Plagiarism and content theft is the use of someone else's text, photograph, or graphic without the author's consent. It is a copyright infringement giving grounds to demand removal and compensation, regardless of whether the source was cited. A citation of reasonable extent with the author credited is permissible; taking over the whole text is not. For companies the topic is relevant from both sides. As an author, you can defend yourself by regularly checking whether your own texts have appeared elsewhere, and in case one is found, by sending a notice to the operator or hosting provider. As the operator of an e-shop, bear in mind that descriptions taken over from a supplier may not infringe rights, but they create duplication with dozens of other shops and make it impossible to stand out in search results.
See also: Duplicate content, Copyright in photographs, Product description.
