Automatic Duplicate Content Handling

Duplicate content is a very difficult thing to police. I imagine a day where duplicate content can be automatically removed from the major search engines. Or, if the original author allows, the content can be edited, and links to the original website where the article originated can be inserted at the bottom of the content and the SERPS. This might be just one of several good ways to police plagiarism, without time-consuming and emotional consuming alternatives. Popular websites like Medium can also get involved. I imagine Google and Medium are already policing this to some extent by not indexing sites with duplicate content, especially if enough complaints are made.

I can also imagine using the blockchain to help. The blockchain makes it impossible to double spend cryptocurrency. The first person to spend the crypto is determined to be the owner, and it is impossible to be spent again. The main search engines have already gathered nearly all of the content on the internet and update their servers constantly.

Trying to establish whether anything was written offline before it was posted online becomes an enormous waste of resources. I believe trusted online time stamp collectors should eventually become the answer. Further, not all duplicate content is undesirable. Generous and kind authors can make it known that it is OK to resuse or edit anything they write online.

Squabbling over who came up with the idea first will eventually become a thing of the past. As humans, we…