{"id":263126,"date":"2010-02-01T19:55:16","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T00:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.chicagonow.com,2010:\/blogs\/message-from-montie\/\/87.38764"},"modified":"2010-02-02T08:07:38","modified_gmt":"2010-02-02T13:07:38","slug":"google-alerts-and-plagiarism-protect-your-content-and-reprint-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/263126","title":{"rendered":"Google Alerts and plagiarism, protect your content and reprint rights"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

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\"GoogleAlert.png\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

Do you have a Google Alert set up for your content?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Every Monday I get two Google alerts sent to me to monitor certain content. One of the reasons I started doing this was because of my regular contact with the Library of Congress as the Assistant Copyeditor of Kaplan Financial (before it moved to Wisconsin). I would regularly register books and content to prevent plagiarism, and reading through those contracts taught me quite a bit about fair use versus publishing violations. <\/span><\/p>\n

There was also the matter of being employed with two other companies as the Web Editor, where I regularly went to other Web sites to notify them when they were taking content from my employers’ Web sites. These other sites would put my employers’ articles on their sites without contacting me or the reporters and finance managers. What bothered me was not that I had to constantly look for these legal issues but how often it would happen. Even worse was when it was constantly happening to me.<\/p>\n

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I write for quite a few different Web sites<\/a> and work on freelance projects on a project basis for some additional Web sites, so my material can be found in countless places. As much fun as it is for me to write, it’s a double-edged sword because I have to monitor my work that much harder. When you give a Web site exclusive rights to your content, that means anybody who wants to use this content must go through the proper channels from that Web site to purchase reprint rights. Or, if the work is non-exclusive, then the site owner should contact you first<\/em> before posting any of your work. <\/p>\n

Some of you may ask, “What’s the problem? It’s a compliment if they want to use my work.” Yes, it is flattering to have another site use your work, but if you’re writing professionally, that’s taking visits and money away from the site you’re writing for. If another Web site is taking your content and you’re paid per visit or paid solely from this content not being on another Web site, that outside site is basically bootlegging your work. They’re getting the visits and the possible ad revenue while you get nothing. Today I actually had a site owner <\/a>accuse me of spamming the Web site by stating in the comment area that content I’d written for another Web site needed to come down. The Web site owner nor I were ever contacted before the information was posted on this other Web site<\/a>. The worst part was the Web site Customer Service rep<\/a> was so defensive about their actions and accused me of being a spammer for contacting them about it, never once apologizing for using my content without my permission. Professionalism is underrated and this was the first time a Web site has been so angry about their own mistake, but that’s another blog. <\/p>\n

So how do you know when someone is using your content without you knowing? One of the most beneficial ways to track this is to set up alerts to see who is using your name, your alias or your content.<\/p>\n

Now this may get a little difficult if the site is plagiarizing your work and doesn’t use your name. However, I’ve found on a consistent basis that several Web sites I’ve had to contact for freelance and full-time employers, as well as my own work, did indeed use my name. And when they didn’t, I could pretty much filter out when it was mine by phrases I’m notorious for using or repeatedly quoted sentences.<\/p>\n

Now I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest no Web site should be able to put up a few sentences of your blog to help bring you traffic. This is a way that site wins and you too. They have enough information (about three to five sentences) to bring interesting content their way, but then the site says something like “To read more, click here” and it goes to the site you wrote the article for. But not every Web site will do this. I’ve only had one Web site that posted my work without my name, alias or link to get the information out there, but as soon as the site was contacted, it immediately corrected the posting. So how do you protect your content? <\/p>\n

Set up a Google Alert by completing the following steps:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> Visit Google Alerts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2. <\/strong>Type “Search Terms.” Make sure they’re not too detailed to the point where Google would have to match these words up specifically. For example, I use “Shamontiel,” “Message from Montie” or “Maroonsista.” The last two are aliases I’ve gone by for several years, and when these words are tracked by Google, I’m automatically notified. You can also use subjects, but beware of doing that because if other writers are constantly writing about this topic, you’re going to get a long list of content. <\/p>\n

3. <\/strong>Choose what type of alert you want to get and from what category: News, blogs, Web, comprehensive, video, groups. I choose “Comprehensive” to see anything that has my name on it.<\/p>\n

4. <\/strong>Choose how often you want these alerts to be sent to your email address.<\/p>\n

5. <\/strong>Choose how many alerts you want in one email. You can have up to 50 results. If you’re like me and tend to comment on blogs or articles regularly, you may find more of your comments than you will outside content.<\/p>\n

6.<\/strong> Choose an email address that you regularly check, but make sure your spam filter is not on so you miss the alerts. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you have a Google Alert set up for your content? Every Monday I get two Google alerts sent to me to monitor certain content. One of the reasons I started doing this was because of my regular contact with the Library of Congress as the Assistant Copyeditor of Kaplan Financial (before it moved to Wisconsin). I would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4247,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-263126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4247"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}