Our content is unique on all 4 sites for one niche, we once dominated google's first page until the new update now we are scattered over the first 3 pages! We plan (and are seeing a daily improvement) on our development, now 3 sites on first page, with one site at top of page 2.
Well yes.. I also heard about this and studied about the google's new strategy for content-farm on the websites. They have to write only unique contents and no any kind of stuffed or copied content any more.
not much as of now. However the new algorithm change has affected Copied content blogs/websites not link building people