As any informed blogger or SEO guru will tell you, having unique content on your website is more than just a little important these days. Ensuring Google (and other search engines, lest we forget) see you as a credible and unique source of information for the content you write is one of the last things on the web worth really protecting. After spending quality time writing and optimising your content it gives you the wookies if people steal it.

NB: There are a lot of ways people can get your content and use it for evil. One is the simple copy and paste. Two is using a scrapper to 'scrape' your information from your site automagically. Three is taking RSS feeds and importing them as posts on their own sites without including a link to original. And there are a few more no doubt.

Recently I was introduced to Copy Alerts. A simple and currently free service that keeps an eye on the interweb and alerts you if it detects anything that resembles copied, plagiarised or stolen copy/content.

I am assuming it assumes that the content on your site is all original, else how does it discern who wrote it first. So if you are into protecting your web IP have a look.

Copy Alerts is in beta.

Check it out
http://www.copyalerts.com/