The Video Production Business and Plagiarism
March 18, 2019 | Andy Linda
How creative do you think a video production business that plagiarizes is? We’ve been working on self-promoting our video production business lately and to that end we’re currently recognized as a top Video Production Company on DesignRush. We’re also listed on ProductionHub, Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Yelp, YouTube and many others. The field is growing, even as some lists drop out, such as the recent demise of Google+.
While searching for erroneous or out-of-date information about us, I scanned for duplicate content, one of the things that’s said to lower the Google ranking score. In that process I ran across blatant plagiarism from another video production business. It was online for seventeen years!
Plagiarism Detective Work
I started with Copyscape where I input our web page https://www.eimage.com/what-we-do/ . The result showed that our text also appeared on the website of a videography agency named Arlington Video Productions, Inc. in Columbus, Ohio. Of course I immediately went to that site… and found nothing. It’s a one-page website, perhaps in a state of transition.
My next stop was the Internet Archive Wayback Machine which shows web pages as they appeared in the past. For the video production business Arlington Video they had entries going back to September 19, 2000. By December 11, 2001 they revamped their site with familiar text. Compare it to what we wrote by December 2, 1998, three years earlier:
Arlington Video Productions
PRE-PRODUCTION
1. Every serious project begins with serious planning. We can help you formulate your proposed project by asking you questions at our initial meeting. Many of these questions can be answered by filling out our Project Profile Worksheet.
2. We then develep and submit for your approval a Prelimary Proposal and Budget where we define the scope of the production, the basic approach, and a proposed budget and timeline.
3. After your approval, we meet again to discuss the nature of the information which the program will cover. You will need to provide this information either in outline form or as a list of subjects to be covered. If your project is going to contain hard facts and figures, now is the time to include them. Often the existing company literature (brochures, product spec sheets, annual reports, etc.) already contain much of the information. If needed, we may ask you to begin searching for your company’s historical photos or existing graphic material (logos, previous videos, etc.).
4. Based on the material you give us, we develop and submit for your approval a Creative Treatment. This is an outline which shows how the video begins, develops, and ends. It includes all the relevant points of the video, but the final script will not yet be developed.
5. After we discuss and you approve the Creative Treatment, we write the full script, which meets all your needs in a fresh, unforgettable way. The script is submitted for your comment, revised, and resubmitted for your approval.
6. After you have approved the script, we arrange a shoot schedual and do whatever is necessary to preparte for the shoot. This would include booking for professional talent and surveying the location.
PRODUCTION
Using the best equipment and crew available, we shoot what’s needed. Our in-house Broadcast quality equipment is the industry standard. By owning the gear, we can assure you of being very accommodating and cost-effective.
Special equipment, such as a camera jib or dolly, help us cover your subject with the right measure of artistic knack. Our colleagues provide additional equipment and expertise where required. You supervise, watch for technical accuracy as far as it relates to your business, and interface between your personnel and our crew.
POST-PRODUCTION
1.We use an in-house state of-the-art non-linear (hard-disk-based) editing system to maximize the quality of your video. This allows us to make changes, which are quick and simple to do. After your review and approval of a rough edited video, the final mix of narration, music, and sound effects (up to 8 tracks of CD-quality sound), the timing is finessed to the split second, and the graphics, special effects, and sophisticated transitions are laid in. The production tells your story accurately, with stylish, engaging, memorable flair.
2. In a surprisingly short time you receive an edited master tape, ready for duplication to any number of copies in any tape format or international television standard. Or, we output your project as a digital MPEG movie, ready for integration into a CD ROM or Web page. Either way, we can keep a digital master of your edited video in case you would care to make any revisions later.
3. We would then handle any of your duplication needs. Special laser printed labels and professional packaging is a must to complete the ensemble.
In all cases, we make sure we exceed your expectations, meet your deadlines, and stay within your budget.
eIMAGE Video Productions
I. Pre-Production
1. Every serious project begins with serious pre-planning. We help you formulate your proposed project by asking a multitude of questions at our initial meeting. Many of these questions can be answered by filling out our Project Profile Worksheet.
2. We then develop and submit for your approval a Preliminary Proposal and Budget where we spell out the scope of the production, the basic approach, and a proposed budget and timeline.
3. After your approval, we meet for a Data Dump; you can give it to us in the form of an outline or a list of subjects which the program should cover. If your project is to contain hard facts and figures, now is the time to include them. Often the existing company literature (brochures, product spec sheets, annual reports, etc.) already contain much of the necessary information. If needed, we may ask you to begin searching for your company’s historical photos or existing graphic material (logos, stats, previous videos, etc.).
4. Based on the material you give us we develop and submit for your approval a Creative Treatment. This is an outline which shows how the program begins, develops, and ends. It includes all the relevant points of the program, although the final wording (narration or dialog) is yet to come.
5. After we discuss and you approve the Creative Treatment, we write the full script which meets all your objectives in a fresh, unforgettable way. The script is submitted for your comment, revised, and resubmitted for your approval.
6. Upon your approval we arrange a shooting schedule and do whatever is necessary to get the shoot under way.
II. Production
1. Using the best equipment and crew available, we shoot what’s needed. Our in-house BetacamSP equipment is the broadcast and industry standard. By owning the gear, we can assure you of being very accommodating and cost-effective. Special equipment, such as our camera jib and dolly, help us cover your subject with the right measure of artistic knack. Our colleagues provide additional equipment and expertise where required. You supervise, watch for technical accuracy as far as it relates to your business, and interface between your personnel and our crew.
III. Post-Production
1. We create an Off-line (rough) cut and submit it for your approval. We use our in-house Media 100 state of-the-art non-linear (hard-disk-based) editing system, so changes are quick and simple to make. After your review we cut together a second version, and if need be, a third. By now the project includes the final mix of narration, music, and sound effects (up to 8 tracks of CD-quality sound), the timing is finessed to the split second, and the graphics, animations, special effects, and sophisticated transitions are laid in. The production tells your story accurately, with stylish, engaging, memorable flair.
2. The last major step is On-line editing where our editing system automatically re-edits the program from fresh camera original tapes to give your show the best technical quality. In fact, our Media 100 offers the absolutely best image quality of any such editing system.
3. In a surprisingly short time you receive an edited master tape, ready for duplication to any number of copies in any tape format or international television standard. Or, we output your project as a Quick-Time movie, ready for integration into a CD ROM or Web page. Either way, we can keep a digital master of your edited show in case you would care to make any revisions later.
4. We would be pleased to handle any of your duplication needs.
In all cases we make sure to exceed your expectations,
meet your deadlines, and stay within your budget.
Don’t Plagiarize!
You can tell which parts they wrote themselves because those sentences are full of typos which I’ve taken the liberty to highlight in red. Their page stayed that way until at least August 20, 2018. In those seventeen years, they managed to fix the last two typos, but not the first two.
I’m writing them a nastygram today to tell them to write their own copy. I’ll update this blog if I hear back.
They say if you give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters and an infinite amount of time, they will write all the works of Shakespeare. But the operative word is infinite. In the short term, the lesson is the same your high school English teacher probably told you: plagiarism is wrong, don’t do it, you’ll get caught. Even if it’s eighteen years later. For our purposes, technology’s reach and memory is almost infinite.
But besides the Google ranking issues and the shame of getting caught after having done something bad, how does this reflect on a video production business that’s supposed to be, almost by definition, creative? If you can’t write your own copy and can’t describe what it is you do for a living, you’re not much of a video production business!
eIMAGE Video Productions
