A new app called FairShare, developed by Attributor, offers a free and easy way to find out. It takes just a couple of minutes to register a site with FairShare, and you can add multiple sites and blogs once you’ve registered the first one.

You start by entering your feed address. A window appears, showing the various types of Creative Commons licenses available.

(If you have a static site with no feed, click the Help link and you’ll find out what to do in the Getting Started section.)

I’d been meaning to add a Creative Commons license image to my blogs, and signing up for FairShare helped me get that off my to-do list.

Once you’ve registered your site, FairShare searches 35 billion web pages to see if your content appears on other sites. You can choose to receive this info through a feed reader. For each page containing your work, FairShare will show you how the reuse compares to your license conditions and point you to a page where you can see more details.

In this case, FairShare caught me red handed; I’d cross-posted some content from one of my blogs onto another site of mine.

Unfortunately, another of my posts contains Obama’s entire inauguration speech, with my comments throughout. So FairShare is now telling me every time portions of that text appear. I wonder how many years that will continue! I’d like to be able to tell the app not to look for copies of that particular post. I asked FairShare about this, and they are, in fact, working on a feature that will let you exclude posts that reuse common speeches or articles. Fortunately, the app already ignores content you have in blockquotes.

FairShare has another excellent feature on the way: a license that will allow you to share ad revenue when your content is being used elsewhere. Hopefully this will help keep content “borrowers” honest while also benefiting the content creators.

FairShare is similar to other plagiarism-monitoring tools, like Copyscape, but the ability to specify the license your content uses and subscribe to the results through a feed reader make it easier to use.

The Internet is still a wild frontier (and some of us like it that way). However, these days, many of us are concerned about managing our online identities, and the web makes it awfully easy for others to find and use content that they didn’t create. So it can be comforting to have tools that allow us to monitor, and have some control over, our own online presence.

What do you use for monitoring how your content is being used?

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Other types of work, like contributing to the digitization at Project Gutenberg, are even more thankless. Adding to the sum of archived knowledge is definitely helpful in a general, charitable sort of way, but is there a more tangible, immediate benefit to you as a web worker as well? In both examples, the answer is yes.

Honing Your Craft

Let’s take a look at the first example, contributing media to the creative commons for non-profit community use. The main advantage here? The ability to work when you’re not working. I know that sounds suspiciously like never taking a vacation, at first blush, but that’s not what I mean.

As freelancers, we all have dry spells. You know what I’m talking about, those seemingly vast expanses of time during which we’re not as busy as we generally could/should be. Contributing to creative commons helps ensure this time is not entirely lost. You can avoid atrophy by continuing to take photos, make music, write, etc., though your reward won’t be financial. Still, it’s better than sitting on your duff.

Generating Business

While you’re honing your craft, you’re also putting your name out there. I know I already downplayed the publicity aspect of doing creative commons work, but that doesn’t mean it’s altogether negated. Your name is still attached to the product somewhere, and, if the work is really outstanding, someone will definitely take notice, and hopefully take the time to track down the source.

Try not to think of this as the central motivator of your work, but definitely keep it in mind to help ensure your quality standards stay high.

CV Benefits

What about the other kind of work, like helping build Project Gutenberg? Aside from the healthy glow your cheeks will acquire after you’ve done something unselfish, you’ll also gain a healthier CV. The kind of work you do in contributing to the creative commons may not necessarily reflect a skill set your employer is looking for, but if you’re searching in the tech industry, it’ll show you genuinely care about and want to help support the development of information and information tech.

There are at least three good reasons to start giving back to the wider internet community. The benefit, for web workers, is that this kind of volunteering doesn’t require you to necessarily go anywhere, receive training, or commit for a definite period of time, so you easily can do it between projects from your home office. It’s a definite win-win.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks