From his public "apology"[1]:
"The debate on paraphrasing, rewriting and quoting we should save for another post."
Zee: THAT'S THE PLAGIARISM PART.
[1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M92qqFrK2zlqCoaQV_l_wuxI...
That does not parse but I think you're confusing aggressively with actively and proactively with defensively.
All at once. And you look pretty silly in the process.
Just apologize to the guy, make sure you'll never do it again.
As long as you keep spinning this will make you look worse and worse.
It's obvious that you don't have a process in place because then this would not happen.
This was not unintentional, there is 0 chance of that.
Nobody copies a chunk of text like that unintentional, nobody behaves like you did in this thread and elsewhere unintentional.
The cover-up is worse than the crime, if you had been a responsible adult about this in the first place it would have gone away long ago.
It was dumb. Only you can stop it.
1) Don't do it;
2) If it occurs, fire the guy who did it;
3) Apologize and try to make it right;
4) Shut up.
You seem to find each one of those steps challenging.
> If it ever does happen, I assure you that all it takes is one email to [email protected] and we'll have it resolved.
I'm sure it does. But the point is that you should ensure through process and not through policy that you do not end up with other people's stuff on your site without attribution or compensation.
The fact that you'll take it down to avoid further damage is not enough to put you in the clear, this is not 'user generated content', these are people with who you have a relationship where you have them create works on your behalf.
You're responsible.
One way in which you could do this - consult your local legal eagle - is to ask your authors to sign a release stating that they are the original creators of all the content they submit, and that they are within their rights to re-sell this content to you.