Are People “Borrowing” Your Content (and How to Know When They Do)?

Adam Smith said:

Great post! I agree that many people feel that copy and paste is the BFF, they don't want to put in any effort when they can find someone else who did first. I've noticed as I've started to grow my social media marketing business that I see my client's competitors copying and pasting my posts onto their account! So say it's a compliment but I feel that they are just waiting for me to post and two weeks later they say the same exact thing to their fans, geez at least mix it up is all I'm asking. Change the words around, come on lazy people! LOL. Thanks for sharing that site, wish it could work on FB or TW so I could tell who was copying my information... or does it and I'm just being lazy to dig in and find out. :0 Blog Editor@ Costume ideas

socialsmidge said:

Great post!  I agree that many people feel that copy and paste is the BFF, they don't want to put in any effort when they can find someone else who did first.  I've noticed as I've started to grow my social media marketing business that I see my client's competitors copying and pasting my posts onto their account!  So say it's a compliment but I feel that they are just waiting for me to post and two weeks later they say the same exact thing to their fans, geez at least mix it up is all I'm asking.  Change the words around, come on lazy people! LOL.  

 

Thanks for sharing that site, wish it could work on FB or TW so I could tell who was copying my information... or does it and I'm just being lazy to dig in and find out.  :0

MiaDand said:

Great post. Will try out the tool for sure. 

I recently came across a site that has copied my entire blog post and reposted it without any attribution. I haven't been able to get them to stop posting my content without my permission but haven't had any luck so I am looking into legal options to prevent this. 

I also saw your post along with others from SMT publishing on this site but if Tynt works as it should, you already know which site I am referring to :)

MiaDand said:

Great post. Will definitely try Tynt.

I've come across a site that's copying my blog post in entirety and reposting on their site without any attribution. I am exploring legal options as they're not heeding my requests to stop posting my content without permission. They have your entire blog post on there as well (along with other top blog posts from SMT) but if Tynt works as it should, you probably already know which site I am referring to :)

Nils Montan said:

Hi Gang.

This appears to be a great tool to me and I love the slogan, "tools not rules."

OK.  It's much better to use just a small, or at least an appropriate amount under the circumstances, of another's work in your own.  The is a "defense" to copyright infringement called the Fair Use Defense, which allows us to take some of another's work so that we can comment on it.  Obviously society, and indeed the original author, will benefit to some extent if the original work is used so that others can see it and think about it.  The question is always, how much you can take.

The law has a balancing test to make this determination (the law loves to balance interests).  Without getting into the technical issues, just try to use your common sense.  Taking the entire blog post and claiming it as your own is, to me, obvious copyright infringement.  On the Internet, however, we have re-posting, which is so common that as long as the original piece is re posted in it's entirety, I don't see why the original author would mind.

Then, the next question is, if you take less than the whole piece, how much is too much.  This will depend on the circumstances, but I try always to attribute to the orignal piece when I "borrow" something and take only as much as I need to make my post make sense and to comment on the original piece.

I also think the use of tools like tynt.com make a lot of sense for authors, just to be on the safe side.

This is not meant to be legal advice for anyone, just a comment.

Nils Montan, Owner, bookfanatics.com

Leah Kaiz said:

Cool tool! Now here's my question, how "kosher" is it when someone reprints a whole blog by a famous person on their blog. While they attribute that the post (in it's entirety) was written by the famous person, it still seems they are "using" someone's brilliance.They are in essence riding on the SEO and name recognition of that person to drive traffic to their site, and create an association that just simply doesn't exist. Just wondering if there's anything on the books about this. This is a source of irritation to me when I see it happening... not even quoting the person and doing their own analysis but simply taking it as a whole and reprinting it....as if they are best buds. Seems like it isn't just stealing someone's brilliance it's using it to elevate one's own (Or lack there of) image.

Michelle Manire said:

Thanks Debra. This is terrific information. I always wondered about that since I write quite a bit.

CliffFigallo said:

Hey, we're on board, JilMaloney!  ;^)  Note that I'm using fewer images lately to reduce risk that we're violating any copyrights. 

We ask the people who write for us and feed to us to attribute material appropriately, notably images. Please use Creative Commons and public domain material unless it's something you created yourself or paid to use. 

In any case, I thank Debra for calling this new tool to our attention. Seems like a tool for fairness.

JilMaloney said:

Very cool.

Doesn't look as though socialmediatoday is on board yet...  ; )

 

Zaydoun said:

So, If you have a blog that offers a teaser of an article somewhere, provide the source and a read the full article linked to the original source, does that constitute a copyright infridgement?

 

Thank you