Today I'm pleased to share with you a guest post from writer and academic Brittany Lyons.Brittany is writing about plagiarism, a problem that with the advent of digital publishing has become widespread. In this article, Brittany explains what writers can do to try to protect themselves.
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For authors, protecting your copyright is harder now than it has ever been before, and yet it is increasingly necessary.
For an example of just how bold some plagiarists have become, one need only consider the recently-released thriller Assassin of Secrets, which comprises mainly lengthy passages that were lifted from at least thirteen other novels. Not only was this book published, but it garnered rave reviews from a variety of critics who likened its author's style to many classics of the genre.
Plagiarists have a number of tools at their disposal. Content can be copied and pasted at the click of a mouse, easily reproduced and misrepresented as being created by the plagiarist. Articles can be distributed within social networks that require that authors join or gain access to protected pages to verify they own the rights to the content. Works can then easily be distributed to millions without any of the costs typically associated with publishing a text.
While it may seem that works are only plagiarized on occasion, it happens fairly frequently - particularly in academia. Professors and even students trying to get PhDs often have their papers stolen and, in some cases, even sold without their permission. Protecting a creative work is more challenging than ever before, and innovative means for responding to copyright breaches have also evolved.
One way to address plagiarism is to change the rules, establishing a framework in which some actions traditionally defined as copyright infringement are permitted or even encouraged, while clamping down firmly on others. One such framework is the Creative Commons, a foundation that has developed a series of licenses that allow content producers to finely control how their works can be used.
Licenses specify whether or not a work can be resold and/or derived from, and whether derivations must be distributed under the same terms. While this model may seem threatening, it actually offers the potential to liberate works to entirely new audiences. If an author's greatest enemy is obscurity, then placing works under a Creative Commons license is a strong protective measure.
Even so, adopting a Creative Commons license is a worrying prospect for many, as the risk that someone else may try to pass off the work as their own still exists. Fortunately, there are other mechanisms of guarding against plagiarism that uphold more traditional publishing models.
One option is self-publishing. However, writers should make sure they use platforms that employ Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies. These counter-plagiarism methods usually restrict access to an author's works to specific devices, which prevents the easy copying of text.
One such platform is Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). The KDP program is free to join, and makes titles instantly available on Kindle devices, as well as an array of apps for smartphones and other devices. Amazon only collects money when authors sell their works, taking a minimum 30 percent cut of every sale. [Kindle publishing is, of course, covered in my new course, Kindle Kash - Nick.]
For those wishing to reach beyond the digital realm, Amazon's Kindle platform integrates closely with its print-on-demand service, Createspace. By controlling a significant portion of e-publishing, Amazon and other e-book providers can inexpensively and effectively guard against plagiarism.
While books represent much of an author's value, blog posts and other online publications are becoming increasingly valuable as well. Blogs are a great way for authors to connect with readers, network with industry contacts, and improve their craft. Unfortunately, though, it is all too simple for a plagiarist to purloin a brilliant blog post. While this happens even to established professionals, they at least have the benefit of a vast readership to police other blogs for the stolen content. Besides that, though, there are a number of free measures available to guard against website content theft.
The simplest way to deter theft involves using a snippet of Javascript code to disable copy-and-paste functionality on an author blog. While this is not hard to circumvent, it will discourage most casual plagiarists. The WP-CopyProtect WordPress plugin is a great choice for most Wordpress blogs.
Another way for writers to safeguard their work is by using an automated plagiarism detector such as Copyscape. When given the address of a web page, Copyscape scans its database to determine if the content of that page plagiarizes any known works. As repeatedly checking a number of pages by hand would prove time-consuming, Copysentry (from the organization behind Copyscape) is an inexpensive premium service that automates the process on a regular schedule.
Whether it is by redefining rights, selling to protected platforms, or employing automated tools such as Copyscape, content producers and consumers are waging an intense and escalating battle. While the landscape of this fight is ever-changing, the writer has many tools available to address and react to the threat of plagiarism in the digital age. As technology becomes faster and more intelligent, these mechanisms will evolve further to offer even greater protection for writers.
Byline: Brittany Lyons is a writer for PhDs.org and aspires to be a psychology professor, but decided to take some time off from grad school to help people learn to navigate the academic lifestyle. She currently lives in Spokane, Washington, where she spends her time reading science fiction and walking her dog.
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Many thanks to Brittany for a thought-provoking article.
I would just make a couple of points in response to it. First of all, while I'm a fan of Creative Commons, it's important to understand that this type of licensing has no official legal status. It's main benefit, in my opinion, lies in allowing authors to specify what rights in their work they are willing to cede, thus helping to prevent unintentional copyright breaches. But applying a Creative Commons license to your work will NOT provide you with any additional legal protection against plagiarists.
Secondly, I don't agree 100 percent with Brittany that authors should always aim to publish digital versions of their work with DRM. In my view there are drawbacks as well as advantages to going down this path.
For one thing, as the music companies have found out, DRM is very unpopular among buyers, who typically wish to consume the work they have purchased in a number of different ways and don't see why they should be limited to just one device. In certain cases, with high-priced works in particular, applying DRM may be justifiable, but with a 99c novella (say) it's arguable whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. In any event, this is, of course, a decision every writer will have to make for him/herself.
Do you agree with Brittany or not about plagiarism? And what measures do you use personally to reduce the risk of becoming a victim yourself? Please leave any comments (or questions for Brittany or me) below. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!
Wordcloud by courtesy of Wordle.
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