In a 2013 article (click here) I said: “The Fast-Food” Mentality Does Not Work in Business Related Writing”. That’s especially true online. This article contains MY near decade long experience based advice for website owners who may be struggling to find new, useful and original content to publish on their sites.
Even if 99.9% of other websites copy and paste other people’s content on their website, it is no justification for YOU to join them in doing it!
YOU were given a fully functional brain by God. Otherwise, you could not venture into an activity like website news “reporting” as a BUSINESS!
For heavens sake, when you’re publishing based on a BBC News report, let’s know it’s a BBC News report. Don’t borrow ALL the wordings from BBC and then say YOU are telling us a BREAKING NEWS STORY!
Incidentally, you can DEVELOP your God-given brain to its FULL potential, to come up with your own ORIGINAL wording for the same bit of news.
That way, when you publish on YOUR website, no one can accuse you of “copying and pasting”.(NB: Even then, you’re still better off stating your source!! )
The problem is our quick-fix culture today makes too many people, TOO much in a hurry to get results. So, they are often unwilling to spare the time to do the needed.
When you paraphrase another person’s original words/thoughts, if you did NOT originally CONCEIVE those “ideas” as your OWN brainchild, you MUST give due ATTRIBUTION: SAY SO e.g. “this was originally written or said by XYZ and I found it so compelling that I had to share it here on my website”.
Also an element of GREED is at play here, in the sense some people want to enjoy PRESTIGE and RECOGNITION from their fans and followers by passing off someone else’s “content” they gain privileged access to, as theirs!
It’s so bad now that many do not even know where/when to stop…
For instance, in another article I wrote 2013, titled “Young People Must Be Taught To Be Original! (click to read)!“, I narrated how I discovered a young blogger in Nigeria’s Anambra state using a “stolen and viciously manipulated” version of my popular Cost-Saving Farm Business Ideas article titled “Producing Good Catfish is Important, But Finding Good Buyers Is Imperative” (click to read).
Not only did he copy and paste it, without including my by-line on his blog, would you believe he also went as far as REPLACING my phone number with his, at the end, where I asked the reader to call me for help in making use of the ideas in my article???
I was so livid that I called him from where I was in a Cotonou cyber cafe and gave him a 24 hour ultimatum to remove the article. And I warned him that if he did not, I would lodge a complaint with regulatory bodies on the web – which would get his host to shut down his site.
Read the rest of the story here…
The truth, as I’ve said in past articles is that in certain climes (e.g Nigeria), there is a VERY severe disregard for intellectual property protection […in case you did not know it, I AM a full blooded 44 year old Nigerian, born and raised there].
Even religious leaders “borrow” other people’s content, and pass it off as theirs for use in preaching to their followers. I KNOW this because I have worked closely with some who did this right before my very eyes!
In order to protect myself (I’ve had many instances in which I had to chase down content thieves online in other parts of the world), about a year ago, I began using the Content Protection service offered by http://www.dmca.com/ on my blog.
Another thing I did to protect myself – from early on – was to DELIBERATELY seek to saturate the web with my articles via a syndication service like Ezinearticles.com
That way, if anyone tried to use my work, the search engines would be more likely to readily link the words with my name – since getting it accepted from me at Ezinearticles.com implied I had been verified to be the original author.
If you own a website, and you know you publish 100% original content, you may wish to do the same things I did.
1. Consider using the FREE version of the http://www.dmca.com/ service.
2. Also try doing some article marketing via Ezinearticles.com
3. Then, if you are willing to challenge yourself, try and be a bit more prolific in your writing. Be sure you write useful, good quality content though – NOT fluff!
4. Use Social Media channels to republish/propagate your content
The above will over time make the search engines, and people who come in contact with your work, recognize you, as the OWNER of your words – and TRUST you. Once that happens,. you should be reasonably safe from content thieves.
Even if a dispute come up, you WILL have a trail of evidence (in form of your relentlessly created volume of past writing/content) to present as proof that you have NO NEED to steal other people’s stuff!
It’s worked fairly well for me so far, which is why I READILY tell others that no website on EARTH can lay claim to ANY of the content on my websites!
On a final note, some funny characters have argued to my hearing, that when people choose to copy from you, it’s a form of flattery.
My answer has always been that when flattery HURTS me, I cannot see it as that (i.e flattery) anymore.
People who pass off my work as theirs DENY me the recognition and reward due to me as the OWNER and ORIGINATOR of that content.
It is certainly NOT something for me to smile about!
That’s why I agree with Debra Gould, who wrote the EXCELLENT article titled “Copying Web Content Isn’t Flattery – It’s Plagiarism(click to read)!”
PS: In case you wonder, here’s what qualifies me to speak competently on THIS issue!
I write a new article daily – from Monday to Saturday (sometimes Sunday) on this blog – and ONE of my key reasons (which I initially chose NOT to announce) was to PROVE to any doubters that I AM the original author of whatever appears on my blog.
Today, a lot of my content is widely syndicated online.
On this website – www.tayosolagbade.com – I have over 1,000 articles.
And each day that passes, at least ONE new article (or my weekly newsletter), or a new PDF report, or a Power Point Slide show, or You tube Video joins them.
One of my reasons for doing this is that years ago, I got emails asking “Are you really the one who writes that volume of stuff?”
That annoyed me a lot.
In reality, I’ve found that people who express such doubts often lack the Emotional Intelligence to stick to their purpose with integrity – especially if they feel they cannot see an immediate reward.
And since they can’t they find it hard to believe any other person can!
What they did not know was that all my life I had been succeeding by excelling in areas where few ventured to dare.
As an employee, over a 7 year period in Guinness Nigeria, I excelled using my self-taught spreadsheet programming skills to single handedly build spreadsheet software that replaced manual data recording and report generation processes in different departments I worked.
No one else could do what I did, and I gained rapid recognition across the company for it – including the IT department. Rapid career advancement opportunities resulted in the process.
As an online entrepreneur, I AM doing the same thing…e.g by building and selling custom MS Excel-VB Driven software, writing creative content for use by clients, on and off the web etc.
Not only do I create new and original content in various channels, I also happen to create stuff that gets me the positive attention and interest of PAYING clients within and outside Africa.
Plus, my work has also earned me “recognition” and acknowledgement from established experts online.
Achieving the above does NOT come easily.
It takes hard work and diligence to relentlessly create new and useful content to publish on such a regular basis.
I spend hundreds of hours THINKING up new ideas, then writing, and building new content based on them to promote my products and services!
It may interest you to know that over 80% of my buyers, find me online, on their own, without having ever heard from, or about me before. And it is my WRITTEN content which they encounter online – often via search engines – that brings them to me!
Let me add here that I have to do my own content creation, while STILL delivering similar material to my clients!
That’s not a vocation for the faint hearted – or lazy…OR intellectually indolent…!
But because I’ve been doing it for so long, and it is My PASSION, I get it done quite well, quickly – seemingly effortlessly.
So much so that I still find plenty of time to spend with my kids – and share valuable REAL LIFE skills with them (see example below)
It is the above – evidence of which is available on THIS BLOG and my other websites – that makes me VERY competent to comment on this pandemic of Content Abuse that plagues us in Nigeria.
I hope those concerned will have the dignity and self-respect to mend their ways from today!
Final Words: Here’s why ANYONE guilty of content abuse in any form should mend their ways…
You have been made in the IMAGE and LIKENESS of the Creator Himself.
Therefore a SMALL task like creating your OWN original content is definitely NOT beyond YOU!
[SNEAK PREVIEW : How We Cheaply Make Cup Cakes without an Oven or Cooker, & Sell Them for Profit – By Tayo, Fela, Emeka, & Chika SOLAGBADE (FREE PDF Download)]
