High-quality content is what all content creators aspire to have on their online platforms. It generates traffic, builds a loyal follower base, and improves the website’s SEO rankings. Companies and individual content creators spend tens if not hundreds of thousands (and sometimes more) to make sure that their audience is satisfied and keeps growing.
Sadly, content theft often gets in the way. Because of how expensive and hard to create good content is, a lot of fraudulent “creators” opt for stealing it instead. Currently, though, the best thing one can do to protect one’s content is to check it regularly, invest in protective technology, and report theft when it happens. Follow these tips to protect yourself now against future content theft. And let’s hope that content thieves will soon be a thing of the past, thanks to improved copyright regulations and AI-driven theft prevention.
What is already being done against content theft?
Content theft is already a major problem online, and it has serious implications for content creators who fall victim to it. They include lower SEO rankings, damaged website performance (if web scrapers trying to steal content are very persistent), and the loss of loyal followers, among others. If you’re a content creator, you need to fight for your safe online reputation.
Plagiarism checkers
Online platforms akin to websites and social media pages are not the only places where content theft happens. Violation of intellectual rights is as old as humanity itself. In the past, authors could steal their colleagues’ content and hope to remain undiscovered. Now, thanks to tons of helpful software, it is way easier to catch content thieves.
One of the places where content theft is especially common is colleges. Students who struggle with dozens of academic assignments and are naive enough to plagiarize get caught instantly. Anti plagiarism software used by universities is highly sensitive. What’s more, it checks students’ papers for similarities not only with online content and textbooks but also with papers submitted by other students earlier. This prevents resubmissions.
Google Alerts and Copyscape
As to online content creators, the best thing they can do is identify and report content theft once it happens. Google Alerts is among the pioneer methods for doing this. Once you suspect content theft (for example, if something seems off in your website’s metrics), visit the Google Alerts website, paste a section from your content, and select what kinds of platforms should be searched. Google Alerts isn’t the most advanced content theft-detection tool, but it works.
But Copyscape is much more convenient. It’s like a plagiarism checker for students and teachers except for online content creators. All you have to do is copy the URL of the page you suspect was stolen and press “Go”— Copyscape will do all the work. And if you want to double-check using several tools, there are good alternatives to Copyscape, such as CopyProtect and DupliChecker (among many others).
Gathering evidence and reporting
But identifying content theft is only the first step you need to take. Once you know for sure that your content’s been stolen and who the perpetrator is (meaning the place where it’s now reposted), you have to take screenshots and report the theft to search engines or the hosting providers of the platform where the content stolen from you is now posted.
Alternatively, you can contact the perpetrator directly by sending them an email featured on the website. Perhaps, one of the authors writing for them has stolen your content, and the website owners aren’t aware of this. They might be willing to cooperate and solve the problem by removing the stolen content.
What else will be done in the future to prevent content theft?
But what’s currently being done to fight content theft is just the beginning of the uphill battle for intellectual property rights. A lot remains to be done. Hopefully, copyright regulation will soon be improved everywhere (the European Union has already pathed the way for other states). In turn, advanced technology will help automate theft prevention and identification.
Anti-bot technology
Nowadays, most content theft happens using bots as opposed to manually. When the so-called “web scrapers” are done well, they simulate humans to the point that it’s hard to determine whether the activity is by a regular web surfer or a bot. Web scrapers collect information online, and content theft is only one of their specialties.
Luckily, thanks to technological advancements, it’s possible to protect one’s website from bots. Anti-bot technology (for example, ShieldSquare or DataDome) is great at blocking web scrapers. Such services aren’t typically free, but the investment is worth it, especially for content creators who depend on high SEO rankings. Also, research and development in content protection never stop, so soon enough, even more, helpful solutions will be available to the public.
Improved copyright regulation across the globe
Most importantly, global leaders are finally doing more for intellectual property protection, at least in developed countries. The European Union Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market is one of the best copyright-related regulations at the moment. Hopefully, the rest of the world will follow suit.
Sure, no matter what global leaders do legislation-wise, content theft won’t be completely eradicated any time soon. So it’s always a good idea to invest in anti-web scrapers and check the metrics of your website for any suspicious changes. Still, the stricter international copyright laws get, the more dangerous it becomes for offenders to keep stealing content.
More sensitive plagiarism checkers and AI-driven software
No matter how good an average plagiarism tool for teachers is at the moment, it fails to catch 100% of unoriginal content in student papers. The same is true for plagiarism detection on online platforms. But AI-driven plagiarism detection will continue to grow, and it’s a good idea for leaders to both support such technology and invest in it whenever possible. It’s not only beneficial for content creators across the globe but also a potentially lucrative investment for investors themselves.
