Blog post from Cindy Rhoades, Ph.D.
A combination of recent events involving plagiarism and copyright infringements of my business website and intellectual property published on the internet really got my head spinning this past week. Its not just the fact that multiple competitors have blatantly stolen my original copyrighted writing and photography and posted it on their websites for purposes of their own financial gain, for me it is just as much an issue of ethics in business practices in the community.
Plagiarism is a form of theft and the discovery of these multiple incidents left me disturbed and riled. Even though
most of the business people who have lifted my material remove it from their website, once it's discovered and I demand they take it down, the feeling of being 'ripped off' lingers.
I was impassioned to write this blog entry last week during my granddaughter's graduation from Poinciana Elementary School in Key West. Towards the end of the Fifth Grade Recognition Ceremony, the president of the local Rotary Club walked to the stage and presented an achievement award with a $100. U.S. Savings Bond to an outstanding 11 year old child. His brief presentation reviewed the Rotary of Ethics and touched on Rotarian objectives that include, "High ethical standards in business and professions." As I sat and listened to this inspiring presentation to the children on the importance of maintaining high ethical standards, I thought about the unethical adults in the business community who have ignored my copyrights, brazenly snatched my writing and advertising photography, and claimed it as their own.
While I am not a member of the Rotary Club, I am inspired by their principles of truth and fairness and I have always strived to do business with
integrity in intact. I believe the only way to be truly successful in business, and in life, is to inspire confidence through integrity and by doing my best to maintain high ethical standards and practices.
So what I want to do in this blog is to describe the specific incidents of plagiarism and copyright infringement of my intellectual property and the negative consequences that I have personally experienced. While I don't see a benefit in naming names or pointing fingers at specific businesses or individuals who have 'scraped and pillaged' from my work, I do want to make it clear that I find this practice intolerable and I want people to realize that not only is it unethical it can have legal consequences.
Ultimately, my intent is to help encourage and nurture a business community of mutual respect and healthy honest competition. My goal in this blog is to get people to think about what they are doing before they snatch some one's original work, to think about the possible consequences, and to realize that
there are many ethical and legal ways to utilize the work of others such as making footnote citations, obtaining permission to reuse material, and providing back-links to other business web pages which will also give needed SEO credit for rising rankings in the internet search engines.
In case you're not clear of the definition, there is a useful website at http://pwebs.net that helps to make it all very clear. "
Plagiarism is the deliberate or negligent, copying of words, ideas and/or thoughts in whole, or in part, of another and then passing them off as original thought." When you take works that are not your own, and then publish the material online as though it were your own is copyright infringement. Also, you may not know that it's generally not difficult to determine if material has been plagiarized, and there are web tools that make it relatively easy to search for and discover infringement offenses. That is, if you're looking for them ...
Incidents of Plagiarism of Copyright Infringement of Web Pages and Photographs
The cases listed below were mostly found serendipitously through other people I know who found them and notified me. I was not looking for copyright infringements, and in most situations they went undetected for long periods of time. During those long periods of time, the culprits generated considerable business from my original work which can be quantified. Now I know better. I cannot discount unscrupulous practices, and so now I am on the lookout. Below is a list of copyright infringement incidents and how they have impacted my business. There are two categories: 1) Written Content (of which I write almost every word), and 2) Photography (of which I pay photographers):
Written Advertising Content:
- A LOCAL RENTAL AGENCY copied the entire "Things to See and Do" web page, verbatim, from my website by snatching the HTML file and embedding it into their vacation rental website. They gave no credit to me as the author of this work, and claimed it as their own copyrighted material. This content provides valuable back links to an exhaustive list of local Key West businesses and contains first-person reviews written by me. Developer analytics show that it was the 6th most popular link clicked on their web page for 2 years and it was my property!
The consequences of stealing an entire HTML file containing back links and original content I wrote to advertise local businesses is a measurable loss of income for my business, and financial gain by the business who copied my written content verbatim and claimed it as their own. By actually taking an entire file from my website, this agency has not only redirected customers to their own business, they gained the benefit of links from my page to other local businesses who by default gave them credit for my intellectual efforts.
- A BLOGGER FROM AN UNIDENTIFIED LOCATION in cyberspace has been systematically snatching and spinning 'articles I've been writing and publishing on-line through an established article publishing company. Unethical "article spinning" involves copying a published article, rewriting it, and then publishing it as your own material with absolutely no credit to the author. Most people spin to create back-links for websites to boost the position of websites in the search engines. Within hours of publication, I find my plagiarized articles by typing in the exact title of the article with a simple Google search. In this case, the web culprit uses really lame software that robotically snatches the first paragraph of my articles, selectively removes some of my words and replaces them with others, and then uses the paragraph as an entry in his published blog with a back-link. The end result is ugly robotic writing that is obviously plagiarized by a machine. What's even worse is that he most likely charges other internet businesses for back-links to boost their rankings in the search engines.
The consequences of systematically searching and snatching my original writing dilute the value and credibility of my work. My writing is researched and thoughtfully written and it belongs to me. Spinning it through computer software, that crudely changes it and then republishes it to create back-links that can be sold, is a form of plagiarism and is not only unethical but illegal.
- A MEGA INTERNATIONAL VACATION RENTAL ADVERTISING WEBSITE, VRBO, nabbed my unique Key West neighborhood descriptions concept as a way to refine the categorization of the growing list of Key West properties advertised on their website. This became humorously apparent to me one day when I was personally adding a property listing on their site (yes we do utilize other advertising sites to enhance our efforts). They had taken a descriptive name I had created for a condo and mistakenly interpreted it as a "Key West neighborhood." They had actually added it to their website as a Key West "neighborhood" where people could locate properties.
The consequence of snatching my ideas is not really negative in this incident. It is actually somewhat flattering, and some would argue was not infringement. Honestly the only way I could clearly see what they'd done is because they'd taken one of my unique one-of-a-kind descriptive terms for a condo complex and called it a "Key West neighborhood." I'll admit it was a compliment that they recognized the value of my categorization by neighborhoods to the extent where they used the terms verbatim. I emailed them about it the goof as soon as I found it. They were prompt to remove the error, but without any note of thanks for the idea or apology for getting it wrong. I guess my question is more pertaining to ethics
why couldn't they have just asked me, or at least noted credit where it was due? They valued my idea enough to incorporate it. Why not just acknowledge where it came from in a footnote somewhere or something?
Copyrighted Advertising Photography:
High quality and beautiful architectural and advertising photography is a main feature of my Vacation Homes of Key West website. I work with the best local architectural photographer who creates outstanding images, and the photography presentations are expensive. I am generally on site with the photographer when the images are taken and I am often part of staging the shots. Prior to publishing the photos on the website, they are faintly 'water-marked' (or branded) with 'vhkw.com' in the lower right hand corner to clearly identify them as copyrighted property. Nonetheless, there have been multiple incidents that include:
- A LOCAL KEY WEST RESERVATION SERVICE snatched a photograph of mine on their Google Places page to feature their business. This strategic placement associates my photography directly with their business and implies that they represent this property and or claim the photograph as their brand. In case you are not clear on what the 'Google Places' picture is, it's the thumbnail image that comes up when a business is found in a Google search. This agency also snatched and used complete photography sets of our rental properties in their photo gallery and advertised the properties on their own website implying they are the agents for these properties.
- A LOCAL RENTAL AGENCY stole a complete photo set for a specific property and used it on their website to advertise the property. I guess they didn't notice the water-mark because they made not attempt to remove it prior to posting it on their site. And I was even more shocked when a representative stated to the property owner that they had hired a photographer to take the pictures
until they noticed the mark!
- A LARGE INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL WEBSITE based in India stole a feature photograph of mine to advertise their page on Key West and Key West vacation rentals. This website is like an on-line travel magazine featuring vacation places all over the world. For social media purposes, there is a place on each web page to make a comment directly or using Facebook or Twitter or another sharing tool. This website is also utilized to create back-links for their paying customers and anyone who wants to drive internet traffic to their website.
The consequence of advertising photography theft is loss of income for my business and financial gain by other business and individuals who use my images as their own. By posting the architectural and other advertising photography I have paid for on their websites, other business redirect potential customers away from my website to their own. In some cases, other businesses have referred customers to our website to view images and then offered discounted rates by redirecting them back to their business.
So now that I've gotten that off my chest I would like to finish this blog entry with this note:
Many years ago, when the internet was young, there were only a few vacation rental advertising websites on the internet in the entire United States. Most advertised properties all over the country categorizing by state, city, and then town. These websites were pretty primitive and were mostly 'Mom and Pop' webmaster start-ups that have since been purchased and folded into huge vacation rental databases. I had business relationships with many of these people since I started up my vacation rental business in the Florida Keys the same time they did theirs, and I utilized their advertising services.
In those days, I would take my own pictures with a 35 mm camera and have the film developed. Then I would 'snail mail' the pictures to the webmasters, they would scan them (scanners were expensive and not many people had them) and then post them on the web along with the ad copy I would email them. Then they would snail mail the pictures back to me. One day I got a call from one of the vacation rental webmasters. She loved one of my photos of a boat in Key Largo and called me to ask permission to use the picture as a feature photo on the home page of her website
and I said "yes thanks for asking." In those days there seemed to be more of an acknowledgment of ownership and copyrights. Of course, today is a different game completely and nearly every business has a website. There is so much information available on the internet, and it has become easy to copy and paste, snatch and spin, and claim immediate ownership of photography that belongs to others. But the basic principles of business ethics and the laws of copyright infringement and plagiarism remain the same. We would all do well to keep integrity in tact.
Please be clear that all content on this website, all of the ad copy for properties, the photographs, the graphic images, articles, the various guides such as our Key West Beach Guide, unique interactive Ultimate Key West Map that uniquely defines rental neighborhoods, Things to See and Do in Key West, and our list of Key West Events, the contents of this Key West Rental Blog, our videos on Key West and Key West vacation rentals, are my original work and the property of Molly Parker Inc., dba Vacation Homes of Key West. This will be the same for any new content that is added to this website. Please note this is clearly stated in the footer of the website, but I will repeat it here ...
Copyright@ 2006-2011 All rights reserved Vacation Homes of Key West.
