Web content theft is bad, but is it as bad as you think?
Myth 1. Web Content Theft & Other Internet Copyright Violations
Are Hard to Pursue.
At least for written content, search engines make internet
copyright violations easier to find and pursue than violations
in print.
It is very easy to take injunctive action against a copyright
violator. It would be a waste of money in most cases to go to
an attorney. Simply file a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright
Act) complaint with Google, Yahoo, MSN, other search engines,
any advertising programs of which the site is a part, and/or
the site's host. I just filed a complaint with Yahoo the other
day. They responded within two days.
Myth 2. Search Engines Inflict a Duplicate Content Penalty on
Content Theft Victims.
There is no duplicate content penalty in major search engines
for work that is duplicated across different sites; only for
content that is duplicated across the same site.
If there were a duplicate content penalty for content shared
across websites, distributing content to other sites would not
be such a popular website promotion tactic. Do a search on
"Secrets of Writing a Business Website Homepage," one of my
articles, and you'll see it on hundreds of websites--none of
them delisted.
Myth 3. Web Content Theft Completely Destroys Your Site's Value
to Web Surfers.
Web content theft erodes the links of trust that make up the
web. But it won't completely destroy your site. The web is so
vast that even having your content on hundreds of sites does
not mean that people will find your site unoriginal and not
worth visiting. Just look at how much of any news website is
"duplicate content" in the form of newswire articles.
In short, web content theft is bad, but it's not the end of the
web--that is, unless people let it be.
Joel Walsh is a website content writer:
http://UpMarketContent.com [Web publication requirement: use
"website content writer" as the anchor text/visible link text
for the URL: http://UpMarketContent.com; EXCEPT if
redistributing (article bank, aggregator, or clearinghouse),
anchor text optional.]
