a chance for the site’s readers to use your offering, not a sneak peek at what it will be.

Step 2: The Grilling

Once you reach out to me, I will be in touch with you soon, usually in about 2 business days and I’m going to come armed with questions. The first round, usually, isn’t that difficult as I’m just asking about the basics of the service and anything I’m unclear about.

The second round, however, is usually much more difficult as I ask pointed questions about the service, who it’s for, its costs, it’s competitors, etc. I’m not out to get inside information, but I’m seeking response on potential issues that I see when I do a review.

The best advise I can give to survive this admitted assault is to know the limitations of your product, know who your competitions is, how you stack up against them, and be able to easily explain what makes your offering better.

Step 3: The Trial

At this point, I then try to give your product a trial run. My goal is to create as close to a real world test as I can. This test will be designed not just to give users an idea of how it works, but also to find any potential flaws in it. In short, it’s usually not a completely fair test and isn’t meant to be.

If your product is relatively inexpensive, I’ll usually ask to pay my own way, but if it’s more costly, I’ll likely need some kind of test access to it for the review, which will be disclosed in the write up.

Often times, after the trial, I’ll have more questions to ask at the end of the test, usually related to the product itself. However,I generally try to keep my actual results under wraps until I write the review.

The reasons is to simply make the review as honest as possible, though if there is anything too extremely bad, such as the product simply not working, I will give you a chance to respond and rectify if appropriate.

Step 4: The Writeup

Finally, after all that admitted headache, I do the write up. Sometimes the test is done the same day as the write up though often times it’s done weeks before. I work off of an editorial calendar that plans posts out two weeks in advance or more. So, it might be that long before it appears.

All in all, the time between first contact and the final article is often three weeks to a month, largely because I try to be extremely thorough about my analysis and make sure that the company gets a chance to respond to any issues I find.

Bottom Line

Is this process long, drawn out and a major headache? Yes. The reason is that I only want to recommend/feature products and services that are both legitimate and useful, at least to a certain group.

However, I’d like to see more products and services featured on this site and that means more companies making it all the way through this, admitted, unfair and difficult process.

So, if you have a product or service that I haven’t featured on PT before and would like me to do so, head over to the contact page and drop me a line. I’d love to hear about it and I’d even be glad to feature it here, just bear in mind what you’re getting into.

I know I can be difficult to work with, but I think it’s for a good cause and that, in the long run, it produces much better-quality reviews.

It is the time of year when term papers are coming due and students are worrying more than ever about being accused of plagiarism. It’s the busy season for plagiarism detection services both for teachers and for students and, as is typical, I get asked my opinions on them.

One email recently asked me my thoughts on the Viper Anti-Plagiarism Scanner, a free application and service provided by Scan My Essay. I’ve been familiar with the service for a while but never bothered to test it. However, since it was requested I decided to put the application through a few of my paces.

Unfortunately, the results were less than spectacular and, truth be told the application fell almost completely flat. The only question is whether the problems were glitches caused by a temporary problems or something more chronic with the program.

How it Works

The idea behind VIper is that you download the small application, less than 1MB, and register for an account with the service. Once you’ve done that, you simply select the file or files you want to check for plagiarism and send Viper on its way. Viper, after some processing, will come back with the results.

Though the process is simple, and familiar to anyone who has used a plagiarism checker in the past, it does have a few interesting features. One of the biggest being its ability to match against a local database, the Web or both. This means that, if you have a pool of content you want to test against, you can do that with or without also checking the broader Web.

Also, the results page also uses a very effective layout, showing the uploaded work side-by-side to the suspected matches. This is very convenient for analyzing the match and makes developing an opinion about whether an element is plagiarized or not very simple.

Beyond those two features, both of which can actually be found in other applications or services, the rest of the application is fairly straightforward. While that is not a bad thing in and of itself, the problem is that it doesn’t seem to do the job it set out to.

My Tests

Setting up the application proved difficult. It took several tries to get the application to install correctly and almost 15 minutes to figure out how to create an account (Hint: You have to click the link in the program itself.). Though it took a while, about 40 minutes, I was eventually able to get the application up and start testing.

As with any test of a plagiarism checker, I start out by having it search for a work where there is a known amount of plagiarism. In this case, I started with an article that I had submitted to Who Is Hosting This? but still had the old RTF for. The work has not have been widely plagiarized, but does appear on the site so Viper should have registered the RTF as a 100% plagiarism.

Unfortunately, after letting Viper chew on the file for some time, it came up with nothing but a few short quotes, each a few words long, that were coincidence or properly cited. Though the work is a perfect “plagiarism”, Viper found only minor and incidental matching, all if it less than a few percent.

I decided to wait a few days before trying again and did so this morning, starting with an article I had written for the European Journalism Centre. This article, much like the previous one, only exists on the one site. However, it should still come back as 100% plagiarized.

Unfortunately, I never got results from this article. After uploading it and letting it spin for over ten minutes, nothing happened. The analysis of the article simply froze.

I tried it again repeatedly with the same article but received the same result.

For my last test, I tried an old poem of mine that I knew was widely copied, both with and without permission. I uploaded this one to the service but the first time it completed it found nothing. I tried again and the process froze up, even crashing the application. I tried it one more time and, finally, got an affirmative result.

Viper, after nearly two hours of setup and failed searching, finally had detected a single case of “plagiarism” spotting the URL where the poem can be found on the Web.

Needless to say though, this small victory has me much less than impressed.

More Problems

In the two hours I had allotted to test Viper, I had only been able to search for three documents and only one of those searches, after many retries, was successful. In the same amount of time, I could have processed many dozens of documents using virtually any other means. In fact, my search engine showdown post was compiled in about the same time I spent testing Viper and it required some 45 searches.

But in addition to Viper being slow and unreliable, it also has me a bit creeped out. The application, on Windows 7 at least, requires special permission to modify content on the hard drive. Though I don’t believe it is a virus or has any malicious intent, reviewers at CNet have warned that it messed with their Word settings and suffered many crashes. Not the kind of program I want having broad access to my computer.

In short, I would not recommend installing this program on your computer at this time. Looking at the decidedly mixed reviews on CNet, it seems as if my experience was fairly typical though others have had even worse problems.

Bottom Line

From what I can tell, Viper is an application that feeds into a Web service. Why it needs a downloaded app when the real work takes place online is unclear, but it seems likely that the problems are with the server end, not the app itself (other than the installation issues).

If they can correct their server problems, Viper has a lot of potential for doing decent plagiarism checking.

However, for students seriously worried about their papers, would urge you to go ahead and spend the small amount of money and use WriteCheck. Not only does it use the same database as most colleges and high schools, the Turnitin one, it doesn’t index your paper and it has access to private libraries and collections Viper can’t see. Furthermore, the matching technology, while imperfect, seems to be better.

As an alternative, you can use Copyscape, Plagium or simple Google queries to check for accident plagiarism. All will work faster and better than Viper in its current form.

photo credit: MinivanNinja

Whether you are looking to start a review site or have been running one for years, copyright is an issue you are almost certainly going to bump into.

This is especially true if you’re going to be reviewing copyrighted works, such as books, games or movies, but is true for just about any review you do. Even those who review electronics, for example, have to look at the packaging, manuals and promotional material as copyrighted works.

Fortunately, copyright law gives a great deal of leeway when creating reviews, as it should, but knowing where the boundaries are and how to keep your site legal is important. Perhaps even more importantly though, it is crucial to be aware of ways in which your content could accidentally become a target for copyright enforcement, often by automated systems.

However, with some common sense, some simple precautions and some common courtesy, you should be able to avoid any and all issues pretty easily.

With that in mind, here is what you need to be aware of.

Understand Fair Use

If you are running a review site, fair use is probably the single most important area of copyright law to understand and, sadly, it is also one of the most difficult.

Fair use is an area of copyright that grants users, such as yourself, the right to violate the otherwise exclusive rights of copyright holders. In the U.S., there are four factors that are considered:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

In court cases, the first and the fourth factors are typically given the most weight, which works out well for reviewers as commentary and criticism is one of the most protected kinds of use.

So a review site has a pretty good start when building a fair use argument, however, that doesn’t mean it is a lock. Fair use is a defense against a copyright infringement claim, not a magic spell that makes infringements acceptable.

This means two things. First, fair use can only be determined in a court, meaning after you have been sued and put through the expense and drama of a lawsuit, second, that it is possible for a review site to infringe, though it is much more difficult.

For example, distributing whole copies of a work without permission is an infringement, even if it is part of a review. Though you can use clips from a movie or samples from a song, distributing the entire work as part of the review is almost certainly an infringement as it uses more of the source than necessary for the review and replaces the market for the original work.

A review, as with all fair use cases, should be a transformative use, the making of something new, not derivative. If you act in good faith, use only the source material you need for your review and make the focus of your review your own thoughts, you should be ok for the most part.

However, with fair use, there are no hard rules or magic guidelines to help you.

Avoiding Copyright Abusers and Mistakes

If you understand fair use and operate your site in good faith, you’ll probably be on the right side as far as the law is concerned. However, when it comes to copyright, as with any area of the law, mistakes do happen and, in rare but very well-publicized cases, some do abuse the law to intimidate reviewers.

These incidents can be major headaches for any site so it’s worth taking a few moments to discuss how to avoid or minimize the danger.

1. Be Careful with Audio: On video sites such as YouTube and Myspace, audio fingerprinting is the main method of identifying allegedly infringing material. The systems, sadly, are not very good at dealing with fair use cases, as the recent “Kids Bop” takedown illustrates. These takedowns and mutings are largely automated so use copyrighted audio from major artists at your own risk. If needed and you are sure of your fair use standing, host the content yourself.
2. Be Wary with Negative Reviews: If someone is going to try and abuse copyright law to hurt your site, it will almost certainly be over a negative review (very few get upset when you’re promoting their product). Though very few would consider such an act, don’t give companies that might be angry with you ammunition. Avoid borderline uses of their content and generally be more cautious. If someone is going to get litigious or threatening over a review they’ll find a reason (defamation and other areas of law may also apply) but there’s no reason to hand them extra options.
3. Know Your Rights: However, the most important tip by far is to know your rights and stand up for them. You have a right to write negative reviews about a product or service so long as your statements are truthful or opinion and you use copyrighted material within reason. If you get a legal threat without merit, get help in fighting it, and, if your work is taken down unjustly, either by a DMCA notice or automated system, file a counternotice and have it put back. However, always consult with an attorney before taking such action.

All in all, these types of incidents are actually fairly rare. But they are worth preparing for, especially considering the problems they can cause. Though you can’t completely eliminate the risk of an unhappy and litigious individual suing for no valid reason or getting accidentally caught in a copyright dragnet, you can minimize the risk by being careful and knowing your rights.

Other Tips and Suggestions

In addition to the above tips and suggestions, here are some more specific ways you can ensure that your review site stays on the right side of copyright law.

1. Use Images Correctly: Fair use, as per the Perfect 10 v. Google ruling, generally allows you to make thumbnails of images for use in your review. However, when using a larger image you should either get permission or just link to the image on the other site. Google Images, which the lawsuit was over, is a good example of the rules.
2. Use Logos When Possible: Though logos can have some copyright protection, for the most part they fall under trademark law and trademark only protects against confusion in the marketplace. As long as you aren’t using the logo to imply a relationship that does not exist, you can use a logo in a review with little fear.
3. Use Your Own Photos: If you are reviewing a product or place, consider taking your own images if possible. Not only does it add to the review, but you hold the copyright in the photos. As long as you are careful not to photograph something copyrighted in a way that’s infringing (see above) you can use the image all you want.
4. Otherwise, Use Press Images: If you can’t take your own images, most companies have press kits available that include images of products designed for just such use. This is much preferred to taking images from another source and likely violating a 3rd party’s copyright. Never, ever use Google Image Search as a stock photo library.
5. Use Caution When Embedding: Finally, if you embed content from other people for your review, such as Youtube clips, you’re taking some of a risk. Though your use might be a fair one, someone else’s use might not. Furthermore, if the work is taken down, you will not be notified. Embed only if you are sure the content itself is a fair use, is not likely to be taken down for any reason (including by the poster) and always make sure you have permission to do so.

Though most of this is simply common sense, and some has very little to do with copyright, they are all issues every review site should consider before moving forward.

Bottom Line

All in all, if you run a review site, it isn’t that hard to avoid copyright issues. If you make the focus your reviews, only use as much as you need in your quotes (whatever medium) and operate in good faith, you’ll probably be ok.

However, it is still very important to be aware of the issues as they can come back to bite you if you are not careful.

In the end though, if you’re looking to set up a review site or are running one now, you probably have no reason to fear so long as you are acting in good faith. Reviews, commentary and criticism are highly protected under copyright law and, generally, the bar for infringement is higher than mere distribution.

If you’re aware of the potential issues and work to avoid them, you most likely have very little to fear.

Fortunately, long-time friend of the site Patrick O’Keefe recently released a book targeted at helping forum and community administrators run their sites. The book, entitled “Managing Online Forums“, is a broad guide to running a Web-based community.

It is a book that all forum administrators, especially new ones, should look at picking up. Not only can the advice in this book help you grow your community, but it can also help keep your site on the right side of the law and a good neighbor on the Web.

A Practical Guide

Perhaps, the best way to describe O’Keefe’s book is “down to earth”. The book is not merely content on providing the information forum admins needs to do their jobs, but to provide real-world examples.

Throughout the book there are call outs and sample documents for readers to look at and mirror on their own sites. For example, chapter three, which discusses setting up forum guidelines, not only details the requirements for a good set of forum rules, but provides several examples of good guidelines, including some used on the author’s actual forums.

Likewise, chapter six, which discusses how to handle problem users, is laden with actual stories of forum participants gone wild, almost all of which are pulled from the author’s actual experience as a forum administrator.

But while the examples and hand-holdiong may help gear the book toward novice admins, a group for which there is precious little help, there is enough detailed information to make it useful for veterans. Specifically, the later chapters about adding new features to the forum and making money will likely have strong appeal to forum veterans and those already running sizable communities.

Still, the majority of the book is definitely geared toward inexperienced admins and works to help them learn the lessons in print that most have to learn the hard way.

Why This Book Is Important

As someone who has worked with dozens of community and forum admins, I know well how “over their heads” many admins get. This is especially true when it comes to legal matters, such as copyright infirngement, trademark issues and privacy.

With forum software, such as phpBB, often being as easy to install as one click and free community sites such as Yuku making it easy to set up and run your community with no cost, the decision to set up a community is often an impulse one made without consideration of the practical requirements.

This lack of administrator preparedness is big part of why forums are being used as spam blogs and communities are often some of the most difficult sites to get infringing works removed from.

An administrator that is unprepared to handle the realities of running a community does a disservice not only to their members, but to the rest of the Web. Fortunately, this book not only makes it easy to learn what you need, but provides the tools to execute an effective strategy.

If you are setting up a forum or even just thinking about it, this is information that you can not afford to be without.

Conclusions

If I were going to lob a complaint at this book it would be that its audience focus was too narrow. Though bloggers and other Webmasters may get some out of the book, it is clear that the vast majority of the content is geared at forum admins and, more specifically, novice admins.

Still, this is an important group to target. Not only do they need the most help establishing and growing a healthy forum, but also with dealing with the inevitable headaches that come with it. Those who have been “behind the curtain” of large forums are a fairly small group and, overall, are reluctant to share their information.

On that note, if you do not purchase a copy of the book, you can visit the book’s Web site and download the relevant templates, including user guidelines, staff member guidelines and contact templates (for when a user violates a rule).

The point is though, no matter where you get it from, this is information every forum admin needs to know. The greatest asset this book has is combining the information into one resource.

However, for me, that is reason enough for it to have a place on my shelf.

The service had already shown promising improvements after the first review was so unimpressive. However, even though the product was much better than before the changes, there were still caveats that prevented me from offering an unrestrained endorsement.

So the question became whether or not the new improvements would be enough to eliminate those caveats. I decided to find out and grabbed my test works for yet a third round of Copyscape testing.

Twice As Good

In the first round of improvements, it was hard to do much worse. On the poem Teardrops, Copyscape had failed to find any matches. However, on the second pass, Copyscape’s performance improved drastically to catch 10 of 25 results.

While a drastic improvement, it still resulted in over half of all copies going undetected.

However, with the latest changes, Copyscape more than doubled the number of copies it detected. On the first poem, it caught 31 copies out of a potential 36. On the second poem, Copyscape caught 41 results out of what Google listed as 97 potential results (Note: That number seems incredibly high to even me, I am investigating it currently).

See the results from all three tests blow:

First Run:

Second Run:

Third Run:

Some of the bump in the third test is due to increased plagiarism on the poem, due largely to one or two people whom I am I am working on resolution with, but even discounting the increased number of targets, the accuracy has gone way up. Where, previously, Copyscape caught less than half of all potential results, it now caught over 86%.

Though the results on the second poem are much worse, about 42% of the potential results, that seems to be due somewhat to some strange behavior on Google’s end with these results.

All in all, it is clear that Copyscape is now catching far more copies than it was previously and that the service is continuing to improve at a very rapid pace.

Recommendations

In a few short weeks, Copyscape has gone from a near-total dud when detecting mass plagiarism to what can now be called an impressive tool. Though further testing is needed to find out exactly how effective it is with other types of works, the improvements are more than obvious. (Note: Copyscape detected all copies of two short stories submitted, however, both only had a few copies on the Web)

Copyscape is a tool and it should be used as such. It should not be relied upon solely but, in its current state, can definitely be used in conjunction with other detection methods such as Google Alerts and Digital Fingerprints. It now seems to have a place in a well-rounded plagiarism detection strategy.

Longer works, clearly, will get more out of Copyscape than shorter ones. That is because the longer the work is, the more likely that the phrase searched for was not included in the plagiarized copy. Also, with longer works, it can be harder to find a good statistically improbable phrase to search for, thus making it easier to let Copyscape do the legwork.

However, if you do use Copyscape, it would probably be best to go ahead and spend the few dollars for Copyscape Premium. The ten result limit on the free search is crippling on works that either have large-scale plagiarism issues or generate a great deal of legitimate reuse.

I set up my account before the first test with five dollars and still have well over half of my searches left. It is probably the best deal available in plagiarism detection.

Conclusions

Any time you use an automated service such as Copyscape you make a trade off. You give up some of the control and effectiveness in exchange for speeding up the process. Copyscape has now hit a point where the trade off is likely worthwhile.

Your mileage may vary and these tests are limited. However, other test results have shown a similar level of satisfaction with Copyscape.

In the not-too-distant future, I plan on doing a thorough analysis, similar to Dr. Weber-Wulff’s to determine how effective the various Web plagiarism tools are at finding all of the duplicate content out there and ranking them accordingly.

Stay tuned for more information.