Legality of Re-writing

Yes, you've created an unauthorized derivative work which is copyright infringement.

I know many people are worried about this and I write my own articles and spin them. However, I don't honestly think someone who has written an article is going to hunt around the web looking for people who have copied them and then sue them over an article that they probably got outsourced for a few dollars. I wouldn't worry about if I was you, I know it doesn't make it right, but people are probably doing the same thing to you.

I see your point, but I think its good to know what the boundries are, even if you end up stepping over them. Ignorance is no defense, as they say.

If you are using it for educational purposes, you can use a citation. You don't even have to necessarily link back if you mention the original author's name and company.

Most people who used tools to monitoring copyright infringement generally look for exact sentences to track their original work. It is difficult to track a rewrite that even has one word that has been changed in a sentence let alone an entire article.

Usually if a person has an idea that you are using an article of theirs that has been re-written then they will send an email with a warning nothing more since it is a costly endevour in resource to prove your argument.

Most of the time you are safe since even in copyright law there is grey area's since one cannot really claim total ownership of every single sentence if the rest of the article does not match even if it is in the same theme. Its an argument that a lawyer would need to prove and the basis of it tends to be the 'loss' that is occurred to the original article owner and not just the article re-write. You end up having to prove that the article is yours and the person deliberately took yours and then re-wrote it and intends to use for commercial gains. You may even have to prove that they did this deliberately, etc. It is a lot of hard wark.

There is NO percentage that makes it okay, at least from the perspective of plagiarism.

Even if you go through and change EVERY word in the original article, you are still making a derivative work based upon it.

That's still plagiarism.

That doesn't mean you will get caught, and I'm sure those who defend the practice will start crawling out of the woodwork with their justifications, but ignore them.

Again, to answer your specific question, there is no percentage that changes the fact that you are altering somebody else's work.

Here's an example using your own words:
My "100%" re-write:
Now, those who advocate re-writing will see no problem with what I did, and, to be fair, most people who write for IM would never catch it, but...it's still derivative.

You'll have to decide how comfortable you are with doing it this way, but I have found that writing stuff from scratch tends to be much easier in the long run.

All the best,
Michael

I'm not sure that could even be considered a derivative work. It's the same work - you're just replacing words with synonyms - which by definition have the same meaning. That's not a very compelling argument to make to a judge.

.

That's good to hear, G, it really is. Not everybody makes that decision.

If you should find that you are tempted with the thought of "taking other peoples articles" in the future, then simply change the word taking to stealing - it's more accurate.

~Michael

Anyway PLR content can be legitimately used for rewriting, 90% of "original" articles seem to be based on PLR anyway!

Don't copy, don't steal and don't re-write. Work hard and write your own articles always. That's the safe and smart thing to do.

Do your own thinking independently!

Jamian

It's a strange fact that IM writers and writers on the net generally get more bent out of shape abut this sort of thing than anyone else.

Professional journalists have been rehashing, re-writing & re-publishing the resultant content since the arrival of the first printing presses and is still a common practice still in Fleet Street and around the world.

Also, if you do not want content appearing anywhere elase on the net i) Disable RSS on your site/blog and ii) Read the TOS of all every article directory you submit to .

I'm not an expert on copyright law but if each of us here wrote an article on making toast we would probably write very similar articles probably using the same words and phrases explaining how to do this. If it were to be examined it would look like we all got together and collaberated on this. (I'm sure there would be some people who would make this more creative than others) But you get my point.

So how does this affect article writing, sales pages, ebook authoring etc. etc. where is the legal line here? And how do you prove it?

Maybe it is true that someone that the original author of the article will not find it but duplicate content will bad ranking for the seo.

Ok boys and girls. Call your friends and wake the neighbors!

The experiment is done. Tina (TMGEnterprises) and I each wrote a quick article about making toast. We each worked completely independently and had no idea what the other was going to write.

Once we each had our originals done, we sent them to the other person. We then re-wrote each others articles.

Can you REALLY tell which ones are re-writes, and could be potentially pegged as plagiarized?

Here they are in random order:


A:

So, your alarm has just gone off...you grab a cup of coffee, but that's just not doing the trick. What can you do? Do what people have done since the discovery of bread; make toast! Just follow along and you will have a piece of crunchy goodness to spread your butter on.

If you don't have any sliced bread, your first step will be to saw off a slice that will fit into your toaster. Now that you have a slice of bread (wheter it was pre-sliced or you did it yourself), place the slice into your toaster.

You're almost done!

Ok, now all you have to do is push the lever down to start the toasting process. It's a good idea to set the dial to make lighter toast at first, as you can always re-toast it if it's not to your liking.

Once the toast is done, remove it from the toaster and slather it with butter, or jelly, or peanut butter, or...whatever you prefer. Have a great day and enjoy your toast.


B:

A great way to get your day started is with toast, especially if you happen to be one of those whose brain gets into gear before your stomach. There is no better way to get your internal furnace fired up than with a few pieces of golden brown bread with just the right amount of strawberry preserves. But wait! Making your toast just right ensures your day will be off to a good start. No doubt about it, making perfect toast is definitely a fine art.

For starters, make sure your toaster's settings are correct. The dial on my toaster has the numbers 1 through 10 (10 is the darkest, 1 is the lightest). Yours may be different, but the 1 on mine could be accurately labeled "bread" and the 10 could be labeled "ash". The perfect slice of toast lies somewhere within that range.

Personally, the tastiest, perfect golden brown toast, for my toaster, is found at precisely 4 1/2. Because each toaster is different, you will have to use trial and error to find the right number for you, but once you find it you will know what to expect each time you insert a piece of bread into the slot.

The perfect toast requires the right kind of bread. The bread I crave will often vary based on my mood, but when honey nut bread is available, that's usually on the top of my list.

Once I have the toaster set at 4 1/2, I insert a slice of bread then pour myself a fresh cup of dark coffee. That's usually the same amount of time it takes for the toaster to pop. Then I spread a healthy portion of butter across the freshly-browned toast and add some of the previously mentioned strawberry preserves...and I'm in Heaven!


C:

Toast is a wonderful little start to the day for those of us whose stomachs wake up later than our brains. A couple of slices of delicately browned bread with a bit of strawberry jam is just the perfect way to put something in our stomach to get our metabolism working for the day. However, for this to be a good start to the day, the toast must be made just right. Yes, there truly is an art to making perfect toast.

To begin with, if you are using an electric toaster, as most of us do, you need to check the settings on your toaster. Mine has dial settings ranging from 1 to 10 with 1 being the lightest and 10 being the darkest. Perhaps not all toasters are like this but with mine, 1 might as well be named "bread" and 10 could be called "charcoal". Needless to say, perfect toast falls somewhere in between those two numbers.

In my case, I have found that 4.5 makes my toast the beautiful golden shade of brown that is the epitome of toast perfection to my tastebuds. This may take you some experimentation to find just the right setting but once you do, you know exactly what you are going to get every time you put in your bread.

The next thing to be concerned about when making perfect toast would be the type of bread that you choose. Now, for me, this can vary by the mood I am in, but if I have honey nut bread in the house that is generally my first choice.

After making sure my toaster dial is at 4.5, I put in my bread and go pour my morning cup of coffee. When I am done with that, I usually hear my toast pop up just about at the same time. Spread a bit of butter evenly across the perfectly browned slices and top with a spoonful of strawberry jam...ah, heaven!


D:

When your alarm clock goes off in the morning, what happens when coffee just doesn't do the trick? What do you do now? You can do what people have been doing since they invented fire -- toast some bread. Follow these simple directions and you'll soon have a crunchy slice of toast to slather with butter.

If your bread isn't pre-sliced, the first thing you need to do is cut a piece off the loaf, making sure it will fit in your toaster slot. Once you have the sliced bread, do it yourself or pre-sliced, just stick it into the toaster.

Almost there!

So now you just need to push the handle down to start the bread to toasting. One good technique is to put the dial a little lower than you think you need. You can always cook a little longer but you can't go backwards if it gets overdone.

When the toast pops up, take it out and spread with butter, jam or even peanut butter if you'd rather. After you enjoy the toast, you can meet the rest of your day with a smile.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ok, I don't know if it proves anything, but I'm guessing most of you can tell which articles are rewrites of each other.

So? Care to take a guess at which ones are which?

All the best,
Michael

D is rewrite of A, and C is a rewrite of B. A is the best written article is A though!

I was once threatened with legal action because I copied two
words from a book (with reference) in my ebook. These 2 words
were "location matters". The author called me on the phone and
said I had to remove those words from my book or else ...

You can never tell what length people will go through to
defend their work.

-Ray Edwards

I'm not defending taking (stealing) someone's work but on the subject of derivation and Harry Potter...

I have always been a little confused about how the nuances and boundaries in "derivative" are reached when talking about stories. (movies, plays)

Because the truth is that the Greeks discovered there are only 26 or 27 plot lines and they, (the Greeks) have already used them.

So what is it that defines the separation from one movie to the next?

Look at any "Romance", or "Action Adventure" movies. So you just change the actors and the names of the characters and that's it?

Obviously we can't reduce everything down to a single movie, play, or book as Big Mike states. So what do stories have to do differently from one another to pass the test?

p.s. Thought I would state for the record that I too, believe that the best way to "re write" an article is to do the research and then sit down and "re explain" it in your own thoughts and words.

A is a rewrite of D; B is a rewrite of C.

Reasoning: simple math. I chose the shorter articles as the rewrites because rewriting, for a writer, in part means eliminating unnecessary words. lol - is that cheating? Not if I'm wrong!

I'll furthermore risk looking like a knucklehead by guessing Michael wrote the original of B or C, whichever is the original. Reason? He writes "wordier" posts more often than Tina, at least in my memory.

Here's my rewrite:

Get up. Have toast. Turn on computer. Begin the day.

You are asking a legal question, and I don't know as anyone here is a licensed lawyer. Not a good idea to take legal advice from a lay person. In fact, it is illegal in the USA (and most possibly most other countries too) for people to give legal advice unless they are trained and licensed.

Check the law for yourself, or talk to a lawyer.
U.S. Copyright Office - Copyright Law of the United States
US CODE: Title 17,107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

I have no problem if one wants to use software to spin articles they have written themselves. I wouldn't do that because I take to much pride in what I write.

Now, if someone takes one of my articles and (1) uses software to rewrite or spin it, or--sits at their computer and uses my article as the basis of creating their own article--I would call that creating a derivative work from mine.

I would claim that they are profiting from the fruits of my labor. I want to eat my own fruits!

Here is one of the cases I had in mind.

ALSO, note what it says about the sued author's learning on his own and then regurgitating it in hos own words. While I agree it's far better than simply rewriting someone else's work, it's still no guarantee - especially if you happen to "accidentally" use a phrase that's specific to another author.

Guiding Rights Blog :: Plagiarism, Fair Use and Infringement: The Meter Drops On Anthony Robbins - The Guiding Rights Newsletter 1:4

A very good read, and I thought it was relevant to the current discussion.

All the best,
Michael

p.s. Thanks for the other guesses. I will tell you that some of the guesses are wrong, some are right, and some are both.

Hi Jan,

Your last sentence brings up another point that frequently goes hand in hand with the rewriting debate (though it isn't really a debate as it is a series of justifications): claims of fair use.

In this case, that's what Robbins was claiming. It also seems that he didn't use very much of Wade's original. Wouldn't one or two sentences out of a book of 5,000 sentences be fair use?

Maybe not.

My main point in posting that link is that people need to be very careful before assuming their level rewriting falls within the boundaries of fair use.

All the best,
Michael

p.s. Any more guesses on the rewriting experiment posted above?

Here's the question you ought to ask:

Someone else does the same thing to your articles. Would you feel like they are stealing from you?

If you don't like it, then don't it to others.

Yes. I suggest you paraphrase it completely. Not just find words synonymous to the one you're rewriting. If you'll be getting or quoting from someone, make sure to put citations or acknowledgement where you got it from. Try read then write.

Regarding the Anthony Robbins plagiarism of Wade Cook's work, it makes me wonder if the jury would have ruled the same way if the roles were reversed.

If Robbins had written the first book, and Cook came out with his later, would the jury have ruled in favor of Robbins? Sometimes, whether consciously or subconsciously, juries sympathize with the little guy and are biased against individuals or companies that are perceived as more important.

There are many documented cases and studies proving the presence of juror bias. The Effects of Juror Bias on Judicial Decisions. I'm not defending Robbins here, I just find it interesting.

Yes. Notice how I left everything else out. The theft is when you TAKE THE ARTICLE. No matter what you do to the article, you're infringing on copyright. That's how you measure it: did you start with someone else's article?

You don't really want to know how not to infringe, you want to know how to get away with it. But looking at it in percentage terms isn't going to help you. You have to write a different article. If they look like the same article, even if it's "98% unique" according to Copyscape (an absurd concept; an article is either UNIQUE or it is NOT), you can end up in trouble.

Anyone who has taken a freshman level writing class in college knows what plagiarism (theft) is. If you think it's okay to "re-write" ANY of someone else's work without proper credit, you're sadly mistaken. Anyone saying "well, we might write similar articles" is simply trying to create a smoke screen - you know if you plagiarized or not.

I realize that plagiarism is rampant, especially on this forum, but that doesn't make it right. I've worked with article writers on this forum who probably committed one or more acts of plagiarism in the work they did for me. Also, my sales letter format and content has been hijacked by hundreds of people including some of the biggest names in Internet Marketing history (copywriters included) which is proven by little "things" I put in the code of my letter and in the format.

What this all comes down to is if the original author 1) finds out you plagiarized their work and 2) has the time, desire, resources to do something about it.

In the majority of cases, number one will never happen.

Ray, two words certainly falls within "fair use" guidelines which any attorney will tell you.

Chris Elliott

Everything we know is a derivative of something we heard , watched, read or learnt from someone else. Only true masters Newton and Einstien came up with original ideas.
As long as you learn from an article and rewrite it in your own words there shouldn't be a problem but then again some people will sue you at the slightest chance they get

Niffy Branco,

Again, "Everything we know is a derivative of something we heard" is a smokescreen - you know if you plagiarized or not.

Chris Elliott

Hi Niffy,

I find it a bit disturbing that you think there are no original writings other than those of Einstein and Newton. Everything is not simply a rehash my friend.

There are millions experts in various fields who have done research, obtained experience, and taken part in hands on work in their chosen field who are more than qualified to write original content based on their expertise.

This could be the local trash man (or woman) writing a manual for would be trash men (or women) on how to efficiently collect trash based on experience, or an archeologist who writes a field guide on how to collect fossil specimens without damaging them.

You have the mindset of many of the people here who think that it is okay to summarize and re-write content without proper citations.

I'm not bashing anyone here, I'm simply making the facts clear as they seem to become clouded here. I have hired article and content writers who have obviously plagiarized because they aren't experts on the subjects I've hired them to write about. They research the subject and write the content.

The fact still remains - If someone finds that their content was plagiarized, the offending party is responsible and could be held liable.

Chris Elliott

I would think if you contacted person who wrote it in first place and asked could you rewrite it. Which I have been asked several times. I just ask for link back which makes me happy. I would not just take someones work and rewrite it that is copyright infringement.

Niffy,

You're tone has sure changed. First you said...

"As long as you learn from an article and rewrite it in your own words there shouldn't be a problem"

Now you've updated that to say...

"I never said it was ok to summarize or re write content without citation all i said was i do not see anything wrong in putting things you learnt from other sources in your own words"

I think you're confused as to what plagiarism actually is. Summarizing still requires a citation when it comes to plagiarism standards.

I can't say that I wasn't confused as to what plagiarism was when I first got started and this is why anyone who is going to write ANYTHING for a living should take a freshman level writing class at the local community college, even if not degree seeking. This one class is the most valuable class any human could possibly take.

Chris Elliott

Blogrev,

That's the right way to do it. Giving credit where credit is due. That's how to avoid plagiarism.

Chris Elliott