plagiarism

[Paul Wheaton]

This page

http://www.awomanstouch.us/organiclawn.php

Looks like a rip off of my lawn care article:

I've found people ripping me off before, but they usually had the page loaded with ads. This one I decided to not write to her because there is an important lesson.

Plagiarism can go hand in hand with "a woman's touch"; "zen garden"; "serenity"; "feng shui"

The home page is signed with "Namaste"

I guess the thing is that this woman wanted to express "a woman's touch" but she couldn't write it herself and she couldn't find a woman to steal from, so she steals from a man and changes the label to "a woman's touch."

About two years ago I found a site that did something similar. Again, the site was owned by a woman. And the site was all about christianity and gardening.

Maybe my writing style is so feminine that men won't dare to copy it and call it their own!

And maybe this article hits some really awesome spiritual vibe that makes the spiritually obsessed want to claim it is as their own words!

And ... the most important lesson ... folks that sing the praises of some spiritual path can be thieves.

When I contacted the christian woman, I made up some reasonable number for publishing my article and said "the christian thing to do would be to do the right thing and pay for what you have taken." She refused to pay anything. I never saw a dime. Further, she insisted that she had done nothing wrong because anything on the internet is free for the taking. She became very angry with me.

This seems to be a bit of a theme in my life. Criminals being angry at those that catch them in the act. The victim is to be painted as the bad person. And the criminals carry a big bucket of plastic hearts, flowers and rainbows to prove to the world that they are "good people".

[peekin]

What-do-you-do-when-someone-steals-your-content/. Great link.

I've had this happen to me. I also know of a well known chef who steals content right and left, and who got busted doing that while blogging with me. :1pig: He denied it heartily and now hates me because I backed up the person he was plagiarizing from. Of course, he's also writing a book.

It's very common. I say, go get 'er!

[Jennifer L.]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&as_q=&as_epq=MYTH%3A+If+I+mow+short%2C+it+will+be+longer+until+I+have+to+mow+again.+&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=50&lr=&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images

[Windy in Kansas]

Paul, you simply don't buy it that great minds think alike?


LoL, sorry couldn't resist.

[Alice In TX/MO]

I sent her an email.

[Teri]

The internet makes this all too easy, I'm afraid. My dh is a writer and he's had stuff lifted off the internet from magazine articles he wrote years ago. The woman who plagiarized him (and several others) found a shady publisher and sold several thousand copies of a book compiled of material mostly taken off the internet.

[anniew]

BTDT but don't whine to anyone who is not a writer...they just don't understand intellectual property, and most don't care.

[clovis]

Paul- I wanted to PM you, but see that you have your PM box closed.

Clove

[Paul Wheaton]

Alice,

Have you heard back from her?

peekin,

It is amazing how our society so thoroughly rewards the wicked.

The truth is that I have had so many people stealing my stuff, I've grown rather weary of the process of getting bad people to take it down. I really wish there was a way where the victims did not have to pay so dearly to right the wrongs of others done unto them. Your link says "it's easy" and then goes on at such tremendous length!

The truth is that I could roll up several hours tracking down bad guys only have a third of them get hostile and tell me that I am the bad guy. I don't get paid to do it. And a lot of people are nasty because they enjoy being nasty.

Jennifer,

Depressing isn't it! And that's just for one of my articles! I have a forum site and somebody wrote a program to download all the threads of all the forums and loaded all their new pages with ads. I guess the idea was that if people found their stuff through a search engine, they would click on the ads and they would make money. I suspect they later found out that advertisers pay so little it really doesn't cover the server bills.

Clovis,

I'm not a big fan of PM - I frequently forget to check it. I prefer email and forums.

All,

Thanks everybody for your kind words and support!

[o&itw]

I guess I am lucky. The site where I post my writings first checks my content to make sure that i have not plagerized somone else....then copyrights the material. If anyone uses more than a small quote from it, I have the copyright on my side.

[Bonnie L]

Paul - in a way, it's a compliment. Nobody has - as far as I know - stolen any of my articles!

Most are published in the newspaper, so that makes a difference. When I do put something on-line, I tell people they can copy it to send to others, but my name must stay with it.