In addition to self-plagiarism

A few days ago I had the opportunity to read an interesting article about self-plagiarism written by @zulfrontado. Zul points out several aspects about what is self-plagiarism and how controversial it is not to be able to publish the same content in different places, despite it's our creation.

It is an issue that is hard for people to understand and has caused us to have to address it and give many explanations in our read.cash community and also in or noise.cash channel.

I would like to give you my point of view on the matter, to expand on Zul's excellent exposition of the problem.

1.- Self-plagiarism is not acceptable anywhere.

To explain it quickly and simply, as creators of something, we will always have its intellectual property. A text, a drawing, a song… anything. Authorship rights are inalienable. However, if we publish or sell our creation (we publish it in exchange for money), we somehow concede the 'exploitation rights' of our own created work!

This happens in everything around us. For example: a journalist should not sell the same text to two different newspapers. A paparazzo should not sell the same photograph to two magazines. A researcher should not send the same paper to two scientific journals. A creator of a unique NTF should not, afterwards, mint a hundred copies of the same NFT and make it ordinary… etc.

They 'SHOULD NOT' does not mean they 'CANNOT'. They can all do those things, but logically, if a newspaper finds out that one of its journalist is taking advantage of its texts to publish them in another newspaper, he/she will be penalized in some way. The same for the 'paparazzo', the scientist or for the NFT creator, that nobody will want to buy his 'unique' pieces any more.

Can you imagine if I film a superhero movie and sell it to Disney, but a few days later I also sell it to Amazon and Netflix? Do you think Disney would buy a movie from me again? It can get to the extent of being a crime, specifically if we commit industrial fraud! In the academic world, self plagiarism is a discredit al least, and can even mean expulsion from Academia. Yes. As you read it. Self-plagiarism can have very serious consequences.

'Hey, but I don't belong to the academy and I haven't signed any contract to exploit my work. This is not a job!' -you may say.

And of course you would be right. But the applicable logic is the same.

We have not signed a contract for the exploitation of our work with any platform. Of course not!. And precisely for that reason, no platform has any obligation to pay for our works. If we publish the same content all over Internet, why should a platform pay us for it? What's so exclusive or interesting about it? You can read it anywhere!

From my point of view, it is completely logical. The same as a newspaper would not pay for your opinion article again, knowing that you can publish it in the competitors' newspaper at any time.

2.- Honesty.

I think it all comes down to being honest, with ourselves and with others, instead of thinking we are smarter than everyone else. Do you think no one has ever thought of publishing the same content on different platforms? Even on the same platform in different channels? In different languages using translators? Everyone could do that and replicate the same content a hundred times in a hundred places in a hundred languages. And do you think the platforms haven't thought about it?

I guess those who think they are 'so smart' have thought about it.

In my opinion -it's just my opinion- this is something dishonest, because it is a grievance for those who make an effort and try to provide original and exclusive content for us every day. And it also has a collateral effect: trying to get the most profit with these techniques from platforms with limited budgets (they are always limited) implies that the more we monopolize with our questionable techniques, the more someone will be left without platform support, even if his/her content is original, exclusive... and even better than ours.

Why do we think we deserve more than others? Why do we deserve to be rewarded for something that we have already exploited on other platforms, and someone who is dedicated only to this one does not deserve it? If you think about it, I guess you will understand that exclusive contents should be better rewarded than others that have already been commercialized... even if they belong to us, and even if we are not stealing anyone's intellectual property.

3.- The problem of being anonymous.

This is one of the strongest reasons that I can argue and that many times has served in our noise.cash channel for people to understand why we do not allow self-plagiarism. The reason is anonymity.

Unless we want to go through a KYC in each of the platforms we use, it is not possible to validate the identity of anyone or their creations.

I.e. I can say that I am Arturo Pérez Reverte and write here a text from 'El capitán Alatriste' claiming that it is of my authorship. Or a passage from 'The da Vinci's Code' and open a profile that says I am Dan Brown… or supplant the identity of a content creator from another platform and republish his/her content pretending to be him or her.

How can someone know that that text belongs to me or not? How can someone know they I am who I say I am? There is no way, which leads to plagiarism, content stealing and impersonation.

The solution: do not reward already published content, whether plagiarism or self-plagiarism (in my opinion, not only should they not be rewarded, but they should also be prevented from being published). It is like offering 'for sale' something that cannot guarantee that it is not 'stolen' (which is also a crime in many countries).

If you think about it a bit, the question also has its inverse interpretation that benefits us: would you like someone to take your avatar and steal your content to exploit it on a platform where you are not present? Would you like he / she to claim that he/she is you to justify a plagiarism? Preventing self-plagiarism also safeguards your own content!.

BUT

I fully understand that when someone makes a creative effort, he/she wants to reach as many people as possible. And I also understand that, if he/she wants to make a profit out of it, he/she tries to maximize it. It is logical and reasonable.

But there are many ways to viralize our content without being dishonest. A journalist can write a column in a newspaper about a topic. And then take advantage of what he has discovered with his journalistic work to publish other unpublished aspects in another newspaper. A paparazzo may sell exclusive photos to one magazine, but may try to sell the discarded (not bought) ones to another. An academician can write an article in a scientific journal and then make a version for its divulgation for another non-academic media or publish a great book where he goes deeper into his / her findings.

It is a more honest way. It is not about changing some words and expressions, but about giving a different approach to the content. It is about giving each platform something exclusive, something that remains there, something that can only be read there, even if it is a topic already addressed in other articles or in other platforms.

Of course, we can also invite people to read our content on other platforms. In other words, we can make a 'teaser' of our content and invite users from platform A to read it fully on platform B. Although this also has its perverse logic.

In fact, what we are doing is an advertisement (in platforms without advertisements, by the way). It is an advertisement on platform A to drive people to platform B (probably a competitor).

If we are talking about viralizing our content, I guess that's fine. But I don't think someone wants to be rewarded for advertising his/her content on another platform (competitor) and encouraging people to go there. It's logical. Isn't it?

Personally, I love noise.cash and read.cash. They are the only platforms that have retained me for more than a year and they are the only ones that monopolize my little free time available. There are many reasons, but above all, because of the small community that we have been building little by little. I doubt very much that I will ever have the time and the desire to start something like this again elsewhere. And that's why I would love for these two platforms to prosper and establish themselves as a referent in content creation platforms.

In part, that's in our hands. If we duplicate content here and there, we leave nothing unique here. And if we dedicate ourselves to promoting our content on other platforms so that people leave noise.cash and read.cash and go there, we do not contribute to their success.

I don't like the posts and articles that promote content on other platforms precisely for that reason. I would prefer if people promote their content on noise.cash and read.cash on other platforms (to bring people here). But I understand that people have their favourite places where they prefer to publish.

But if you have already chosen your favourite platform… don't pretend to duplicate your content on those you have abandoned. Because:

1) it's self-plagiarism,

2) it's dishonest and

3) there's no way to check that it's not stolen content.

@Loucy

All opinions expressed are exclusively my own and have nothing to do with how the algorithms work and the actual criteria used by the different platforms. It is only my opinion on how I think content that may be self-plagiarized should be handled.