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Ask HN: I may have been spun. Is there anything I can do about it?
So in the shadier parts of the SEO world there's this concept called "spinning" where one takes a single article and programatically creates hundreds of small variations of it, largely by substituting words and phrases with synonymous terms. This is meant to work around Google's duplicate content detection algorithm). It isn't hard for a person to notice the similarities between the documents, but it is subtle enough (or computationally difficult enough) that search engines seem to be fooled.
I think that one of my competitors has taken some article content from my site, "spun" it (possibly by hand) and reposted it on one of those post-your-content-with-backlinks sites you sometimes find in search results. (Except they posted it with backlinks to their site, of course.)
If this was a direct, verbatim copy I'd contact the hosting site to notify them of the copyright violation.
But that's not what this is, it's more like a section by section, sentence by sentence paraphrasing of my content, with some other slight modifications (which is why I think it may have been done by hand, but I'm not familiar enough with spinning to know what's normal and what's not). I'm pretty sure that my content was the source document for this, since there are some unusual phrases that carried over to the new document, and the structure of many of the sections, paragraphs and sentences of the new document are identical to some on my site.
Both the site on which this content was posted and the site to which it is linking are legitimate business that I assume would respond to something like a DMCA take-down notice.
I'm well aware of the degree, nature and much of the mechanics of plagiarism on the web, and while I'm annoyed (possibly flattered) that it seems a competitor more or less plagiarized content from my site, but my bigger concern is this is the tip of the iceberg and I'm about to see dozens of close copies of my content floating around the web.
Is there anything I can or should do about this?
- roel_v 16y agoA derived work is just as much protected by copyright as the original is. If you translate a book, you cannot distribute that translation without the original author's consent. So the circumstance that they didn't republish your article verbatim, but in a modified way, is of little relevance. So you can do the same things you would if it was a verbatim copy.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- rlpb 16y ago> If this was a direct, verbatim copy I'd contact the hosting site to notify them of the copyright violation. From your description it is a derivative work. This is still a copyright violation. I can't comment on what you should do, though.
- davidw 16y agoAs an amateur onlooker, it'd be useful to see both pages for comparison, although I can't say I know anything about 'spinning'. I'm curious what the result looks like, though.
- ohashi 16y agospin your content and use it for links first.
- nailer 16y agoPlease don't. Same content from multiple domain names pointing back to the original is against Google ToS, and you might lose your PageRank unless you're Jason Calacanis in which case it's fine.
- mgkimsal 16y agoWould you provide the relevant ToS for that claim please?
- nailer 16y agoIt's from the 'Google Webmaster Guidelines', located here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769 http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answe... "Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content."
- ohashi 16y agosubstantially isn't really defined. and if you submit them to article directories and the like... whose responsibility is it? Oh yeah, don't point to the original article, build it to your landers :)
- nailer 16y agoIf you own the article directories yourself, you're making additional domains. If you don't, that's fine, as I understand it.
- ohashi 16y agoIt would be a pain in the ass to make a bunch of well ranked article directories just to spin your content for 1 product. I have to assume just submitting it to other people's sites.
- Sujan 16y agoAll the people saying it is copyright violation are probably right. But, I don't think it's worth the effort and money (perhaps you will have to get a lawyer...). If at all, just contact the site where they posted it and report the copyright violation. Describe what you think what happened and wait what (and if) they answer. Most of the time, they won't bother and just remove the text. Much better use of your time is to write another, even better text for your website.
- olefoo 16y agoAll the people saying it is a copyright violation are in fact wrong. Copyright protects a specific expression of an idea or group of ideas. It does not address the use of a copyrighted work as a template for generating other copyrighted works that use alternate expressions. If you create a copyrighted work that consists of the phrase "The rain in Spain falls mostly on the plain." and someone comes along and very carefully creates a work of parallel intent that includes the phrase "In Spain, precipitation occurs mostly on the lowland prairies."; they are NOT violating your copyright. What they are doing may be sleazy, dishonest and lazy, but it isn't legally actionable. This is actually a fairly deep topic, our legal system is constrained to working with tangible expressions and cannot identify the similarity between two expressions of an idea that share the same semantic structure (meaning) and yet have completely different linguistic surface (text). Now if you can show that their works were mechanically derived from yours, that may be a different kettle of fish.
- roel_v 16y agoReally? So how do you align that with e.g.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work or the 'without prejudice' clause in art. 2.3 of the Berne Convention?
- olefoo 16y agoA mere claim that something is a deriviative work doesn't make it so; you'd have to show priority, connection and derivation. All of which are trickier than you'd think. If a company sends out a press release and two bloggers write stories about that company that are substantively similar but not word for word identical and one of them accused the other of copying, that would be a difficult case to prove. Generally speaking a derivative work implies the overt appropriation of elements of the original; for instance if you write a novel about the rich inner life of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, that would be derivative of Ian Fleming's body of work. If however, you write a novel about a spy with a sex addiction problem who works for the Dutch Secret service and is blond and you very carefully avoid duplicating any precise plot points from any of the James Bond novels, it may be derivative in the sense that it's obvious you were emulating Ian Fleming, but it would not legally be a derived work.
- blueberry 16y agoI don't know about copyright laws and I am not saying copyright is unimportant but from your post, I don't think your site got hurt in anyway. Aside from giving your competitors' a free lunch, why do you care? Especially if your site is the first one when people search for the title or keywords of your article. If you are still #1 on google search and did not have a drop in the # of visits, you might as well thank the competitors. Otherwise, I agree it's unfair.
- URSpider94 16y agoI think there may be some confusion here. If the person truly and skillfully paraphrased your writing, to the point that there are no duplicate sentences between the two documents, it would be hard to argue that it is a derivative work. They have effectively created an entirely new document espousing all of the same ideas as yours, and on which you would not have any copyright claims.
- spokey 16y ago> They have effectively created an entirely new document espousing all of the same ideas as yours, IMO, that describes the situation well > and on which you would not have any copyright claims. That is also my understanding, unless I could somehow prove that they violated my copyright in the construction of this work. For instance, if one could prove that my copyrighted content was fed into a spinning algorithm to generate this new document, I think you could argue that it is in fact a derivative work. But it's kind of an academic question anyway, as it would be very difficult to prove that in the first place, and likely not worth the time and trouble if you did. It may even require new legal precedent to win that sort of case, but I'm not that familiar with the entire scope of copyright law. Just as an intellectual exercise, suppose I fed one of the Harry Potter books into a spinning algorithm to come up with a book about Larry Kotter, a pupil at the Cowpimple Academy of Sorcery. If my new book is just substituting synonymous terms in the original work, I'm pretty sure I'd lose a copyright claim. But how different would it need to be to become legal? To become undetectable? Suppose I was synthesizing multiple works for my spun article? How sophisticated would my spinning algorithm need to be before it really was creating new works?
- dctoedt 16y ago1. Don't jump to the conclusion that the output of a spinning algorithm doesn't infringe the copyright in the original input. I haven't done any research on the question, but I'd be willing to bet a six-pack of Lone Star (beer) that a decent copyright lawyer could make the case that it is indeed an infringement. (I don't do litigation anymore, so I'm not that lawyer.) 2. You should immediately look into registering the copyright for your work -- if you're a U.S. author, you can't file suit for infringement without first registering the copyright. 3. GENERAL NOTE: Anyone concerned about having their copyrighted work ripped off should register the copyright NO LATER THAN three months after first "publication." Otherwise, you may well forfeit your right to have the judge order an infringer to pay your attorneys' fees (which can be no small matter). The U.S. Copyright Office has on-line registration capability at http://www.copyright.gov/eco/ http://www.copyright.gov/eco/.
- hcho 16y agoWhat's the damage in monetary terms? Is it worth spending your time and money to get the spun article taken down?
- spokey 16y agoI don't know exactly. What's a tiny bit of link juice worth? What's a tiny edge in Google ranking worth? If it is simply sending an email, then, sure I'll spend two minutes doing that. If I need to engage a lawyer, no it's probably not worth that. But again, my bigger concern is that if this content is now part of a spinning database then it's not one spun article, it's hundreds. This hasn't happened yet, so maybe this just borrowing trouble I don't yet have, but even as an academic legal question, suppose this sort of sophisticated plagiarism happens to your content on a broad scale: can anything be done about it?
- hcho 16y agoI doubt a single email would work. The content farm would actaully hold on the said article, hoping that the issue escalates to a public flame war and they get links from the blogosphere. Bad publicity is still publicity for those operations.
- hotmind 16y agoA lot of spinning going on here. Your competitor is spinning your content for his gains (not cool), and you are spinning your wheels wondering what you should do. There is no better way to put a competitor on the defensive than by innovating. So innovate. Stop wasting your energy on this guy and do something awesome that will clearly differentiate your business from his. This competitor isn't worth worrying about if he's doing weaksauce tactics like stealing your content.
- eof 16y agoI thought someone dosed you with LSD and you were looking for the antidote.
- speleding 16y agoA lot of my competitors are using spin articles too (although I don't think they are using my content as the basis). The main problem seems to be that it appears to work, I can see them rise in the organic search results. I wish there were some way to report this to Google, it would improve the user experience and save everybody a lot of work. Until then it's very tempting to join in on it.
- mbyrne 16y agoDid you invent the term "spinning" or are you copying it from someone else? Your explanation of it is very similar to some other text I have read, with just some different paraphrasing... Big Picture: You don't have a copyright claim. (I am basing this definitive verdict on your complete failure to supply us with any facts.) If this "issue" has taken more than 30 seconds of your time, I predict mediocrity or failure for your business. You can't afford to waste your time on it. Seriously.
- sgmurphy 16y agoI found this short video from a lawyer to be very helpful in understanding the different options you have when pursuing copyright violation prosecution: http://houchinlaw.com/?p=660 http://houchinlaw.com/?p=660
- CatalystFactory 16y agoWithout reading your article and the "spun" article it would be hard to tell whether or not your copyright has been infringed. Could you post the links? Perhaps, open up a channel of communication with the "legitimate businesses" that run the site instead of sending them a DMCA notice. For more on spinning, I found this article helpful: http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2009/06/16/spinning-spamming-and-twitter/ http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2009/06/16/spinning-spamming-...
- spokey 16y agoI'd rather not promote this content by linking to it. Thank you for that link, it's a great overview.
- paolomaffei 16y agoYou can't do pretty much anything. Welcome to the internet. Just get over it. By the way, you can also translate from english to another language and then back to english. Now just fix broken grammar and you might have what you called a spun article.
- skinnymuch 16y agoGoing to reiterate what some people have said here already. Chances are you can't do anything. This is the internet after all. There's a small chance the person will take down the content just from a polite email from you. Assuming this won't work the only other course of action is spending $$. This route will be a money sink for you so the only reason to do this is ego or you just have money to burn.