The article detailed a case involving the site Celebrity Hack, a celebrity gossip blog. The site had one of its articles, entitled “37 Famously Stupid Celebrity Quotes” submitted to Digg only to be buried for unknown reasons. Then, a few weeks later, a lower quality copy was submitted to the site and reached the front page without being buried at all.

It is obvious that, in that case, the traditional notion of social news failed. The usual means of preventing duplicate failed to stop the advancement of the plagiarized story. It would seem that, in that light, there is very little that a site such as Celebrity Hack can do to prevent scraped and plagiarized content from being promoted on social news sites. If the crowd fails to see the duplication and pushes a duplicate article forward, there is little a lone Webmaster or blogger can do.

However, the DMCA may provide the answer to that problem. It gives individuals who have had their content ripped off and posted to social news sites the ability to have those links removed. It can help webmasters mitigate against the damage that such plagiarism can do and even stop thieves before they see any benefit from the stolen work.

Why Digg has a DMCA Policy

The DMCA carves out safe harbor protection for many kinds of online service providers. One of those service providers, found under section 512(d) in Title 17, is what is called an “Information Location Tool”.

The law goes on to define an “information location tool” as one that is:

referring or linking users to an online location containing infringing material or infringing activity, by using information location tools, including a directory, index, reference, pointer, or hypertext link

That section covers search engines such as Google, directories such as DMOZ and any other site that links to Web pages where infringing material may be found.

The law grants those sites safe harbor, meaning they are not liable for the infringement, so long as they have no knowledge of the infringement, remove access to the material once notified and register a DMCA agent with the United States Copyright Office (USCO).

This is one area where the DMCA has done a great deal to assist the development of the Web. By eliminating most of the gray area that existed before the law was passed, the DMCA made sites like Digg easier to found without the fear of being held liable for linking to infringing material. In short, it removed a great risk factor from starting this kind of site.

However, because of this, social news sites have had to develop copyright policies and work to comply with the DMCA. Most larger social news sites have designated DMCA agents and processes in place to handle complaints of copyright infringement.

Here are just a few examples of that.

Digg

Format: Email
Email Address: abuse at digg dot com
Location of Policy: Item Five, Terms of Use
Registered with USCO: No
Comments: Overall, Digg’s DMCA policy seems very well-rounded. It offers the necessary links to information for filing both a notice and a counter-notice under the DMCA. However, Digg’s contact information is somewhat lacking. Digg handles all DMCA-related matters through their abuse email address, which is normally the best way to handle such matters, but offers no additional contact information including name, phone number, fax number or physical address. Sites that list their DMCA agents with the United States Copyright Office have to include such information. Digg may need to see about expanding their policy to include this information and formally registering with the USCO.

Reddit

Format: Email, Fax, Snail Mail
Email Address: copyright at sbandg dot com
Location of Policy: Item Four, User Agreement
Registered with USCO: Yes
Comments: Reddit apparently has taken on the services of the NY law firm Sabin, Bermant & Gould to handle their DMCA notices. It seems likely that the policy was written by them as well. The policy is both succinct and thorough, covering all of the required elements of a DMCA notice and offering multiple means of contact to get in touch with the agents. However, the policy completely lacks any mention of a counter-notice, which is relatively unusual. However, that information may be included in the contacts sent to users that have had DMCA notices filed against them.

Slashdot

Format: Email, Snail Mail
Email Address: dmca at ostg dot com
Location of Policy: Item Thirteen, Terms of Use
Registered with USCO: Yes
Comments: DMCA complaints to Slashdot are handled by their parent company, the Open Source Technology Group. Their policy is very lengthy and covers all of the information needed to both submit a DMCA notice and file a counter-notice. The contact information is complete, though it is unclear if the number listed is a phone or fax number, and the policy itself spells out the steps needed, without referencing other sites. Users unfamiliar with the DMCA will likely find this policy very helpful.

Netscape

Format: Email, Snail Mail
Email Address: See Form
Location of Policy: Own Page
Registered with USCO: Yes
Comments: Netscape’s policy, which is handled by their parent AOL, is probably the most mature out of all of the copyright policies. Not only do they have a well-written policy that provides all of the needed information to file a DMCA notice, they even provide an easy form to submit it. Lacking from their site is any information about filing a counter-notice, once again, information likely included when notifying a user that has been the subject of a DMCA notice, and a fax number for sending in complaints that way. Still, they have the easiest and most robust policy overall and, in my experience with their Web host, have a very respectable reputation for handling infringing material.

Fark

Format: Email?
Email Address: See Form
Location of Policy: None
Registered with USCO: No
Comments: Of all the social networks I looked at, Fark is the only one completely lacking a formal DMCA policy. Though the contact form can be used to ask a “legal question” or report a bad headline, there is no clear place to file an abuse report nor is there an actual policy for receiving DMCA notices on the site. This isn’t the first time Fark’s copyright policy has been questioned, but the first time was easily explained by poor writing and it seems likely that this is also an issue with a poorly-written terms of use. Hopefully, as Fark works on their copyright policy, they will also work on their DMCA policy as well. Otherwise, they risk losing protection under the DMCA safe harbor act.
Update From Fark: I heard back from Drew earlier today, he said that he is going to work with his new attorney on this matter shortly after correcting the current copyright policy, which is now in final draft stage. Hopefully, this matter too will be cleared up easily.

Conclusions

Of all of the DMCA policies I reviewed, Netscape’s procedure was far and away the most robust and the most user-friendly. However, this is understandable as AOL has been a Web host for over a decade and has a lot of experience working with the DMCA. Also, they probably have the largest volume of complaints.

After Netscape, Slashdot and Reddit both have very solid policies, both are registered with the USCO and both provide all of the needed information. They are definitely both excellent role models in this area. Digg is also more than acceptable, however, their lack of registration with the USCO is worrisome since it is a requirement of the DMCA and their safe harbor status may be in jeopardy because of that. However, these are all easy things to fix.

At the bottom, right now, is Fark. Their lack of a formal policy not only puts their safe harbor status at risk, but also, can confuse and hinder anyone reporting links to any infringing material.

However, since I have not worked with any of these companies personally, save AOL, I can not make any judgments on them for the host report, all of this is based purely upon my evaluation of their stated policies and information I have heard from others.

The bottom line, however, is that social news is supposed to be about rewarding people who produce high-quality content. That can’t happen as long as plagiarists are able to steal that content and promote it as their own.

When the crowd fails to catch a thief in time, as will happen sometimes, it is important for a site to have an effective and copyright policy and a strong will to enforce it.

Otherwise, social news sites risk becoming an even darker element of the “echo chamber” that some feel blogs already are.

Note: All of the above networks were contacted for this article and, as of this writing, had not responded. I will update this article should any reply after it is published.

Note 2: This story is in no way related to the HD-DVD story that has consumed Digg over the past 24 hours or so. That story, apparently, did not involve a DMCA notice, but rather a cease and desist letter, and this story was underway well before the HD-DVD controversy began to draw much attention. This was intended to be a follow up to the story mentioned above.

Needless to say, traffic was extremely high yesterday and remains very high today. However, I wanted to welcome all of the new readers of the site and encourage those of you interested in Web-related copyright issues to subscribe to this site’s feed. There will be a lot more coming on these issues, especially as they pertain to social news, very soon.

Second, I would like to thank my host, Media Temple, for keeping this site alive during the storm. I moved to MT after my last host crashed twice under similar burdens, once following a Slashdot, the other following a Digg. MT kept swimming right along, exactly as designed, and hopefully won’t hit me with too much of an overage.

Finally, a thank you also has to go out to everyone who helped with the article, especially Drew Curtis for writing me back so promptly despite his busy schedule.

It was a crazy day yesterday and I’ll be recovering much of the day today. But I am looking forward to returning to my normal schedule this weekend.

About two weeks ago, an article on the site entitled “37 Famously Stupid Celebrity Quotes” was submitted to Digg. The story reached the front page briefly but was buried for unknown reasons.

Yesterday, a much lower-quality scraped version of the same article was submitted to Digg. The article, which has since been removed, was promoted to the front page and not buried, earning over 800 Diggs.

This has lead many, including Muhammad Saleem at Pronet Advertising, to worry that social networking is making the problem of content theft issue worse.

Sadly, Saleem seems to be right. Even as social news sites like Digg are increasing the rewards for creating original and interesting content, they are also rewarding those who steal it.

Content Theft Goes Social

For years Webmasters have been worried about the duplicate content penalty. The fear is that, since search engines place a higher value on unique content and intentionally bump down duplicate pages, that the search engine might bump down a site simply because it is being scraped and reposted elsewhere, even it is taking place without permission.

Though Google has addressed that and said that it should not be a major concern, I have worked with several businesses that have had their marketing material scraped, only to have the plagiarist rank as high or higher they.

Even if there is no “penalty”, scraping is a cheap and fast way for sites to compete for the same keywords with the same strategy and, with good linking such as comment spam, achieve similar or greater results.

But with social networking and social news begins a new problem. If search engines, with their advanced algorithms and overhead view of the Web, have a difficult time telling duplicate content from original material, individual users have at least an equal challenge.

Sadly, it is often a challenge that they fail to meet, especially when they are in a rush to submit an article to their favorite social networking site.

A Ripe Target

With sites like Digg, Slashdot and Reddit capable of directing incredible volumes of traffic to a site (Note: This site has been both Dugg and Slashdotted at varying points), they’ve become very ripe targets for spammers.

The desire for placement on Digg has even generated a few start ups, including the most recent Subvert and Profit. These companies, reviled by most Digg users, let submitters purchase Diggs and pay members for Digging up stories.

The popularity of these social news sites has also attracted spammers who, often times, copy high-quality and legitimate content, post it to their site and then actively promote it on these networks.

Legitimate Webmasters, who passively promote these social networks with badges, links and buttons, often don’t get as much push as the sites created almost exclusively for the networks. Legitimate users of the network, genuinely interested in the content, unwittingly promote the scraped version until it reaches the front page, thus rewarding the plagiarist for his acts.

Sometimes the theft is caught in time, either by an astute reader or the original author. Other times, as with the case in the Celebrity Hack story, the plagiarized work goes straight to the front page and the plagiarist enjoys the traffic and revenue that the site brings in.

The beauty of this approach from the angle of the spammer is that it only takes one story to take off to justify the effort. Much like with spam blogging, many attempts can fail so long as one succeeds. The rewards for success far exceed the penalties for failure.

Reasons for Concern

This type of plagiarism is especially damaging to Webmasters as it can impact them very deeply and very directly.

1. Only the Best Content: Unlike spam bloggers, who scrape indiscriminately, plagiarists targeting social network sites are only interested in the best-quality content. They select articles, copy them by hand and paste them to their own site without attribution or under their own name.
2. A Public Plagiarism: This plagiarism is especially damaging as it takes place in the most public forum on the Web and in the most deceptive way. The plagiarists involved often use hand-crafted sites, not just easily-detected computer-generated sites like spam bloggers, and many viewers may genuinely believe the plagiarized copy to be the original work, even if there is significant evidence to the contrary.
3. Closing The Door: Worse still, it detracts from one of the major incentives to post original, high-quality content on the Web. By taking their content to the social news sites, the original authors lose that ability to get their work to that large audience. It greatly impacts the original author’s ability to use the social news sites to build their reputation and readership.

In short, this type of plagiarism doesn’t just risk replacing the original in the eyes of the SERPS or a few readers, but in the minds of tens of thousands of people and on some of the largest, most popular sites in the world.

Reasons Not To Worry

On the flip side of the coin, there are several reasons why spammers may not be drawn to the social networking sites over the long run.

1. Limited Ad Revenue: Users on social networking sites tend not to promote sites that have many ads and studies have shown that traffic from social networking is much less likely to result in ad clicks than via search engines.
2. Limited Search Engine Benefit: The SEO benefit of getting a page listed on Digg or another social news site is dubious a best. A single link that scrolls off the home page quickly will not carry as much weight as multiple links on more static sites.
3. Higher Costs: Surviving a Digg or Slashdot effect can be difficult, as I have personally found out. Doing so requires either investing more into hosting or setting up shop on services such as Blogspot that have less credibility on the sites.

In short, while these sites can definitely generate a large amount of traffic, they don’t always generate a lot of money for the people they link to. Professional spammers will likely be seeking out other methods that should result in larger checks.

The more likely candidate for this type of plagiarism is a new Webmaster trying to grow his blog or blog network and is very misguided on how to do so. They are frustrating and annoying, but are generally easily stopped once they are spotted.

Simply put, in these cases the shame of being discovered a plagiarist is usually, in and of itself, enough to send the plagiarist into hiding.

What Webmasters Can Do

Despite the drawbacks, it is obvious that the problem is both real and ongoing. Bloggers and Webmasters, especially those that wish to leverage social news sites, need to consider taking a few steps to guard against this.

1. Track Popular Articles: Monitoring and protecting the RSS feed will stop spam bloggers, but not plagiarists who manually select content. You need to track your best articles to ensure they aren’t copied without permission. Consider using Google Alerts to monitor those articles automatically.
2. Monitor the Social News Sites: Sometimes the plagiarized articles can hit the social news sites before Google or even Technorati picks them up. Follow the social news sites in relevant categories, you probably should be regardless, and catch plagiarists early.
3. Report Infringement to the Social News Sites: In addition to the usual steps of getting the works removed from the plagiarist site and, possibly, getting their ad revenue severed, report them to the social news site they submitted to. Most sites will ban domains and sites that host plagiarized content.

Though these steps can not guarantee that a plagiarist will not slip through and get an article of yours on the front page of a social news site, they can help thwart that vast majority of those who might try.

Conclusions

The important thing to remember is that, even with blogs, plagiarism goes well beyond just RSS scraping. As social news sites have bolstered the rewards for hosting and creating content that stands out, many plagiarists will start taking only that content, often bypassing the RSS feed completely.

It’s another concern for Webmasters and bloggers, many of whom spend hours a day creating content only to have it ripped off by others almost immediately. It’s also a concern that is difficult to deal with.

It is also an issue that we will be talking about this more in depth over the next few weeks as it doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon.

In fact, it seems likely that we’ve just now seen the beginning of it.