It never ceases to amaze me – the sheer audacity of businesses thinking they can get away with it. Is it because there are so many websites out there that they think they won’t get caught?!
What I’m referring to is plagiarism. Whether it’s an entire website or specific areas of copy, it happens to Coast Digital’s site all the time! In my nine months with the business I’ve been stunned at how many times the Coast Digital website has been copied outright.
While it’s clear that other agencies want a share of the market, it’s extremely worrying when some try to sell digital marketing services but can’t even come up with their own website copy. We’ve also found that some of our clients have had their sites copied too.
However, in every instance to date, as soon as the company concerned have been informed that they’ve infringed our copyright by plagiarising our site, they remove the offending material.
So how do we monitor this? One way is using a tool called Copyscape (www.copyscape.com). This free online service claims it will defend your rights online, and will protect content against online plagiarism and theft.