When it comes to content, you have to respect copyrights, even on the web.  Plagiarism on the web is rampant and most people don't understand why they just shouldn't do it.  Let's forget all about the ethical aspect of the whole thing.  Not to say that that alone shouldn't be the reason you don't steal other people's content, but from SEO and business perspectives there are certainly a lot of other reasons you shouldn't do it as well.  In terms of search engine indexing, content is your key commodity.  If a search engine sees that you and another site have suspiciously similar content, they devalue the site that they feel plagiarized the content.  Now, the engine may not always be correct in who they deem the shady party, but 9 times out of 10, they know the score  Think about it, if you had gazillions of pages to index, wouldn't you be a bit put out if you had to keep indexing the same exact page over and over again?  That's why Google has become so wise to plagiarism.  They want to save themselves space on their servers!

So, what can be done to make sure your site isn't guilty of plagiarism and that some other site isn't ripping off your content?

The tool we like to use best is CopyScape.  CopyScape allows you to enter a domain name into their online interface and search the web for copies of that content.  It helps you to discover those blatantly stealing your content and identify those quoting you. 

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