A Note on Plagiarism
Ever since you were a young child in school, it has been drilled into your head not to plagiarize. However in the copy-rich world of internet, social media, and content sharing – the lines between plagiarism and sharing information is getting more and more blurred. But the bottom line is that copying other people’s work without giving them credit is unfair. Not only will you lose credibility for yourself and your company, you can get in big trouble legally.
Mastering the in’s and out’s of copyright law can be a very confusing – but it is better to know because ignorance is not a defense. So while we suggest that you consult a lawyer on any copyright issues you are unclear about, basically:
If you use it – credit it. If the wording is the same – put it in quotations.
Keep in mind that crediting and citing other people’s work is not just required with quotations. Even if you take someone else’s idea and put it into your own words so that no two words are in the same order – you still need to credit that person’s original idea.
If you are using someone else ideas, facts, quotes, or content, it is better to over attribute their work than to give too little credit. Even if you give enough credit to the original author to protect you legally, any accusation of plagiarism will be harmful to your image, the future of your company, and your pocketbook (not to mention, you will make some enemies along the way).
While violations of copyright can be very scary business, it is important to note that it is perfectly ok to share others information. In fact, most blogger, twitterers, facebookers etc would love for you to spread the word about what they have to say. In the social media centric world of wall posts, embedding links, and RT (re-tweets) – the more others talk about them, the more and more people will discover who they are. The trouble begins when people take these great ideas and articles and try to pass them off as their own.
That is precisely why there has been a surge in the popularity of content scanning programs, or the “internet police” if you will. Online plagiarism detection services are getting more and more intense in their quest to catch plagiarizers. Popular programs include Turnitin, Copyscape, and Plagium.
Not many people consider this, but it is even problematic to copy your own content for several websites. If you have the same copy on your website as you do on your blog and every service directory you are a part of, it can decrease your search engine optimization (so much in fact, that many online service directories will not even allow it). The lesson here is not to be lazy – you can explain yourself and your services in more than one way. If not, consider hiring a reputable marketing company to copywrite for your website, ads, blogs, etc. The money you’d spend investing in paying someone to produce quality content to represent your business and its services pales in comparison to the amount it would cost to have yourself represented in court.
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