How does Upwork protect Profile Portfolio pieces from being mined for plagiarism?

[aly_jones]

Hi all,

I am new to Upwork and am working to upload samples to my Profile Portfolio. I'd like to share Personal Statements and Statements of Purpose I've proofread and edited, but one of my clients expressed concern that posting her work could leave it subject to plagiarism. It is a fair concern, and I'd like to be able to assure her that her work will be safe, but I don't want to make a false promise.

Does Upwork have a system in place to securely protect documents uploaded from internet searches or other attempts to plagiarize materials?

Thanks for your help!

aly

[tlbp · Accepted solution]

There's no way for anyone to prevent something published online from being copied. If someone can see it, they can copy it. 

[aly_jones]

Thank you!

[prestonhunter]

I assume that anything I put in my portfolio may be copied far and wide. I try to make sure my name is embedded in my portfolio pieces so that if anybody sees them, no matter where they end up, I get the credit for the work.

[aly_jones]

Thank you for the advice. I’ll make sure that’s the case for my own private projects, but unfortunately it turns out many of my clients I’ve helped write personal statements are concerned about their work being lifted. Do you have recommendations for successfully getting Personal Statement work without a substantial portfolio? Sorry if this is an inappropriate inquiry. I’m just disappointed to lose a significant amount of sample work.

[prestonhunter]

If you need to do so, you can create pieces for your portfolio. Create work that represents what you can do, but does not violate anybody's privacy.

Your portfolio pieces do NOT need to be work that someone else paid you to create.