Plagiarism is becoming an increasingly worrisome issue for creators, posing a significant question: how do we protect ourselves and our work from people who want to steal our work?

For this week’s #CreatorStories, we’ve interviewed:

• A photographer whose work was plagiarized.
• An Intellectual Property lawyer
• A product manager here at Selar, to share how Selar is helping creators protect themselves from plagiarism.

We have gotten these three people from different fields to shed light on the complexities of plagiarism, its impact on creators, and the legal implications that govern the fine line between inspiration and infringement. We hope you are able to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and solutions related to plagiarism.

But first, let’s define plagiarism.

Plagiarism is the act of using someone else’s work and presenting it as your own. It’s an ethical issue that is considered intellectual property theft.

While it’s common among students, it’s also becoming a bigger issue in creative industries. The internet has made it easier than ever to access and copy work—sometimes with small changes or none at all. However, this practice is deeply unfair because it harms the livelihoods of creators.

Now that we know what plagiarism is, let’s speak to the experts.

Meet Alice*: A creator whose work was plagiarized.

One day, Alice received a message on Instagram with some pictures attached.

The sender wrote, “Sorry, isn’t this your work?” Intrigued, Alice opened the images and saw a series of paintings created by someone else. To her shock, the artist had used her photographs as “inspiration,” essentially copying them, and was selling the paintings in Europe for thousands of dollars.

Curious and concerned, Alice visited the artist’s page and discovered that this wasn’t an isolated incident. The person had done the same thing to many others, never asking for permission or even acknowledging the original creators. Outraged, Alice consulted a lawyer, who confirmed that the situation qualified as copyright infringement.

Determined to protect her work, Alice hired a legal team to pursue the case. However, they quickly encountered a major hurdle: the artist had been meticulous about keeping any personal details, such as an address, off the internet.

We asked Alice a few questions about the incident.

So what did you do when you discovered your paintings had been plagiarized?

I reached out to some of the galleries in Europe where the paintings were being displayed, but they weren’t very helpful.

In some parts of Europe, there are laws that let you use someone else’s artwork as inspiration as long as you make “reasonable” changes. What counts as “reasonable” can vary depending on the lawyer or jurisdiction. So far, we haven’t been able to track him down. I’m not sure if he’s still using my work, but we were planning to either sue him or try to get a percentage of the money he made from the sales. He sold one of the paintings for around eight to ten thousand dollars.

That’s crazy.

Yeah. It’s been over a year—almost two years.

This may sound a bit weird, but why do you think people plagiarize? 

Being creative isn’t easy. It’s easier to copy than to come up with something on your own. And to be fair, most ideas are generally recycled, but plagiarism comes from a lack of originality. 

I get you. Do you have any advice for creators whose works have been plagiarized?

Based on my experience, it’s important to try and get something for your work if you can. But if that’s not possible, sometimes it’s better to just move on because, in certain cases, there’s really nothing you can do. If you’re able to track the person down, it’s worth trying to recover the value of your work.

Remember, though, that people who plagiarize are always a step behind. That’s why some turn to the court of public opinion in situations like this. If someone copies your work, and you can’t find them or the legal system doesn’t offer much protection, you can still call them out and expose their—what’s the word?

Lack of originality?

Exactly! Many artists find ways to let others know that the person who plagiarized their work isn’t trustworthy.

Sometimes, the legal route doesn’t always work. In those cases, you might need to turn to the court of public opinion and get people talking about it instead.

Meet Al-Ameen: A lawyer who has handled intellectual property cases.

Al-Ameen has worked as a lawyer for a couple of years, and has helped several clients deal with their copyright infringement claims. From him, we wanted to understand if there were ways creators could protect themselves from the effects of plagiarism.

So, I  wanted to ask: from a legal perspective. How can creators protect themselves from plagiarism? 

So, the first thing is to have a basic idea of how to protect your work. I feel like creators need to first understand what intellectual property is as a concept because many people do not know.

In fact, a running joke among lawyers is that when musicians are in the studio, they do everything necessary, from arrangement to composition before they decide to involve their lawyers. This results in problems distributing royalties and giving credits because every contributor is entitled to intellectual property rights over their contributions. 

People say this a lot, and some will take it casually, but it’s always good for you to have a lawyer cause the minute you understand that your work is protected, and you inherently have copyright over certain types of work, then you will have somebody you can talk to when your rights are infringed upon,  who will teach you how to protect yourself. The remedy you get from dragging people on social media or claiming that somebody stole your work is quite limited.

The next step is enforcing your rights. Nigerians generally shy away from the court or from enforcing their rights for different reasons. I mean, some don’t believe in the judicial system.

For others, they believe that if you attack certain people within an industry then it could lead to animosity, or you’d be blackballed. However, we need to understand that the only way that your work will be respected is if you’re able to enforce the fact that somebody is cheating you. A very good example is the case between Tempoe and Asa over the song, IDG. 

I would also advise people to document their process of creation. Again I understand that creativity is spontaneous, but if you’re able to document the process, then you’re able to enforce that right. Sometimes, it takes time. Other times, it doesn’t because primarily, the court respects intellectual property, and there are many remedies available.

For one, you can get an injunction that would prevent the person from continuing to use your work, and that’s already a fundamental step in protecting your work. So, like with the Tempo case.  After the release of the IDG song, the guy reached out to Asa’s lawyers and Asa gave no comment, then he fixed it up with his lawyers. Next thing they get an injunction, and that song is off the net.

That’s really interesting.

It really is. So again, like I said, it all depends on the value you attach to your work. If you’re really interested in getting redress,  you would. Generally, courts in Nigeria will delay you, and that can be discouraging, but again, your art is an expression of yourself. It takes originality and lots of time, so if you know how much you value your art, then you should be fine with protecting it as much as you can. 

At the end of the day, it all begins with education. Education is fundamental for any creative who wants to protect their rights.

This has been so insightful. Thank you so much.

Anytime!

Meet Seyi: A product manager who shares how using Selar can protect you from plagiarism.

How can creators protect their work from plagiarism using Selar?

Selar is committed to helping people and organizations protect their intellectual property rights. We have a copyright policy that does not allow the distribution of works that violate someone else’s intellectual property rights, including copyright and trademark.

As a creator, if your work has been plagiarized, and you notice a store on Selar selling it, we comply with world standards with respect to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) and we have clear guidelines to follow, which involve reporting, investigation, then actions taken by us. 

If our compliance team sees or receives a report from a rights owner claiming that a product on your Selar storefront infringes their intellectual property rights, we may need to promptly deactivate that product without contacting you first.

All you have to do is reach out to us giving a detailed report on the infringed copyright or intellectual property you want to report. Then, we go ahead and investigate. While investigations are ongoing, we deactivate the product and ask them for proof to show that the work is actually theirs.

Based on the outcome of the investigation, we can either choose to permanently deactivate your store (if it’s a very serious case) or give a warning to ensure you don’t repeat the action.

If we remove content that you posted because of an intellectual property report submitted via email as spelled out in our policy, you’ll receive a notification from us that may include the name and email address of the rights owner who made the report and/or other details of the report. If you still believe the content shouldn’t have been removed, you can follow up with the rights owner directly to try to resolve the issue.

Have there been any instances of plagiarized work?

For sure. We had a report from Multichoice about a merchant that was selling apps that allowed people to circumvent payment and watch their content for free. We deactivated the product and sent the merchant a notice.

Because we saw he had other products, we reviewed his entire catalog and deactivated other products that infringed on copyright, but we didn’t deactivate his entire store because he had some products that were either open source or his. So we asked him to provide us with more information and gave him a strong warning. 

Interestingly, he went ahead and created another account with the same products we had deactivated, and that ultimately warranted a complete deactivation of his account and a ban preventing him from creating other accounts in the future.

So, that’s from the legal perspective.

How about from a product angle?

From a product angle, I will start with the example of video content, say a course. First of all, we allow you the option to make your course video downloadable or view-only when you host it on  Selar.

View-only prevents people from screen recording because we have high encryption standards we use and are continuously improving. People still always find ways to get around the system (eg. using another phone’s camera to record), so to further prevent situations like that, we went a step further recently, and now have a watermark option on all videos hosted on Selar that displays the email address of the person accessing the product.

So, if you ever find out that your work has been plagiarized and is unrightly distributed, you can easily trace the source, which gives you some level of guarantee. 

For other types of products, like ebooks, we give you the option of hosting it on Selar and making it read-only or you can also choose to make the file downloadable after purchase. You should note that when you make things downloadable, it’s out of our hands, because once a digital copy can be saved, you can’t control how it’s distributed, so we advise people to just host whatever content they have on Selar to make it read-only or view-only. Very simple. 

What would you advise anyone to do if their work has been plagiarized?

Okay, first of all, I would advise them to get a paid Selar plan, so they can host their courses on Selar to ensure people do not download them. We have people who because they don’t want to pay for a plan, remain on the free Plan and host the files on Google Drive.

That’s unfortunately not safe enough for you as a creator, so we advise you to explore one of our paid plans and host your course on Selar to ensure that you protect your product. Then, if you do notice that your stuff has been plagiarized whether you’re a creator on Selar or not, we have a very robust copyright policy that you can review and follow. 

This was so good to hear.

Conclusion

Plagiarism can be a very demoralizing experience that can affect the motivation and livelihood of creators. However, as we’ve seen from the insight provided by the professionals above, several remedies exist for creators to explore. For one, they can approach the court of law for redress.

While this may be a tedious process, with patience they can get an injunction and even damages. They may also explore the court of public opinion, which may not be as effective or as rewarding but could serve as a deterrent and prevent other creators from falling prey.

Most effectively of all, they can host their courses on Selar, where several mechanisms have been put in place to ensure the protection of our creators and prevent product theft from taking place.

(*Name changed for privacy reasons).