Plagiarism and Duplicate Content on HubPages
86Duplicate content - everyone hates it and yet it happens in every online writing site including HubPages.
Why?
- What is duplicate content?
- What is plagiarism?
- Is self-plagiarism acceptable?
- Should a writer be able to get rich from duplicate or plagiarized content?
Does the crime of plagiarism pay? Should we stop plagiarism? How can we stop plagiarism?
What is Duplicate Content?
HubPages help describes duplicate content as follows:
The hub seems to have text that is either copied from or to a large number of other sites, and has incurred a Hub Score penalty as a result.
There are four types of duplicate content:
1. Republished content
Some writers may decide to republish their own content on multiple sites. This is usually done to expand their readership across different groups of users, and to maximize advertising revenue.
In academic circles, republishing your own work is a well accepted practice, as long as full disclosure is made. It is interesting, however, that republishing is against HubPages rules, and doing so will result in a duplicate content Hub Score penalty as described above.
2. Quotations
A quotation is a duplicate section of someone else's content that is explicitly attributed back to its original author.
Quotations may be long or short depending on the nature of an article. Biographies, for example, may sometimes require longer quotations to capture the essence of the person being described.
3. Copied content
Copied content are similar to quotations in that the content is properly attributed to the original author. However, unlike quotations which only includes a section of the original article, copied content is an exact duplicate of the entire article.
Unless the content is under public domain, or permission-of-use has been granted beforehand, copied content is likely in violation of copyright laws.
Many copied pictures fall under this category. Articles are also frequently copied as a free source of Google AdSense income.
Answers made in Yahoo! Answers or message boards may also be copied as a way to easily generate backlinks.
Is my content automatically protected under copyright laws, or do I have to register it?
According to the United States Copyright Office, your content is protected as soon as it is created. Registration, however, becomes necessary if you choose to file a lawsuit.
4. Plagiarism
Plagiarism occurs when a writer steals somebody else's content, and tries to pass it off as his own. The content may be duplicated verbatim, or its language may be altered, slightly or in full, to avoid detection. Sometimes, a plagiarized article may be copied from multiple sources so that it becomes difficult to trace it back to its original source.
In academic circles, plagiarism is considered to be an extremely serious offense. If caught, the offender is frequently expelled from his academic institution, and the plagiarism offense will be noted in his records. This will usually prevent him from joining other academic institutions and make it extremely difficult for him to further participate in academia in any capacity.
Because of these strong sanctions, plagiarism is very rare, especially at the graduate and post graduate levels, where getting caught could be a career ending move.
** Thanks to darkside for pointing out that there are different shades of duplicate content.
Is Duplicate Content Wrong? Should We Stop It?
Of the four types of duplicate content, it is usually copied content and plagiarism that are considered to be criminal. In both of these cases, the original owner's copyright has been violated.
Why should we care? and why should we stop it?
Stealing content and then profiting from it is not only a criminal act, but it also does a great disservice to the HubPages community and to society as a whole:
- It creates a lot more online spam that consumers have to sift through before arriving at something original.
- It discourages people from creating quality original content because they are no longer being properly rewarded for doing so.
- It destroys communities because innocent writers sometimes get incorrectly sanctioned, while the guilty ones get away scot-free because they know how to subvert the system.
Why can't we live and let live?
If we accept people who plagiarize or copy content into our community, and continue to host their stolen content, then we are telling them that it is ok for them to do these things. They can still be a HubPages writer, even though their practices may ultimately destroy what all writers do.
Academia is especially harsh on plagiarism because they are in the business of creating new ideas. If copying ideas were tolerated, then the entire system will ultimately fail. The same can be said about writing and writers.
Making Money Through Duplicate Content
Does crime pay?
Can you make money through duplicate content? Unfortunately, yes.
Even on HubPages, there is a fair amount of duplicate and plagiarized content. The HubPages community is very good at detecting some of this spam and then flagging it, but the sanctions are insufficient to deter the continuation of this behavior. In fact, solitary flags may not even get looked at.
At HubPages, producing duplicate content will result in a Hub Score penalty. Indeed most duplicate spammers do get hit by this penalty, but it is unclear how much it affects their money making potential.
Lower Hub Scores only seem to minimally impact external traffic from search engines. In fact, some of these plagiarised articles even make it to the front page of HubPages. To me, that is just very wrong.
If you find plagiarized or copied content on HubPages, the best way to get it removed is by writing to the original author and getting them to file a DMCA complaint. You can also file a DMCA complaint with Google AdSense which will likely result in banning for the plagiarizer. Once a publisher is banned from Google AdSense, it is unlikely they will get reinstated.
Making money online through plagiarized and duplicate content is rampant today because the sanctions for getting caught are extremely minor. This is in contrast to academia where getting caught will make you into an academic pariah for all time.
In online writing venues however, you frequently do not even get banned. In fact, your duplicate articles may not even be removed. And if you do get banned, you can very easily create a new account, and resume your criminal activities, with nary a pause in your step.
** ADD - After the Google Panda slap, HubPages is now taking a more serious stance against copied and plagiarized content. Even republishing of our own articles is no longer allowed.
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Do you think we should talk about the duplicate content issue?
See results without votingPlagiarism Pays. Stop Talking, Shiba!
"Hey Shiba", you may say, "Stop talking already, because you are encouraging people to duplicate content by telling them that plagiarism pays".
Ah, but therein lies our mistake. The duplicate content makers have something better than a Shiba, they have a Google. And much of what I presented here appears by doing a simple search on the big G.
The issue of plagiarism and duplicate content should not be taboo.
We should keep talking about plagiarism, and we should keep bringing it up in the Forums. This is an important topic and it should receive a lot more notice from all of us, and from the HubPages administration.
Plagiarism is something that affects our passion, our pocketbooks, and our favorite hang-out. Shouldn't it be at least as important as discussions on whether elephants are better than donkeys, or even who gets to enter the pearly gates first?
Plagiarism and Duplicate Content on HubPages
The way that duplicate content is handled on HubPages today is problematic because the people who engage in copying content and plagiarism get treated similarly to people who do republication and quotations.
Yes, you can get a special dispensation by writing to the HubPages team, but that quickly becomes tedious if you have to do it for multiple of your articles. Some good hubbers have already gotten alienated by this one size fits all rule and left the community,
On the other hand, those that engage in copied content and plagiarism are not as concerned about their Hub Score and reputation. They are in it just to make Google AdSense bucks. As long as their hub stays up, they are earning something for doing nothing, and that is a pretty good deal.
I do not have all the answers on how to stop copied content and plagiarism; many of you probably have much better ideas than I do. However, I think that three things are needed:
- Better ways of differentiating republished content and quotations from copied and plagiarized content.
- Heavier and swifter sanctions on people who publish copied or plagiarized content.
- More efficient ways of catching and tracing copied or plagiarized content.
First Thoughts
1. Trusted group of reviewers
In academia, articles or papers are usually reviewed by a trusted group of experts in the field. This group ensures the quality and originality of the papers, and also ensures that the articles are not plagiarized.
I think there should be a trusted group of people (maybe volunteers) within HubPages that will review content that has been manually flagged by a reader. If they determine that the content is likely plagiarized, then the parties involved should be informed and given a chance to prove ownership.
If they cannot do so, and continue to plagiarize content, then they should be banned, and future accounts from the same IP should be closely monitored.
** ADD - After the Google Panda slap, HubPages has hired many more moderators to clean up low quality articles, as well as copied and plagiarized content. It is still a slow and difficult process, but it seems to be moving in the right direction.
Which do you think is most important?
See results without voting2. Rewards for flagging plagiarized content
I think that hubbers should be well rewarded (e.g. with a higher HubScore), for reporting plagiarized content. After all, doing so not only performs a great service for HubPages, but it also performs a great service to the entire internet community.
It is strange to me that pointing out duplicate content seems to be a bit of a taboo on the HubPages Forums. Someone will squeal witch hunt, and everybody backs off. Unlike witches, these content copiers do exist, and they do a fair amount of harm.
Identifying duplicate content and plagiarism should be applauded and not criticised.
Of course, this can also result in abuses in the system, i.e. reporting someone just because you do not like them or agree with their opinions. However, that is easily resolved by placing Hub Score penalties on someone who keeps making unfounded accusations.
These are just some first thoughts. There are probably many more ways and many better ways for dealing with plagiarism and duplicate content.
What would you do? Let us talk about this and come up with some effective methods for dealing with this prickly but important issue.
Join the HubPages community and share your online writing experiences with us.
Shiba - great hub! If anyone is unclear about plagiarism, then they need to read this. Rated up!
You go Shiba - I'm gonna link this :)
Thumbs up! Duplicate content is ruining the internet, in my opinion. There is nothing that I hate more than to search for information on a topic and to have the same articles reappear for multiple web listings. Not very helpful! People that plagiarize and duplicate content should have serious consequences. It's too bad there wasn't an efficient international method of prosecuting these unfortunate occurrences.
Great one! You are 100% right! The title is perfect because it's absolutely true...sad that anyone would go to such lengths but then again many people ARE sad in this world. I hope HP and other communities can come up with some better solutions. I know how I would feel if someone took my words and tried to use them as their own....violated! Great hub:)
It is unfortunately true that for every legitimate way of making money there are people determined to undermine it and make more money by taking the easy way. Particularly when we are talking about our own thoughts and words being stolen, it's a personal violation.
Thanks for writing this thought-provoking and thorough hub. You don't mind if I just copy and post it under my own name, do you, Shiba:-)?? Kidding. I would NEVER do that. Nice Hubbers finish last, but we should finish first!!
Thank you all for dropping by! I know that many of you are probably busy with the 100 hub challenge :)
[Feline Prophet] My favorite cat, it is good to see you.
"It's going to take concerted effort to tackle this malaise"
That is so very true. When I spot plagiarised hubs I used to only flag them. But, according to HubPages admin. this may not do much and it may not even get the duplicate hub looked at. So nowadays I flag and write a note to the original author. I am hoping that together we can do more, and push HubPages admin to take this issue more seriously.
My favorite frog! How is Kevin? I'm looking forward to the 30 Kevin stories you are going to do for the hub challenge :)
I'm going to try and generate some more dragon pictures and post them on my site. Will send you a link once I get something up.
Thanks for the link! :)
Hi girly_girl, thanks for dropping by. You bring up a really good point with regards to a broad, standardized way of dealing with duplicate content.
There is the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). Probably of most relevance is that you can file a DMCA infringement report on Google:
http://www.google.com/dmca.html#notification
However, you can only do this if you are the owner of the material and the instructions for doing this also look somewhat daunting.
I think part of the problem here is that there is no easy and standard method for people to report online plagiarised content as well as to prove ownership. I think a review board type thing could work pretty well on HubPages though. I will try to open up a dialogue with HubPages Team about it.
Hi Jamie, Yeah - it is strange to me that people will spend their time and effort doing this. It is counter productive, boring, and a waste of every-one's time. Nowadays they are even copying stuff from Yahoo! Answers -- very sad.
I get especially irritated when they appear here on HubPages though. We have such a great writing community here, I would hate to see it affected by these practices.
lol Mighty Mom.
"Nice Hubbers finish last, but we should finish first!!"
It's time to take off our "nice" hats, and kick some ass! :D
Shiba - I'm doing Kevin huh? lol I think the world of hub will kill me if I litter the place with tales about that eejit Dragon :)
And yes, pictures would be great. Can go in the book ;)
Shiba, one of the things you ignore is the community here. With so many writers having so much to lose here, we are the best way to determine the content here. Hubpages may not be able to look at every flagged page, but they should. Their reputation depends on their being a place where authors can post and further their goals. If need be, the authors here should pressure Hubpages to make the changes we need.
One of the more interesting writer-driven solutions I've seen is to post to the forum any duplicate content found. Everyday Miracles is the example I saw where someone who posted a comment to one of her hubs stole the hub and posted it on here under a new name. Not only did the plagiarist incur the wrath of the community, Hubpages moved pretty quickly to remove the page. By the time I read the forum post, the page was deleted.
So that may be a solution. We have to agree among ourselves that we will report and post to the forum any duplicate content we see. In addition, anyone who sees the forum posts also comment on the thief and Hubpages surely will correct the situation to keep it's authors happy. This way we don't have to suffer through "one size fits all" problems that make it harder for us to do what we're all here to do, create good content.
One bad apple doesn't have to ruin the whole bunch, but it sure makes things harder for those of us that are not 'rotten'!
Shiba, thank you so much for writing this. I did not undertand the HubPages rules well until I read your hub. I have one article I republished from my personal site. I think I'll delete it now.
Great article and one that needed to be written about...good job!
Excellent work about a timely subject. Thanks.
LDT, I absolutely agree with you. I think we, as a community can do more to stop these practices and get HubPages admin to take it more seriously.
In my experience, HubPages admin. is great at removing hubs that are duplicates of other hubs within HubPages, but not as good at removing hubs that are plagiarised from other sites.
A potential problem that I see with posting in the Forums is that mistakes can be made, and somebody innocent who is merely doing republication could get publicly implicated. It also may create an unfriendly atmosphere in the Forums. Finally, it may result in some kind of backlash where the person(s) being implicated may decide to take revenge on their accusers.
[Jamie]lol, very well said.
[Tom] Yeah, I think it is unfortunate that people who republish get dinged in the same way as people who plagiarise. Hopefully, we can get this to change.
[Nancy] Thanks! Hopefully I can start a dialogue with HubPages admin. as well. As LDT says, if we all start talking to them about it, they may actually take this issue more seriously :)
[James] Thanks for dropping by.
Great job! I think a review board sounds like a great idea. With so many people asking questions about the subject--it seems like a good idea to write about to me! You answered the Q pretty well, I think! A+ :)
Hi Janetta, Hope your power issues have been resolved.
Thanks for giving me an A+. I haven't gotten one of those in a long time. Wish I had you as my advisor in college :)
Excellent work on a much needed topic. You are right about the DMCA process being daunting. I published a hub which was flagged by HubPages as having a lot of duplicate content - but the work was my own from something that I had written and had been published on a CD Rom 15 yeras ago. I have joint copyright with my colleagues at the time and they are happy for me to use the material.
I contacted the website and the host of the website that had used my material and I also started down the DMCA route and would have to include my 2 colleagues from way back then - one of whom was the editor and the other a researcher, both now retired, neither much interested in this situation.
So I have simply asked the website to acknowledge me as the author - I know that as far as HPages is concerned that this would still count as duplicate content because they demand unique content - but the hub is doing OK and so I shall pursue the less controversial route of being acknowledged on the other site.
My first fear was that my hub would be publicly declared as having duplicate content - but it isn't and as I say is doing OK.
Sure thing Shiba :) Power issues are taken care of. Thanks for asking :D Hopefully it will stay on and not surge back off or anything!!
Iphigenia, thanks for dropping by. Great to hear from someone who has actually tried to file a DMCA. As with most legal processes, this one, I think, is not very useful for regular mortals like us.
How has the response been from the other site?
I find it more than a bit frustrating, that people with legitimate claims of ownership have to jump through such hoops, whereas the people who plagiarise don't have to do much and can very easily subvert the current system. There has to be a better way ...
I'll tell ya... I'm tired of my content being copied onto Yahoo Answers, but the copyright department is great and quickly removes the answer that has the copied info.
I have a hub on duplicate content as well, but it more focuses on filing reports.
lol - yeah its amazing that people would even copy content for Yahoo! Answers. I have also had my answers on Yahoo! copied to other message boards :)
If content copiers directed their tenacious efforts at something constructive, I think they would end up earning more money :D
Also just checked out your hub. Some really good information there. I have to say though, that DMCA reports seem extremely difficult and somewhat scary to file to me. As I said to Iphi, these legal processes are probably not for mere mortals like us, but rather for large organizations that own many lawyers.
Of course Shiba, that's who the laws were written for. Corporations who have the time and money to hire lawyers. The common person is screwed again.
"The common person is screwed again."
lol LDT - This would actually be a very fun topic to hub about :)
Great Hub! I'm writing a book write now (paranormal romance), and I would hate for someone to steal from me.
I've found duplicate articles on other sites when I've been researching for my book. People steal content from the NASA and publish online as their own research!!!
I think you need to differentiate between "ideas" and "content", though. Ideas can be generic: romance; or slightly more specific, a romance that involves some magic and some science. Everybody repeats ideas, but we should write from our own perspectives and build our own ideas off of the generic ones. Scientists build upon other scientists ideas. Authors write many books covering the same topic/idea. The difference there is that these authors do their own research, site sources if needed, and go about their idea from a different angle; therefore, writing their own unique content. We're permitted inspiration; it is imitation that is wrong.
"People steal content from the NASA and publish online as their own research!!!"
lol - yeah. I think many people don't see copying content as anything wrong.
"I think you need to differentiate between "ideas" and "content", though."
That is a very good point. In academia, people are very protective of both their ideas and content. Scientists do build on previous work, but they must cite both ideas and content that they build on.
I think too much protection is not very healthy either. In general I am a proponent of the open source movement - people opening up their work and sharing it freely so that others may build on it and share it freely as well.
I suppose this, like anything else requires balance.
On the other hand, I wholly agree with you that copying is wrong and against the law, and plagiarizing is just really, really sad. There really are better ways to make money :-/
Right. And if you have to think that there are two levels of "idea". The idea "I want to write a story about vampires/wizards/etc." is more open and generic, more like a topic than anything else, while the idea "I am going to invent the first working time machine and here is all of my research and my materials and how I'm going to do this." The first one is an umbrella and very open and belongs to anyone with an imagination; the second one is extremely specific to the individual and requires recognition. Detailed research is another one. It's not fair to steal ideas. Plagiarizing is another form of laziness. Ugh.
This is really interesting.
I think what one would consider to be the umbrella, is different for different people. In academia especially, there is a much greater expectation to cite even umbrella type ideas. This is because the sanctions for plagiarism are extremely high.
The opposite is true for online content. I think that is why many people do not view it as being "wrong". After all, everybody does it - so they should be able to do it as well.
So if someone wanted to write about cars, they would have to mention every other person who ever wrote a story or an article about cars, even if one wrote an article about the history of transmissions and another one wrote one about Fords and this person wanted to write about an imaginary type of car, but because he is mentioning the word "car", he has to cite everything that has ever mentioned cars???? Saying "I'm going to write about cars" is generic. Do you get what I'm trying to say?
I mean, I wrote a hub about tanning fair skin. There are lots of articles about that, but I didn't rely on any of those. I wrote from personal experience, and I cited the information about skin cancer; everything else was from my own experience. And my article about a trip to California. How many other people talk about CA? I wrote an article based on my experience and what I learned while there. I took my own pictures. Because it was my own experience, what I learned myself, I of course used my own angle and words and content. And in your case, how many other people have mentioned the concept of plagiarism but you didn't cite the hundreds of others who just mentioned the word; you used your own ideas to explain it. Now if someone steals any of your sentences or the manner in which you explain it, that is plagiarism; or if someone is inspired to expound upon what you've written and doesn't cite you as their primary source, that is stealing. Direct copy-and-paste is obviously stealing.
Please don't take any of this personally. I just think that the distinction you brought up wrt. ideas and "content" is an interesting one and wanted to explore that distinction.
My opinion is that it is often not clear cut what constitutes an "idea" and what constitutes "content". For example, someone came up with the idea of reality shows. It got very popular and then someone else came up with the idea of doing a singing reality show, and then someone came up with the idea of doing a singing reality show with famous celebrities. At what point does it go from idea to content?
In academia, there is probably an expectation to cite the whole shebang, but in other arenas that is not expected.
So there are different shades to this issue - that is all. Different people sit on different points on this continuum and I don't see it as a clear cut line between the two.
I could for example take your trip to California article and write it in my own words. Is that stealing? In a way because I stole all your experiences, but then I wrote it in my own words, so some people may say it is not. Legally, it will be difficult to go after someone who did that.
The same was true when Apple tried to enforce the "look and feel" of their user interface. The judge decided it was too broad to be enforced, but obviously the people at Apple thought otherwise. If Microsoft were publishing their Windows paper in academia, then they would surely be expected to cite Apple, but in the legal real world, the judge did not think it violated any copyright laws. And indeed different people will have differing opinions about where the line is.
Again, this is just an intellectual discussion for me and not meant to be personal towards you or anyone else.
Oh, I know that. I was just trying to figure what you meant by idea in relation to what I meant. I mean, an inventor on one side of the world may get the same idea as another inventor on another side of the world and have never spoken to each other, read any of the same things, and had done all of their own research. The idea originated from their personal experience, and neither one copied the other. Now if one of the inventors had somehow gotten ahold of the other's idea and research, anything he wrote or did would be copying. If he reads the first inventor's research and improves the invention, without giving proper credit, he is stealing. I just believe that people can have original ideas of similar nature without having stolen from anyone.
Your Hub explains the whole copying thing perfectly; I just wanted to get technical.
"I mean, an inventor on one side of the world may get the same idea as another inventor on another side of the world and have never spoken to each other, read any of the same things, and had done all of their own research."
Yeah I agree. Currently, the spoils go to the person who publishes or gets a patent first. As a result, most people in research are very protective of their ideas. They will often not talk about it, even to colleagues.
That is a major downside, I think. But it is difficult to come up with a good solution that will stop plagiarism and copying, as well as allow for the free flow of ideas.
I think being able to track where ideas originate from would be an interesting online task, and probably something that is very doable by someone like Google. They already have a record of all online publications and their associated dates.
Really a lot to think about. Maybe I'll write a hub about it :)
"Is self-plagiarism acceptable?"
I might be wrong but I don't think there is such a thing.
If I write something 100% originial then I have the right to copy it and put it anywhere I please - by law.
And while duplicating content bogs down the Internet, it is no different than having the same story in multiple newspapers...aside from it's usually gone to the trash in a day or two.
With the Internet it seems to stick around a VERY long time. Then when some sites DO get dropped, the original ones get dropped and the plagerizers get high SE rankings.
The thing that really IRKS me to no end is that I have had my own original content STOLEN and used for profit (still is being used for profit) and although I have written to every *authority* I can think of, NOTHING is ever done about it.
BTW - this is a great hub; why such a low score? The people that run this Hubpages are really giving low scores these days and I believe THAT should be discussed. There are 100's of Hubs on *how to* get better scores - none of them *work* and none of it makes any sense.
I think as some other hubber said "it's a lotto draw".
I don't want to leave hubbing...but if I do; I'm taking my hubs with me!
Melanie
Hay Shib - I think being able to track where ideas originate from would be an interesting online task, and probably something that is very doable by someone like Google.
It isn't the *idea* - it is the writing itself. And it is Very easily doable with the *way-back machine*.
Have you ever tried it?
Hi Melanie,
"If I write something 100% originial then I have the right to copy it and put it anywhere I please - by law. "
That is true - but different organizations may have additional rules on the practice. For example, it is my understanding that Google frowns upon creating multiple copies of the same content, and may place a penalty upon it.
Many people in academia also dislike this practice - although a fair number of people will publish their work on several different journals to get a wider audience. It is one of those gray areas I guess.
And as you know - HubPages also places a penalty on it.
Personally, I agree with you wrt. self plagiarism, but I can also understand why all the organizations above want to discourage the practice.
"although I have written to every *authority* I can think of, NOTHING is ever done about it. "
Yeah - that also irks me. Most of these hosting places would prefer to turn a blind eye. Nowadays I just ignore the stuff unless it causes a significant effect on my articles. Most of these duplicate articles are poorly presented, so they usually just fade away.
"BTW - this is a great hub; why such a low score?"
I think it is traffic dependent. Not many people are interested in reading about plagiarism and duplicate content :) Not the most entertaining subject out there.
"I don't want to leave hubbing...but if I do; I'm taking my hubs with me! "
Yeah I think hubpages is a good supplemental location for publishing articles. I learned a whole lot from the people here but I think ultimately, it makes more sense to focus on your own site. Just use hubpages to help boost traffic and such.
"It isn't the *idea* - it is the writing itself. And it is Very easily doable with the *way-back machine*. "
Have not tried it - but I should definitely have a look. Would be great to have a visual chart showing the flow of an idea. People have tried doing this for academic papers but that is usually too limited.
They should expand the system to patents and combine that with internet content so that I could enter something like "Post-it notes" and see where that came from - lol.
That would be a lot of fun :) Maybe you can already do that with the wayback machine? Will definitely have to check it out.
thanks for an excellent hub on ethics. I have been weeding thru some hubbers that seem unethical. It's a shame that HP doesn't crack down on nuisance and unethical HP members.
"It's a shame that HP doesn't crack down on nuisance and unethical HP members. "
I agree.
Some time ago there was this one hubber who copied all of his hubs and just changed the ordering of some of his paragraphs. And yet many of his stolen hubs appeared on HPs featured hubs list.
Very very sad. There were many complaints but HP did nothing.
At the end - Google took notice and that was the end of that. :D
very very useful information, following this will profit me.
I repeat your comment, "It's a shame that HP doesn't crack down on nuisance and unethical HP members." - This is so true. If only there can be a stop to plagiarism, then it would be a more amazing world where contents are original as it is. This is such a good article and sometimes I check my writings, whether there are any being copied or not. Hub up.=)
glad i came across this hub, very useful information indeed. thanks!
Hi, interesting and useful article.
I was searching to find out if YouSayToo.com would break Hubpage's rules? It seems that you feed your blog into their system and they in turn try to get you more readers. However, as they display your hubs, would this count as 'republishing' or 'copying' your own content?
Voted up and useful.
In general, if the site shows the entire article or large chunks of the article, then it would be considered republishing of your own content.
I haven't tried out YouSayToo.com. It seems that they just show a summary of the article though, which should not count as a copy.
However, this is just based on a cursory look of the site.
So this means that even if it is my own content that is allready up on the net I will still get penalized for it even though it is my property under a creative commons licence? I think this is very wrong of Hubpages.
it's hard to get it completely original,, coped ideas can be paraphrased and redrafted,,,, great hub
Great hub. I'm new here and this cleared up some details about Hubpages rules about content. One thing I did want to ask however. What is to stop me (and I'm going to use this article as an example of my point) copying this whole article and placing it on another website under my name. You would incur a penalty for duplicate content? That doesn't seem fair. Is there a solution to this problem within hubpages rules? or are we just hoping there isn't anyone out there mean enough to ruin every hub on here by copying it to Wordpress or what not.
Hello RobBoyd,
Welcome to HubPages.
Currently, if our content gets duplicated, we can-
1. File a DMCA report with Google. A successful filing will remove the content from Google Search, and can also cause banning of the offender's Google AdSense account. If the offender is not using Google, we can also file with whatever ad networks he/she is using.
2. File a DMCA report with the host provider.
3. Take legal action.
If we get an unwarranted duplicate content flag on HubPages we can write to the staff. In my experience, HP staff is good about removing the flag when they see that the article is clearly ours.
Thanks for the reply. Got myself really confused and realised there must be some system for dealing with it but couldn't find any information. Thanks a lot!
Feline Prophet Level 5 Commenter 2 years ago
Shiba, this is such a comprehensive hub, well thought out and reasoned. Duplicate content thrives thanks to the very nature of the World Wide Web, where anyone can publish anything, usually without censorship. It's going to take concerted effort to tackle this malaise.