Thursday, September 23, 2010

I caught the cat :D

Disclaimer: I am not jobless
I was casually browsing through the whosamongus widget to check the visitors of my blog, which I do at times just to see if I got anyone from new geographies :) and that is when this copied content part caught my attention. It showed me that someone copied some content from one of my blog posts. It is from this post Outsourcing - Good or Bad posted on April 15, 2009
and the content copied was
"Outsourcing is a tactic to reduce cost but that itself is not the sole intention. It is actually trying to improve efficiency by concentrating on our core area and outsourcing the not so critical activities to someone for whom that part is a core competency"
First I thought of ignoring that but the detective devil in me, who is very inquisitive, pleaded me to check this....
So I searched on google for tools to check copied content, I got a list of tools

Copyscape: I keyed in my url in the only text box provided. It showed one nice status bar as if something was happening in the background, but finally it displayed some results which were all irrelevant. I found it useless. If someone has used it kindly enlighten in the comments.

Article Checker: Frankly dint know how it worked, I was restless to read a manual and understand how it works. It had 2 textboxes one for the content and other for url. Now I dont know if it is my url or what. I copied that part of content from my blog in text box and the url and did search.It gave me zero results [now who is fooling me whosamongus or this one??]
- Now the prerequisite for this is we need to know the content which you think is copied

Then I hopped on to the next site

Plagiarism Checker: This is also an utter waste because it takes the content ditto and doesnt do any combinations of the text entered to search for duplicates.

The Plagiarism Checker: This one was the best, because it atleast tried a combination of the content I gave in the textbox to search for. It gave me 2 results, one was my blog itself and then the other one is a forum.

Now check the content posted by this person with id LesFex in the forum on 22nd June 2009.. Now the funny part is, he/she starts his/her content with "In my opinion" . And the content is ditto not even a change in space or comma or fullstops :). Huh! people dont know how to copy also.
So I finally caught the cat. At this point it reminds me of a telugu proverb which goes like this "panileni mangalodu pilli thala gorigaadu anta" which means.."a cat's head is the thing a jobless barber finds to shave off".. but I still want to tell everyone that am not that jobless...hope my office people are not reading this :D

 People say that Imitation is best form of flattery, but you should mention the source also so that the creator gets motivated.
I seriously dont mind if people copy my junk, but there are people who are very creative in writing poems and sketching cartoons and I believe they deserve a mention in credits.
My fellow bloggers do register with free copy right websites like MyfreeCopyright or Creative Commons



I just found another tool called Copygator (copy+alligator) which notifies you by changing the color of the alligator. It is free and simple to add. Just have a look at it.

A special friend shared this catching a cat game after reading this post, all jobless people like me do try this once :) . Also busy guys take a break. Circle the cat




Note: I use random images but I link to the original pics and not re-upload them.
Google rocks!
PS: Sorry I've loaded my post with all kinds of tools
Source for the copycat tools: Copywriting services

26 comments:

  1. sorry dude..
    i have one best friend who works in MS..who keeps promoting MS products.. still I say "Bing sucks"

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  2. Yeh people copy all kind of shit.. since it was copied it means u are doing good..

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  3. Copying online content is one of the major online problems. I think using Google for finding copied content is better than any other tool. Just copy one line from your post and search that whole line if you can see some results then that content is copied. You can do this again for few more lines to ensure. :)

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  4. This is sad but good that you were able to identify the culprit. Despite the copyright thing one of my poems was copied and passed of as hers by one of the bloggers. I was completely unaware about it until one of the bloggers informed me about it. Despite reminder that blogger did not remove my piece from her page.

    No-right click copy/paste script can be effective in some way as it disables right click on the page.

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  5. hi
    very nice and informative post..plagiarism is a major problem. thanks for all the links and that cat dot game is interesting indeed

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  6. Hey - Great post. I tried copy scape from here and it immediately pointed to a post which had some stuff lifted from a recent post of mine. Thanks for sharing

    Sowmya's Gitaaonline

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  7. @Uncommonsense
    yo buddy nice to see you writing on my blog :)

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  8. @Suraj,
    now the problem is which one should i search for..now i cant go on picking content and search for right..
    and i always say Google rocks!

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  9. @Shas,
    thats a crime...after u telling also the person shamelessly dint remove it..and I always feel your poems are beautiful..really sorry for that..give me the link of the copycat.

    and about the no-rightclick script..if someone really wants to copy he will re-write after readin from ur post..or with the latest word tool he can take a screenshot and still extract the text out of the image..but ya. he has to make atleast that much effort to copy..if u put that script

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  10. yo AS:)
    thanks for liking it.. I remember you told me that someone copied your poem..did you find out who it is?
    ya the cat game is nice timepass :)

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  11. @Sowmya..I am honored by that :) and really happy that my blog was of some use to you :)

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  12. Maybe blogers should be made to submit to "turnitin" before a post is published. It happened to me once. The whole poem "stolen" and published elsewhere!!!

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  13. @Ranjhini
    oho! even u were a victim once...i will check whats the "turnitin" is...new to me.. thanks for that

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  14. Interesting tools, had no idea they existed, I'm no blogger maybe thats why..

    You should at least try enforcing the No right click thing that one of the commenters here (Sh@s) suggested.

    On the other hand, just feel proud that ppl find ur writeups so cool that they go to the extent of plagiarising :)

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  15. @Hasi.. always a pleasure to see your comments on my blog :)
    yea right the no right click helps to some extent so that the lazy ones will not copy..
    I think that is the only instance i discovered so far rest all I dont write that insightful content..only common sense :)

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  16. hehhehehe....u know what i have to say!!

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  17. I know it's a sad story :P but it was a really funny read :)

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  18. @ Unknown,
    Will mail it to you soon :)

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  19. @Vinnie...
    yea madam..what u will say.. even I said the same in my blog post :) also in the footer I did write above my copyright widget..but still u see..ppl do this..:P

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  20. @S
    glad u liked the fun part of it :).. well am not at all serious about it..happy that he/she is the only person in the world who appreciates my content :)

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  21. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  22. hey good work!
    and like you i don't mind being quoted with context without being informed, but if someone had done what had happened to you i would have been FUMING
    in my opinion indeed!!

    i might try the gadget you recommended.

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  23. @WiseDon :)
    yea..he said "in my opinion",.. that was bit too much :D. ya do that..try the whoamongus thin it shows which content is being copied also

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  24. And you thought cats could be fooled by your scarecrowish notices like - Nothing worth copying.. :)

    If you seriously want people not to copy, start writing like Uncommon Sense :D

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  25. @Gouri..
    scarecrowish...haha i like that word..:D
    dude..uncommon sense is impossible for me..

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