Website duplication, in which content is lifted wholesale from a website and hosted elsewhere without permission, could be costing UK news publishers millions in lost revenue and resources.
It’s a problem that appears to be growing, but one which many news publishers may be unaware is affecting them.
While some news outfits complain about their stories being “ripped off” when they appear in rival titles without sufficient credit, website duplication takes copyright theft to a more serious level.
One national newsbrand, which Press Gazette has been asked not to name, had its entire website cloned and hosted at a web address that was just one letter different from the original website. The fake site, which Press Gazette has seen in an image, could easily have been mistaken for the real thing.
NMA Condemns Fake News Sites Which Exploit Real Journalism
The News Media Association has said that fake news websites which scrape and republish content from real journalistic outlets to gain advertising revenue pose a direct threat to journalism and should be stopped.
Several examples of fake news websites targeting genuine local news websites in a systematic way by scraping and republishing content have surfaced in recent months.
KentOnline reported today how the Kent Chronicle website lifted stories in their entirety from other professional news-gathering organisations, including KentOnline, and attributed to “reporters” either faked or based on genuine journalists whose pictures could be found online.