Is Your Content Provider Selling You Ripped Content?
Ripped content: well the term itself is self explanatory. Content that has been copied from some other site, without any official authority to do so. Although sounds like an extremely trivial issue but is not so, considering the strict copy right laws governing intellectual properties in various countries. Careless usage of such content can thus lead you in some seriously troubled waters and at times involving legalities of more then one country. By the term "content provider" I denote the person, whom you may hire for writing the content of your website, articles or for copywriting a product or service.
Let's look at this problem more closely. You are contacted by some person, quite distinctively, through your IM service. The person introduces himself to be a reputed content provider and for credibility also supplies you with some web site addresses he claims to have given the contents for. The final shot, to sweep you from your feet is their rock bottom prices. Any mention about copyrights is brushed aside or circumvented so effortlessly and cleanly that you stand fooled with both eyes open.
However, this is the end of the stage one of their plan. Enter part two and you are supplied loads of tweaked and altered or down rightly plagiarized material from numerous sites, all packaged into one installment for you. While you are complimenting yourself about a steal deal, what you don't probably know is that there are laws you have violated and for which you might have to pay a price many fold ? than your steal deal!!
Caution- is the word when it comes to hiring content providers or copy writers for your site or products. And there are some unspoken rules within the industry circles. For e.g.,
a) Before hiring a content provider or a copy writer, always check for their portfolio, those with a site of their own are some how more trust worthy.
b) Request and check references,
c) Ask for samples of some specific style or format, this shall help you ascertain the quality of the worker.
d) Have a clear understanding about copy rights and laws pertaining to the same.
e) Expect to go by the prevailing market rates, do not be fooled by throw away prices and always deal only after fair agreements are chalked out.
A good way of finding out ripped content is to Google parts of the final works and cross checking the results.
Following these precautionary guidelines will not only help you respect and abide the laws but also save your precious money that might go into settlement prices once you are caught for violating these laws, plus the bad name that your business might incur for using plagiarized content.
For more information on what Plagiarizing actually is, go through my article titled: Plagiarism ?an Overview.
About the Author
Mr. Vishnu is CEO and founder of easternBrain Inc. a gen nex .com company based in Rajasthan, India. easternBrain Inc. specializes in providing professional content and copy writing services. They provide a full spectrum of writing services and have written on varied topics like politics and economics apart from web content and copy writing. Under the supervision of Vishnu easternBrain Inc. has also written business plans and eBooks.
You can reach Mr. Vishnu at
[email protected]
