Yes, it’s true. Some moron has actually stolen one of my posts and reposted it as her own. Don’t believe me? Check this out!
Of all the stupid things to rip off, why would anyone steal the coulrophobia post? I suppose I should be glad she’s not plagiarizing anything halfway decent, but still, it’s the principle of the thing.
I guess I should be flattered, in a way. I mean, no one would steal my stuff if I totally sucked and no one read my blog. Granted, the thief in question isn’t exactly a literary giant in her own right, as a visit to her blog will readily reveal. And yes, I realize that plagiarizing Smith isn’t quite the same as plagiarizing Hemingway.
But that’s not the point, is it? I wrote it, she stole it, and that pisses me off!
I did try to take care of this the nice way. I didn’t want to air out dirty laundry in public. (I’ve already learned that lesson the hard way). So I PM’d her with a request that she either remove it or give me attribution.
I had to register on the site first. This in itself was a pain in the ass, since this is apparently a dating site of some kind and I had a hell of a time convincing their server that I wasn’t looking for a date. I sent her three PM’s, all diplomatically worded (I’m sure you didn’t MEAN to steal my stuff, dearie. A simple oversight, no doubt).
No reply. I guess she’s turned off by the fact that I’m not looking for a date with someone from the UK. So I left one of my usual delicately worded comments, which I assume is still there unless she clobbers it. I also sent a complaint to the site admin.
I’m still holding out hope that this is all just a misunderstanding on someone’s part. Maybe she’ll do the right thing. It’s not like I’m looking for money here, just a little credit for my own intellectual (in the loosest sense of the word) property. As John Lennon once wrote, “It gets on my tit!”.
-Smith
I don’t blame ya man. I’d be pissed off myself! Why can’t people just think for themselves?
Obviously because some people are incapable of it. They can’t all be like us brethren of the briar.
First off, I’m sorry to hear that this happened to you but it seems to have worked out. I visited the post and it appears that yours is taken down. However, there seems to be a lot of other stuff that is taken from other authors there so I might have to look into that later.
In the future though, you may want to consider filing DMCA notices against the host to resolve these matters quickly and quietly. The law requires that all U.S. based hosts remove infringing materials when properly notified. I would take advantage of that rather than going through the headaches that you just put up with.
If you need any help with that, drop me a line. I have templates on my site if you need them.
I hope this helps you out and good luck with your future battles in this area. I’ll help if I can!
I regret to inform you my dear fellow that your work is not the only one that she has stolen as there were many others that she has high tailed off with. She is a royal pain in the proverbial assets for many of us there. Most of us are just bloggers not looking for anyone. We are a circle of friends who enjoy writing and reading blogs. She on the otherhand is a wolf crier and a blogslug troll as I call her. She has locked down your material so only certain readers of hers can view it and she can alson\ ban you from viewing her blog.
So my suggestion to you is to disallow any right clicks if possible as she will be back. Welcome to the lair of the blogslug troll. Mind where you step. Keep any eye on her. Take care and good luck.
Excellent advice. Thank you.
I have to nip this one in the bud. Disabling right click doesn’t do anything to prevent content theft but greatly annoys legitimate users. I can still use edit/copy/paste or simply control+c and control+v. Right click is just one means, and one of the slowest at that, to copy text.
Worse still, I use right click to navigate the web. Right click on a page and you’ll get a submenu with back, forward, reload, view source and other options. Without that, my Web experience is hindered greatly.
If you want to work on techniques that do actually protect content, I will help. I’ve shut down over 600 plagiarists of my work so I’ve been around this block a few times.
Just let me know if there is anything that I can do.