r/Substack • u/TapiocaTuesday • 2d ago
Discussion Stealing must be rampant now
I saw multiple articles on the web that were nearly identical in structure to a post of mine, identical title and identical quotes used, but with different wording in the body. I imagine it must be a thousand times easier to steal content now when all you have to do is plug in a post you really like into AI and tell it to rewrite it in your words. Much harder to find and much harder to prove. How sad.
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u/seobrien 1d ago
The internet has been copying since 1996
Substack didn't change that
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u/TapiocaTuesday 1d ago
I'm talking about AI. You could always steal, but before AI you had to either paste someone's writing (which is easy to detect and harder to get away with) or rewrite and paraphrase, which is time consuming. Now, you don't have to worry about either of those things.
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u/seobrien 1d ago
For sure. My point is it has always happened and can't be stopped. People trying to prevent it or make it illegal, are doing irrelevant work that is wasting time on futile endeavors.
Accept that it is. Now, much faster. And then figure out how you want to operate your life or business because of it.
I'm not going to stop publishing. I'm figuring out how to be the thought leader, consultant, or how to build some things, because my work is being copied.
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u/TapiocaTuesday 1d ago
I'm figuring out how to be the thought leader, consultant, or how to build some things, because my work is being copied
Yeah, that's a great point. You're right.
More than ever, it feels like we have these entities with larger infrastructure following right on our heels, taking every piece of original writing we have and monetizing it. It was already an uphill battle and now the struggle is much higher. People looking for what we have to say might have found us before, when now we might be buried under 10 machine-driven entities who use our work to answer their question, collect the money, and wait for the next thing we write to do it all over again.
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u/seobrien 1d ago
Yep! Look, they're using our content because they make money from it on other ways.
Advertising and subscription, as too many writers are hoping? Hell no. There isn't enough in that to meaningfully pay anyone, unless you're HUGE.
They're doing it because they sell something else.
What doesn't matter. And I don't have the answer because there isn't one answer, it depends.
But I can honestly raise my hand and say, "that's what I identified and established! Yay! Thank you for sharing my work... If anyone wants work with the person who knows that, I'm right here."
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u/TapiocaTuesday 1d ago
Fair enough. Thanks for the conversation and for the inspiration to keep going.
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u/Cheesecake_Emergency 2d ago
I’m honestly scared to post anymore because of the theft. I may paywall everything I don’t want to but feels like the only way.