Steal This Blog Post
September 30, 2009 
Author 
In Peter Kim recently wrote on the plague of plagiarism. I don’t really see it as a plague, having your work copied is merely a byproduct of producing digital content. Many fight it. I’ve put it to work for my music and I do the same for the words I write.
Steal this blog post. I’m not joking. Copy-paste this post onto your own blog or site. You can credit me if you want to (this blog is registered under a creative commons license meaning you’re encouraged to do this) but if you don’t want to, that’s just fine.
Why?
I want to see my ideas spread
I don’t necessarily care if my name is always behind them. It’s nice to get credit, and a majority of people actually do credit – but that’s not why I’m sharing ideas. Seeing them spread, whether I’m credited or not is reward enough.
The people smart enough to sort the wheat from the chaff don’t read scraper sites
I’d be shocked if anyone is actually subscribed to true scraper sites. And if anyone stumbled across your content that was scraped, it’s blindingly obvious it was scraped. If people can’t figure this out, they’re probably not the type you want to connect with anyway.
The engines are smart, they know what the original content is
This post will outrank those who steal it verbatim at a later date. Any site outright stealing content is not going to acquire as much engine authority as the original site. There are enough intelligent people threading the web in meaningful ways that long-term this counters attempts from those who leech but don’t contribute.
It’s going to happen anyway
Over time, several readers have pointed out to me that other sites outright copy-paste posts from this blog. I’m well aware. The web makes copy-paste simple enough that others are going to steal your content. You might as well embrace it rather than play digital whack-a-mole and go after it (you’re fighting a losing battle).
So what can you do to embrace it?
Put the scrapers to work for you
Use Yoast’s great RSS Footer Plugin so that if anyone uses your feed, it will be clear the content is coming from your site. Also if you do the related links thing, make sure to put them inside your posts itself instead of using a plugin (unless your plugin is actually adding those links to your RSS feed along with posts). Then if someone scrapes a single post, they are going to scrape a whole bunch of links along with it even if there aren’t links in your post.
Use creative commons
I’m not going to say creative commons is perfect. But at least it encourages re-use with attribution. If it even reminds just a few people to attribute who otherwise would not have, it’s a good thing. Remember that creative commons does not replace copyright, rather, it allows you to modify your copyright terms so your work can succeed in a digital world, legally. A creative commons license is in essence a marketing tool if you think about it.
If they aren’t stripping out your links, do nothing
Your site and all the other sites you link to will enjoy free links.
If they are stripping out your links or not crediting you, send a friendly email
You’d be surprised how often a friendly email asking others to credit works.
If authoritative sites use your post ideas, well…it happens
On December 3, 2008 I wrote a post titled how to overcome writer’s block. On September 1, 2009 SEO Book wrote a post of the exact same title. Chris Pirillo wrote the same post on September 10, 2009. It’s not an altogether original post idea in the first place so I’m not going to claim original ownership (and I doubt they will try to either) but I want to illustrate that this situation will happen to you too. Enough people are participating that good ideas – original or unoriginal – don’t happen in a vacuum.
Bottom line?
Embrace the reuse, remixing or even outright theft of your content or ideas – fighting it is in most cases a waste of resources and is something that’s usually not a big deal. As a digital content producer, the sooner you make peace with this, the better.
The web is in many ways a naturally a self-corrective mechanism. With the ways social media and search engines are evolving, if they want to continue to inspire independent content producers to put their work out there (something they need to survive) they will continue to provide greatest benefits to the original creator. If you stop and think about it, the current state of the internet does an exceedingly good job of this which is amazing considering the complexity of the system.
Stephen replied | Sep 30, 2009 (1 comment)
A fascinating stance, full of hope that Google will outrank copied text. An interesting experiment I recently carried out used http://texthunter.co.uk to see how much of Wikipedia had been lifted. The answer – lots! An article on Califonia for example had been copied by over 5,000 websites, and almost all did not credit their source. When Wikipedia gets criticised for accuracy, a more major concern should be the number of dated Wiki Paste Jobs that are now being treated as fact around the world.
JOAN FRANCIS replied | Sep 30, 2009 (1 comment)
To me Peter Kim seemed much more concerned about protecting his “brand” and getting credit instead of the natural processes and sharing dynamics in the the social stream! Ego is always transparent.
Eric Friedman replied | Sep 30, 2009 (9 comments)
Adam – I totally agree.
In fact a great example of this in action is over at http://www.businessinsider.com/embed-post where they give an “embed this post” link on every article so that they control the attribution. It is a great way to say “steal this post” while controlling your linkage back to your site.
Better to get out in front of these issues with the RSS footer plugin and other methods vs. trying to fight a losing battle with the scrapers.
Shari Weiss replied | Sep 30, 2009 (23 comments)
Adam, one of the primary reasons you are my favorite blogger is because you seem to embody EVERY positive value I recognize in this evolution of communication: authenticity, sincerity, helpfulness, clarity, and wisdom.
I’m with you 100% that “sharing” is what the Web is all about – Together we will All become stronger: this, of course, is at the foundation of brainstorming.
I’m reminded what I’ve heard about successful people: By the time they’ve shared their great ideas, they are already moving on and up.
It really is all about BUILDING, rather than trying to take others down.
Keep up the wonderful posts . . . and art you create.
John E. Bredehoft replied | Sep 30, 2009 (8 comments)
Things can sometimes get a little murky, especially when you have scraping sites that don’t look like scraping sites (it can happen), and when, as you note, more popular blogs/writers appropriate ideas from less popular ones. I wrote about this (the first couple of paragraphs may seem VERY familiar to you), but what I neglected to state was that we do have tools to identify when such plagiarism takes place – tools that didn’t exist 100 years ago when people were appropriating things from others.
Maria Reyes-McDavis replied | Sep 30, 2009 (5 comments)
Great post with a reality check for many. My take has always been like your’s. You’ll never totally win against content scrapers and it might not be the best approach. If you can gain some benefit, especially links, from their activities I’m all for it :-) I highlighted Yoast’s plugin for the exact same reason here:
http://www.mariareyesmcdavis.com/quick-tip-against-content-scrapers/
You’ve given much more to think about it, loved the approach!
Johanna replied | Oct 1, 2009 (2 comments)
I so agree with what Shari just posted. The one who serves, is the greatest – whether or not others recognize it.
Moving on and up!
Steve replied | Oct 3, 2009 (1 comment)
I saw a video of the Cutts Google guy saying the way to combat stolen content is to put links back to your site within the content like you suggest.
Wheelchair Stair Lifts replied | Dec 18, 2009 (1 comment)
Very informative post, Adam.
I have installed it already in my blog. It is very helpful. Not that it will stop those content scrapers from taking our contents, but it adds authority (link juice) back to the original author.
“If you can’t fight them, join them!” … at your advantage. :)
Melissa replied | Jul 27, 2010 (1 comment)
What a great post, I had never really thought about this, but you have given me insight on it as well as I have taken your advise to use Yoast’s great RSS Footer Plugin.