The Purpose of This Site

Some people seemed to be very confused about the purpose of this site. I’ve seen a lot of comments on the Web saying that this site is about “exposing” plagiarists or “shaming” them. While I’m not going to restrain myself from talking about recent incidents of plagiarism, especially those that have made their way into the news, that’s not the focus of this site.

The About Page does a much better job of explaining what PT is really trying to achieve. Though achieving many of these objectives will definitely involve many articles discussing actual incidents of plagiarism, like the article I’m working on for Monday, none of those are done with the intent to shame or clean up the Web, that’s simply not something that one site can achieve.

Rather, my goal is to teach what I call “Plagiarism Self Defense” and encourage content creators to use it. If everyone understood their rights, was aware of the problem and took action against it, there wouldn’t be a need for someone to “clean up the Web”. If everyone played an active role in protecting their rights, plagiarists would have a serious deterrent, not just a boogeyman.

Furthermore, do remember that this is a journalism site where both sides of the story can and will be told. One of the reasons I’m later with my articles than other sites is that I take the time to write all of the people involved and try to fully understand the situation. This site has an open policy and everyone mentioned in it has a right to respond.

This is about serious discussion and plagiarism fighting, not pointing fingers. Please remember that as you visit this site.

I hope you find this information useful.

[tags]Plagiarism, Copyright Law, Content Theft[/tags]