It Was Bound to Happen Eventually… My Steemit Content Got Stolen
Yesterday, I randomly decided to go to the “Ukulele” tag. As I mentioned in a Post last week – I’m always looking for new musicians on the platform that I can encourage and help out. I wasn’t sure if anyone else actually uses the ukulele tag…but I thought it might be a fun way to find fellow uke players! I was pretty surprised to see my FACE and TITLE on someone else’s post.
Here's a shot of the stolen content – it was my ukulele cover of “Cheap Thrills” by Sia
The post didn’t make any money, so I wasn’t overly upset about it … but does that make it any better? This was not a post saying “Hey – go check out this Ukulele Player!”, it was literally a copy/paste of the text from my post and a link to the Dtube video. The funny thing is, that the link clearly shows that the video was plagiarized because it takes you straight to my Dtube Channel.
This was an obvious and poorly done plagiarism job… because the cover art shows my face and the video links back to my post; but what about people who post mainly written content and use photos that aren’t personally identifiable? How horrible would it be if someone ripped off their post and ended up getting paid for it? The people voting on the plagiarized post, may have no idea that it was ripped off. They would just see a well-written post by a new user and might decide to support them with a vote.
This Kind of Behavior Harms the Steem Eco-System
We are a pretty inclusive and accepting bunch – but stealing others content is completely unacceptable. It really degrades everything that the rest of us are trying to build here. It just makes me scratch my head, because even if their scam worked on a few posts… people would eventually start to notice all of their content was plagiarized and they would get down-voted to oblivion. What’s the draw? I’d love any insights you guys have.
What Can We Do About It?
How people decide to deal with plagiarism will be a little different for everyone. I used to be shy about downvoting because I didn’t want to waste my voting power on people that are not providing value. I’ve had a bit of a shift lately though as I’m starting to think that this may be the best way to send them a message. I’m still not spending very much of my vote power on spammy or plagiarized comments/posts… but even a little nudge can hopefully be enough let them know that kind of behavior is not appreciated.
Message to Plagiarizers
Please stop. Seriously, you are not doing this community or yourself any favors. You have a voice, and we want to hear form YOU. Please use it.
What do you guys think? Is there value in calling out plagiarism and talking about this more openly as a group… or am I just encouraging plagiarizers by even acknowledging them? I honestly grappled with this and would love to hear your thoughts.
Xo, Lea
▶️ DTube
▶️ IPFS
Thanks for raising this issue! IP is a racket, but that doesn't mean that posting someone else's content as your own isn't fraud. It's great to see that on Steemit, we have nonviolent ways of dealing with plagiarists. Keep up the great work and the community will keep innovating!
Wow, thank you for your support and thoughtful response! I definitely think we have more “good apples” than bad and it’s great to see the community come up with ways to fight this kind of abuse.
just WOW
Ha, I know right? I was pretty surprised!
Unfortunately this type of thing happens all the time and even more so on decentralized systems. I know of one cryptocurrency soon coming out that will track plagiarism im not sure how far reaching it will be but id be curious if steemit could adopt it into their system or create their own internal system.
Sorry this happened to you but keep cracking out awesome content and you will continue to be rewarded. Its also good you add your own picture etc to it perhaps even think about adding your steemit tag to your pictures or some type of watermark that people can see that shows where the content belongs to what account could also be a move in the positive direction to combat this type of behavior.
Ooh interesting! Finding plagiarism is one of the hardest parts of controlling it... and so it would be awesome if there was a way to automate so e of that work.
Also, great idea to use some kind of watermark or personal logo. I can see how that could help deter some people from stealing.
There is a bot cheetah that does this check no?
its okay... it happens... you should feel honored...
Sad but thats the truth...
All the best for the rest... i hope they dont get stolen :)
I don't think you're encouraging them with these sorts of posts.. but I don't believe for a second they'd ever read this. This post allows your fans to flag them too, which should hurt their reputation and hopefully make them reconsider stealing someone else's work.
These sort of posts do often get upvoted by votebots really close to the 7 day payout time... so unfortunately the flag is really the only weapon at our disposal.. and reporting them to Steemcleaners via their abuse report form
I'm sorry this happened to you... but like you said... it was probably only a matter of time... Your stern face is pretty great though.
Hahah I appreciate the comment on my “stern face”.
Also thanks for sharing your thoughts on the subject. If even one plagiarizer sees this post and starts to rethink their strategy, then it is worth it. :-)
Thanks for the Steemcleaners link. I actually forgot we even had that service!
bunch of cowards!
danggg that is pretty pathetic... but yes it is bound to happen eventually. I think it's great that you made this post to call them out. Perhaps some flags will rain down upon their account.... Maybe ALLL the content is stolen...
Haha who knows! I checked out their account and the content is pretty random... it wouldn’t surprise me if it was all stolen!
Pathetic is the right describer word here... I’m posting this not to just call out one person, but to open dialogue that this kind of behavior is not okay. Not sure any of these plagiarizes will even see this post... but you never know!
Haha they must be following you ;)
Just keep being you, you’re the best at you.
Hey @coruscate, I'm so sorry to hear that this happened to you. I had someone go after my copyright name recently, too. It's hurtful and definitely something that feels bad to have happen.
Thanks for letting us know about it happening, though. I think it's great how well this community likes to stand together when we notice that someone is up to this kind of nonsense.
Sorry to hear about the copyright issues you are having. Sounds like a huge pain... not to mention frustrating. :(
Your right, this community is amazing about banding together! Love this place. ❤️
ugh. Don't look forward to seeing this one day. Frustrating for you!
really messed up, the disadvantage of decentralized platforms is that there is no monitoring of plagiarizing and stolen content. I am hoping that the admins can take a look into this for you
Well that's really bad, no one should steal other people's content not on steemit and not anywhere. I think not down voting these people will encourage them to do this again. I think they should be flagged to teach them a lesson so that they will think again again to repeat this in the future.
Couldn’t agree more. Thanks for your support my friend!