Is there such a thing as plagiarism?

[marsh]

Assuming that we aren't talking about public domains (those no longer protected by copyright) how can one avoid plagiarizing a domain? At times, the term 'copyright infringement' is used but then, is there a difference between this and plagiarism?

 

[Connected]

The only difference in those terms is a legal one. You can plagiarize content and not have it called copyright infringement if no one takes legal action against you. But it's still plagiarism and it's still wrong.

 

[ritchie]

Plagiarism is wrong and I think any sane person should avoid completely. How then do you ensure that you are being original in the selection of a domain name or is it always a case of who gets there first?

 

[Simone]

I have taken some really serious steps to ensure that there is no plagiarized content on my site, and also to prevent other people from stealing or plagiarizing any of my own work. I think that it's really important to guard against this online. Of course almost all the information online is some sort of remix, but it's best to make sure that there is enough of your own voice/personality in it to really make it yours.

 

[Mallard]

Yeah, plagarism does happen, and recently Google tried to clamp down on it, so its best to avoid for your own sits as it damages your SEO. What's really frustrating is when the plagarised site ranks higher than the original!

 

[tulip]

Yeah, plagarism does happen, and recently Google tried to clamp down on it, so its best to avoid for your own sits as it damages your SEO. What's really frustrating is when the plagarised site ranks higher than the original!

How rampant are cases where plagiarized sites rank higher? Is there anything Google can do in case anyone lodges a complaint? Plagiarism is illegal, and I try as much as possible to ensure I have original content.

 

[Mallard]

Avoiding plagarism is really easy: just make sure you only use content where the author has given permission and a licence, or write your own!

In many cases a site that deliberate steals content will have spent more time on SEO than the original author, probably because the author had to write their own content. The other annoyance I've seen is where a university, or student, with a ,edu or .org account copies an article because the .edu domain name has such clout it ranks higher even when the other article is older, and the author's name is on the stolen work.

Google makes it very hard to lodge DMCAs to get this content penalised or taken down.

 

[Simone]

I have never had any of my content stolen from any of my sites. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing... Maybe it's not good enough to steal but I guess I should be grateful that I have never had to deal with that kind of problem.