Since the dates of blogs can now be altered at will by their writers, can the date of a blog posting’s first appearance always be determined?

Legally, it if is clear to an “ordinary observer” that the new work is based upon the original, that would be considered a derivative work and that would be an infringement the same as if the work were copied verbatim. After all, the same as copyright gives the copyright holder the exclusive right to make copies of a work, it also gives that person the exclusive right to make derivative works.

Where a derivative work becomes an original one or a fair use is a slippery area but not one most spinners enter into.

So, to answer your question, they are harder to detect and may to less damage to your SEO, but typically are just as much of an infringement.

I hope that helps!

In short, there are programs out there used typically for search engine optimization to avoid “duplicate content”. They will find hundreds of small phrases like “writes at” and replace with “is a writer for”. By replacing hundreds of words with synonyms, it’s possible to … plagiarize? But wait, if a computer rewrites it, is that plagiarism?

Strictly speaking, from an ethical perspective, if one has to ask, it probably is wrong.

I’m curious, however, about the legal implications. I know others have taken articles of mine and rewritten them slightly (possibly by automated program). I use spinners to rewrite my own content, so if it gets syndicated, it doesn’t show up as duplicate content to google.