For years now, as the Internet has grown in stature and the number of audience channels has risen exponentially, the phrase “content creation” has also come to the forefront. PR professionals are now urged to behave as journalists for their clients and corporations, literally becoming content factories to keep fresh content flowing via a number of platforms—with the Web being the most important.
But with the recent, high-profile cases of Jonah Lehrer and Fareed Zakaria, the threat of content fraud and plagiarism is casting a larger shadow on content generation. Lehrer, (now former) staff writer at The New Yorker, speaker and author of the best-selling book Imagine: How Creativity Works, was found to have made up quotes he attributed to Bob Dylan in the book. Not exactly plagiarism, but a curious move nonetheless by someone who seemingly had it made in the rarefied world of science, research and media.
Zakaria, the Time magazine writer and CNN host, was suspended by both outlets for stealing several paragraphs from a New Yorker magazine essay and using them in one of his Time columns. CNN then posted a version of that column on its Web site. Both of these cases could be explained by citing the pressures of media and journalism—in a rush to create content that will satisfy the masses—and the editors. That’s exactly what Jeff Domansky, CEO of Peak Communications and editor and blogger of The PR Coach, an online resource for PR professionals, thinks happened.
“There’s a tremendous time pressure on journalists to be first or fastest,” says Domansky, who adds that with media cutbacks, there’s less editorial oversight—or none in the case some outlets—that would prevent these cases from happening.
Whether it’s the pressure involved or just laziness, content theft hit closer to PR’s home when Brad Phillips, author of the Mr.MediaTraining blog, posted that he had been the victim of plagiarism, and called out the offender. Phillips noticed that a story on BizCEOs.com titled “Media Reporters Require Rules” was eerily similar to one he wrote in 2011. Phillips got in touch with the author, Neil Kuvin, and Kuvin’s editor, pointing out the similarities in the rules. He asked that the post be removed from the site. He received this note back from Kuvin:
“Brad: It’s gone. I’m sorry. I intended to at least attribute but obviously didn’t. Neil”
EASY PICKENS
Phillips details the entire incident on his blog, but it underscores the scramble to get new content created and the desperation that occurs, particularly among communicators. “In a lot of cases, it’s easy to get away with it if a site is relatively unknown,” says Corey Eridon, inbound marketing manager at HubSpot and frequent contributor to the HubSpot blog. As a blogger herself, Eridon posts shortcuts and tips that make content creation less of a drain for communicators. She’s just about seen it all in terms of content theft. “I’ve seen entire Web sites scraped for their content and republished,” says Eridon. “I see blog posts republished in their full form, sometimes without attribution. Sometimes they do have the attribution, but it’s not like that makes it any better.”
PREVENTATIVE MEASURES
While Eridon says its impossible to police every single incident, there are ways to protect and defend your content. Before the fact, Allison Fitzpatrick, partner in the advertising, marketing and promotion practice group of law firm Davis & Gilbert, suggests getting familiar with the “fair use” principles—factors that are considered if there’s a question about a copyright violation. They are as follows:
• The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
• The nature of the copyrighted work;
• The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
• The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Then, post a copyright notice on your Web site. Such a notice in and of itself won’t stop someone from pilfering your content, but at least they’ll know you mean business when it comes to content protection, says Fitzpatrick.
A section on your Web site or blog with “content usage guidelines” can’t hurt either, although Eridon doesn’t see anyone’s content rules stopping anyone from stealing. “The guidelines come in handy to field requests of the respectful site owners who get in touch with you to ask permission to share your content,” she says.
A tip on creating your own guidelines: Make them short and sweet so it’s easy for those requesting to cite your content to digest the information (and follow the rules) quickly, says Eridon.
Then, monitor your content. It needn’t take too much time. Once per month, Domansky uses the free plagiarism search tool Copyscape to check his content for duplication online. For clients, he’ll perform one-off checks as needed. “This is a part of reputation management as well as protecting a business’ products or services,” says Domansky. “It should be a regular part of the PR role.” (See the sidebar for Domansky’s tips on handling content thieves.)
Apparently, Google feels that fighting plagiarism should be part of its role as well. On August 20, 2012, the company issued a search algorithm update that will speed up the removal of links to sites containing plagiarized content. “This couldn’t happen soon enough,” says Domansky.
We agree.
CONTACT:
Jeff Domansky, [email protected]; Corey Eridon, [email protected]; Allison Fitzpatrick, [email protected].