Help! My Article Has Been Plagiarized, What Should I Do?

What should we do if someone plagiarize our article? Permit her to do that. By giving our express consent, she has legitimate right to publish her article as her own.

WHY? She infringes our authorship right. We are losing money because of it. Why giving her a privilege instead of punishment? Yes, she infringes our authorship right, and we are losing consequential profits because of it.

We should give her the privilege instead of punishment, and the reasons are as follow.

Definition and Reality of Plagiarism

Plagiarism defined as copying the creation of another people, and claiming it as one's own. ¹² Plagiarism can be done to a whole article, or just partially.

Plagiarism could be done unintentionally. That is when someone quote parts of other author's article without attributing it.³ Attributing means stating the source and author of such quoted part in the article.

Plagiarism infringes the authorship right own by the author, and to a certain degree, Plagiarism causing a potential loss⁴, and consequential loss to be suffered by the authentic author.⁵

Common Reaction to Plagiarism

Common reaction (especially from victim) to the act of plagiarism is Angry, and many times, the victim of plagiarism pursue Legal Action against the Plagiator. Many Legal Action developed to Litigation Process (that is Civil Court Proceedings).

In many cases, the Authentic Author wins the case over the Plagiator, but there are also many cases where the Authentic Author partially wins the case. There are also many cases where the Authentic Author lose the case.

Regardless of the end result of the Legal Action, the Authentic Author definitely suffered some losses. Those are:

1. Court Costs
2. Lawyer Fee
3. Time Loss
4. Energy Loss

Lawyer Fee and Court Costs can be reimbursed by virtue to the Civil Court Decision (but they must be stated and demanded to the Civil Court in advance). Time Loss and Energy Loss are abstract losses suffered by the Authentic Author during Civil Court Proceedings.

Time Loss and Energy Loss are inevitable and unavoidable. To win the case, we have to go to the Court, and to the lawyer. There are times and costs needed to go there, not mentioning the lots of headache. Such losses cannot be reimbursed.

As a conclusion, Win or Lose in the Legal Action, we (the Authentic Author) LOSE. That means, regardless of the end result of the Court Proceedings, we (the Authentic Author) are a victim.

We are the victim of the Plagiarism, and we became the victim for pursuing legal actions against the Plagiator. Now, contemplate the reaction as explained below.

Winner's Reaction to Plagiarism
Permit the Plagiator to use our (whole or part of) article in her published article. Because we grant our permit, then she has a legitimate right to copy our creation.

Yes, we lose some profit. It is a loss. She should have compensate us some amount of money. That is a potential loss.

We also suffered consequential loss. She should pay us royalty for publishing our work. If we save the money in the bank, may be we could gain interest from the sum of money she suppose to pay to us. The lose of potential interest is one of the consequential losses.

Regardless of the Losses, consider the benefits of Plagiarism to, and the benefits of doing winner's reaction against the Plagiator.

1. Having our article plagiarized should be taken as an indication of our article's quality. The Plagiarism tells the world that we are a quality writer.
2. Free promotion of our reputation as a good writer.
3. If public knows our noble deed of permitting the Plagiator to copy our article, it will be good to our future, and our future writings.
4. By granting permit to the Plagiator, we are not a victim.
5. Because we are not a victim, we do not pursue any Legal Action against the Plagiator. That means, No Court Proceedings. No Court Proceedings means No Time Loss, No Energy Loss, and No Headache. Because of that, we do not fall deeper as a victim for pursuing any Legal Action against the Plagiator.
6. Spiritually, it is a good deed, and God note that for His Final Judgment.
7. Who knows we might end up in a good and mutual benefited relationship with the ex-plagiator.
8. To consider the Plagiator's creation as our competition, will give us a motivation to create something new, something better. With or without Plagiarism, there surely will be other creations that is better, or newer than ours. Why we pursue Legal Action against the Plagiator just because we are afraid of changes? We should embrace it, since change is the only one that is not change in this world and life.
9. Keep in mind, and remind ourselves, that our creation today is not the best. It is not good enough, and therefore, we will and must always strive to create something newer, something better. By doing that, in the end, we will find ourselves as a very much better person than we used to be.

Although we grant permit, and choose not to proceed any legal action against the Plagiator, we must:

1. Warn the Plagiator that she has done an activity considered to be Plagiarism.
2. Reserve our moral right. Grant a permit to the Plagiator, but with condition that she must attribute our name in her article that plagiarized some or whole of our article.

May be she is unaware that she has done Plagiarism, and will make up her mistake. In the end, we make her a better person. Why waste our lifetime fighting, and causing loss to both of us?

To know our enemy's weakness, and use that knowledge to beat our enemy, will make us a winner, but to know our enemy's weakness, and opt to not to use that knowledge to beat our enemy will make us win the battle Triumphantly. A noble winner.

Sun Tzu once said:

"The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities...It is best to win without fighting." ⁶

So, what do you think?

PS: Comments and corrections are invited.

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¹- "plagiarism." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 2005. Answers.com 27 Jan. 2007. http://www.answers.com/topic/plagiarism
- "plagiarism." West's Encyclopedia of American Law. The Gale Group, Inc, 1998. Answers.com 27 Jan. 2007. http://www.answers.com/topic/plagiarism
- "plagiarism." Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. Computer Language Company Inc., 2007. Answers.com 27 Jan. 2007. http://www.answers.com/topic/plagiarism
- "plagiarism." The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. Answers.com 27 Jan. 2007. http://www.answers.com/topic/plagiarism
²See definition of plagiarism.
³"plagiarism." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 2005. Answers.com 27 Jan. 2007. http://www.answers.com/topic/plagiarism
⁴Potential Loss is the definite value expected to be earn, but never realized because of an incident.
⁵Consequential loss is the value of loss resulting from loss of use of property. For example, a fire damages the structure of business premises and the business loses customer income until it can reopen. See:"Consequential Loss." Dictionary of Insurance Terms. Barron's Educational Series, Inc, 2000. Answers.com 27 Jan. 2007. http://www.answers.com/topic/consequential-loss
⁶"Sun Tzu: The Art of War". Wikiquote. Wikiquote 27 Jan. 2007. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu

The Rise of Google and The Fall of Yahoo

Among today's leading "pure play" Internet companies--Yahoo (YHOO), Google (GOOG), eBay (EBAY) and Amazon (AMZN)--which one will grow to become the largest over the next few decades?¹ I believe, Google will be THE ONE.

No doubt, Yahoo! is the largest during the early era of the internet. Later on after that, Amazon rise as the famous online bookstore, followed by recent eBay booming, but all of that is just a small crumb of famosity compared to the latest giant Google's Adsense.

Regardless of how good Google performed in the stock market, and how the rests performed in the stock market, in reality, Google will win the competition.² The significant reasons and logic will be explained below.


Advertising Affiliation Program

The ranking among all of them is:

1. Google as the winner, followed by
2. Amazon as the runner up,
3. eBay as the third, and
4. Yahoo! as the last.
   

Google has the most famous and effective advertising campaign with its Adsense program.³ The Adsense program used the effective 'peer to peer' system, by opening a relatively easy affiliation opportunity to any web developer, professional or not, large or small.⁴ Of course, this system is not monopolized by Google alone.

Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo! also have 'similar to Adsense' advertising program. The significant difference among them is just Scope of Implementation.

1. Citizen all over the world could participate in the Google's Adsense program, and citizen from 42 different countries could accept payment in their own currency.⁵
2. Amazon's Associates cannot compare to Adsense strength, but still, people all over the world could join it. Participants from countries not in the list of payment could opt to receive payment in the form of gift certificates which could be used to shop in Amazon.
3. eBay ads program is helped by Paypal existence, so that the participants from countries facilitated by Paypal could participate.
4. Yahoo! is the last of the pack, because Yahoo! limit its affiliation opportunity to USA citizens or residents. Something that never change from the first time, and there is no indication that its policy will change in the near future.

I believe that all people will agree that the wider the area of advertising, the more effective it is. The more people advertise it, the more effective it is.


Website/Blog Developing

Blogging has become the world's lifestyle today.⁶To the limit of my knowledge, eBay and Amazon has not join the competition in this area. Only Yahoo! and Google does. Specifically in Blogging, Google affiliated with Blogger, while Yahoo! have Yahoo!360, and affiliated with Wordpress and Movable Type.

For sure, all of them had advantages and disadvantages, but in term of 'user-friendly,' BloggerBlogger made available to the user:
leaves Yahoo!'s behind.

• the 'drag-drop' menu for website lay out design; and
• option to easily insert third parties' html code or script (in the end, this option is frequently used by the user to insert html code or script of third parties advertisement, such as Google's Adsense, Amazon's Associates, or others like: AdultFriendFinder, or Shareloading.

Until now, as a beginner in blogging, I never have any idea as to how to insert an html code or script for advertising in Yahoo!'s Blog Pages.

Some people blog for pleasure only, to kill the time, but most people today blog FOR MONEY!! The end result is obvious, many people, especially the beginner, will be drawn to use Blogger for blogging.


Knowledge Share

Google has not specific program to be compared with Yahoo! Answers. Every people could ask something in this forum, and other people will answer it. This is also a form of peer to peer system.

If we look further, every answer in Yahoo! Answers is not compensated by Yahoo! even for a single penny! Every contribution is just compensated by an 'abstract' point that is useless for any purpose. Yes, some people are satisfied enough to know that they could solve others' problems in their own pastime, but for most people, "what is it for me if I could contribute?"

That is why, many people leave it and go to other websites who are willing to share their profits with the content contributors. There are many of them, like: Helium, Epinions, Bloggerparty, or Universal Class.

Although Google has no specific program to compete with it, the Blogger is definitely could compete with it. Most people will go to any place where they could financially gain something for their contributions, than to go somewhere else that never appreciate their contributions financially.


Website and Search Engine

It must be admitted that in the past, Google's Website is one of the worst, but in times, Google has evolve. Now, users could opt for simple web pages as used to be, or choose customize web pages display, with customized contents!

Until this time, all Yahoo! could offer to the user is just customized display!

Amazon also have search engine, but because its business is more focused to online store, its significance is greatly reduced.


E-mail

Amazon and eBay is excluded from this competition area, because they do not have and offer this service to their users.

Both Google G-mail and Yahoo! has their own advantages and disadvantages. While Yahoo! may have the largest market share because of its long existence in the Internet, G-mail took it from Yahoo! bits by bits.

Yahoo! Mail is easier to setup then G-mail, but to have Yahoo! Mail account, user faced more spam and junk mail, more than if the user used G-mail.

G-mail also made available for user the option of simple html display. This is a great advantage for user with a slow Internet connection. G-mail also have more free storage (more than 2 Gigabytes) capacity than Yahoo! Mail (only 1 Gigabytes.


Partnership

Google has made many partnership relations. The most significant impact comes from the partnership with Mozilla Firefox Browser. The incorporation of Google Search Box in the Browser plays a very important role in increasing the usage of Google Search Engine.

Recent acquisition of YouTube by Google also does have a major role in increasing the traffic of Google's business, implicating to the increasing of potential market for Google's businesses to penetrate.


Conclusion

Google is certainly will be the one to win the competition, because:

1. Google offer financial opportunity to other business and people more than Yahoo! does, and that will create a very vast network of business, which will result to the exponential rate of Google's business growth.
2. Google really used 'peer to peer' system to create a super knowledge center sourced from every affiliates and users it embraced.
3. Google offer more satisfactions to the user, that will create exponential rate of demands growth.

All we have to do to proof it is just evaluate it against the principles of contributions,⁷ creation of value innovation,⁸ and velocity.⁹


So, what do you think?

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¹- Sakazaki, Lloyd. Picking the Internet Leader Using Money Value of Time. Lloyd's Investment Blog, 18 Apr. 2005. lloydsinvestment.blogspot.com 01 Feb 2007. http://lloydsinvestment.blogspot.com/2005/04/picking-internet-leader-using-money.html

²Munarriz, Rick Aristotle. Google Scores a 100. Fool. The Motley Fool, 16 Nov. 2006. Fool.com. 01 Feb. 2007. http://www.fool.com/investing/high-growth/2006/11/16/google-scores-a-100.aspx: "It certainly didn't take Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) all that long to graduate to the head of the class. Less than eight months after being initiated into the Standard & Poor's 500 equity index, the search engine giant is being promoted to join the elite S&P 100 ranks as well. ... Companies like eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY)Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) have been sitting on the S&P 500 for a long time but have never made the S&P 100 cut. The closest that the constituents in the choosy index get to having an online bent would be MSN.com parent Microsoft(Nasdaq: MSFT) and AOL's Time Warner (NYSE: TWX). Congrats, Google. Just as your stock finds itself a good trading day away from hitting the $500 mark, it's good to know that you can be honored by hitting the 100 mark too."

³To proof it, just surf the Internet, and count, how many times you see websites with Google Adsense Advertising. Indication of that shown by a small sentence: "Ads by Google" in the advertising area of the web pages.

⁴Remember Napster.

⁵"To which countries does Google send local currency checks?" Google Adsense Help Center. Google, Inc., 2007. Google.com 01 Feb. 2007.

⁶Surf the Internet, and note, how many times you visit blog pages.

⁷Packard, David. "Speech by Dave Packard to HP Managers" in The HP Way. USA: HarperCollins Publisher, 1995. Reprint: 2005. p. xix - xxix.

⁸Innovation that could create a new market is a Value Innovation. Value Innovation is an innovation that create a value and satisfaction to the customers.
See:
- Drucker, Peter F. "Test of Innovation" in The Daily Drucker. USA: HarperBusiness, 2004. p. 79.
- Kim, W. Chan, and Rene Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant. Harvard Business School Press, 2005.

⁹Velocity means maximizing performance. By means of velocity, DELL efficiently could manage to have inventory for just 5 days. That means, DELL inventory will be finished if after 5 days new stock has not arrived. See: Dell, Michael. Direct From DELL: Strategies that Revolutionized an Industry. USA: HarperCollins Publisher, 1999. Reprint: 2000.