Has Your Freelance Work Been Plagiarized?

Writing blogs for the internet can earn some decent extra money if anyone can devote the time to it and gain an audience. Blogging with any of the ‘AdSense’-type ads campaigns can earn anyone a decent residual income. But noticeably there has been an increase in organized plagiarism, the site-specific stealing of content and re-posting in its entirety, to earn revenue.

A number of sites I have viewed recently are populated with content stolen entirely from a site that I write for, Triond.com. Specifically, several of Triond’s domains, PurpleSlinky and Authspot notably, are prime targets for these plagiarizers. One site I viewed just recently has over 13 pages of nothing but stolen works from Triond domains! Think about that. That is well over 100 articles, stolen entirely from you and me, the freelance writers for Triond.

I could name names! I think I’ll wait though and maybe they will see this article and think twice and then do the right thing and delete their stolen articles immediately! They are in our awares. We know who you are. We are watching you.

What is Plagiarism?

According to Wikipedia, plagiarism is:

“the use or close imitation of the language and ideas of another author and representation of them as one's own original work.”

Wikipedia goes on to explain the variation of plagiarism, including “academic plagiarism” (by students, professors orresearchers) and journalistic plagiarism, which is that done by reporters. A reporter whom plagiarizes content or sources usually faces disciplinary measures. ‘Accidental plagiarism’ occurs when in academic or journalistic circles the failure to give quotations or citation occurs. The "I heard that" or "I read that" etc. If it is important enough to include, it probably should be cited. Especially if further points of contention are based upon it.

Internet plagiarism has become rampant what with the ability of electronic copy-&-paste ability, and that is the offense I am writing about. We freelance writers at Triond have collectively found and viewed several web sites that are routinely copying-and-pasting our articles for themselves, with no accreditation to the real author, no link-back whatsoever. You know, for 'fair use blogging' they could use the first paragraph or two of our article(s) with a "read more" backlink to the real article. That way, they benefit from first-view and their local AdSense ads, we benefit from click-through for the "read more" continuance. But they are not doing this. They are publishing the entire content for themselves.

These unfair use sites are a member of the Google AdSence/WordSence program, meaning that they are earning money from the advertising. It's the same general deal that Triond offers us, except we get no share of their profits from those sites that steal. They are using OUR articles to earn money for themselves! This dishonest practice needs to be addressed and  it needs to be stopped.

While plagiarism is not specifically “copyright infringement,” according to Wikipedia, the particular acts '...pertain to two different transgressions.' We keep calling the use of our articles on these other sites “plagiarism” when they are in fact, “copyright infringement.” Plagiarized content is a 'derivative work' based heavily upon an existing source. "Copyright infringement" is a verbose copy be passed as one's own work without the consent of the author.

Pain to insult is that we at Triond get paid renewing monthly royalties for our published works and seek to promote our works for increased traffic, yielding hopefully continued financial benefits every month. But when other sites are doing ‘copy-and-paste’ of our works, those sites are in essence stealing the potential traffic for our published copyrighted works. This needs to stop now!