This morning I found I had a pingback to one of my articles. When I checked the article source, it was on a Tax preparing company’s blog and my entire article “Adventures in Credit Repair” had been copied and pasted, including my title, and author attribution was given to another person. I commented asking them to attribute the article to me or to remove it, mentioning they are violating the Creative Commons License. We’ll see if they do the right thing. If they don’t, then I have legal recourse. I’m not sue happy, but since I journal online for non-profit enjoyment, I don’t think it’s right that a commercial site can use my words to make profit claiming them as their own.
It’s important to put a copyright or Creative Commons License on your blog or online journal. If you don’t, companies, and enterprising individuals can use your posts on their blog for financial gain, claim themselves as the author, and not give you any credit for your creative work. Mind you, this only happens in a long-shot situation, but like any form of insurance or legal license, you’ll be glad you have it when the time comes. Here is the link to build and get the code for the creative commons license that best suits you. Best of luck!
4 Comments
My apologies to you for not listing your name. I usually do. Was going to fast this morning. I appreciated your experience and wanted to make it available to our folks.
I have made the correction, listing you as author and providing a link to Riley Central.
Showing me as the author on our site was designating me as the person posting it. I am going to try and figure out a way to change that to insure that it doesn’t appear that I have written an article when I have not. Thanks for the Creative Commons License. I will list this and abide by it, as it is the “right” thing to do.
Thanks again for pointing this out to me, and again my apologies.
Why is that the accuse they all use when caught? This happens to me all too often.
A good reminder to bloggers, glad they at least attributed it to you, finally.
One day it will bite her in the butt, hard! My wife checked out her 100 something posts and every one is lifted without attribution to the original author. She even has one where she plagiarizes Michael Moore and lets it seem like she is the author. Sorry I had to bring such a “non-blogger” to the forefront, I thought all you guys would benefit by seeing someone like her stealing posts. I know attribution was never more important to me that it is today. Apparently by her comment she is sorry, but I doubt she would have been sorry unless she got caught publicly. All is forgiven.