PLAGIARISM: Understand plagiarism and communicate what, why and how to avoid

What is Plagiarism and how does it relate to our decentralized and commercial Steemit content? Lets first find out the definition of Plagiarism.

On Steemit plagiarism is a really big thing. Since a majority of Steemit users use English but only a small percentage actually have English as their first language, we see lots of sub-par English usage. This is a tough obstacle for many to overcome, especially in third world countries where resources and materials to learn are not abundant.

Often you will find articles or posts that are written too good from these people. We must be careful to not copy word for word other people's content without citing sources and even then images, videos and all content must have creative commons licenses, which means it is ok to reuse to avoid potential copywrite infractions. Qurator had a great article on this, it's a great read and can help you a lot if you're wondering how to properly cite/source material for your personal posts on Steemit.

On Steemit, we have commercial content that we produce, as long as we are accepting payment for our content, we must becareful to not steal work either by plagiarism or 'copy and paste' from any online source. We are liable for our actions and maybe subjected to legal action from the original content creator(s) who may not be happy with you taking their content for monetary gain. You will be at a higher risk of flags from others on Steemit too. Often times when plagiarism or copy and paste infractions happen they are brought to the Steemcleaners discord by others, it is a group trying prevent and stop plagarism, essentially protecting you and the Steemit platform. If you have been flagged by @steemcleaners you can ask for forgiveness or get better educated on why they flagged you. I have seen them at work and they are beyond fair in my opinion.

@pjau explains in the @steemcleaners discord the differences between 'copy and paste' and plagiarized material. This is a great reference when trying to determine what to report to @steemcleaners or what to avoid when creating your Steemit content.

Please be mindful out there in Steemit land. Do not steal other peoples content from the internet and this includes all content inside and outside of Steemit.com. Don't be lazy you can do this! If English is not your first language than use your native language! What ever you do do NOT plagiarise or 'copy and paste' but please DO join Minnow Boot Camp and learn with us!