I sometimes stumble upon bits of my blog posts on other websites, with no credit. If I can find a link, I will write to the offender, and usually they'll make a link back to my site, etc. But there are some websites where there is no way to reach out to the plagiarist.
One Hollywood-type, a reality TV producer's assistant, Tinsley, lifted my massive post on Chilean miners, and posted the entire piece on her Tumblr blog (all gone now), apparently, because she was "very liberal," she was also very liberal with my post.
Many of my enraged friends bombarded Tinsley's site, and she took it down. I called it my Tinsleygate. I wouldn't have cared if she had at least asked me, published a portion of it with quotes, then made an obvious link back to my blog. But she didn't do that. She was getting all the traffic and kudus as if she had written it. Thing is, I was still revising it (I revise a lot), when she snagged one iteration of it...
Tinsley later apologised, see her letter at the bottom of my Chilean Miners post. She back-pedalled a bit, to say the least. Rather than just use bits of my piece, or give me credit, she took it down. I guess we took her down when she realized the legal implications between the concept of "fair use," and copyright infringement.
Borrowing a few lines is considered to be fair use (for educational purposes only) under the copyright act.
Someone also lifted my Black Bart story, but a few emails later, it was resolved nicely...a Dutch fellow interested in old firearms, used my story to illustrate his antique gun collection. Turns out he just really, really liked my story.
Tinsley later apologised, see her letter at the bottom of my Chilean Miners post. She back-pedalled a bit, to say the least. Rather than just use bits of my piece, or give me credit, she took it down. I guess we took her down when she realized the legal implications between the concept of "fair use," and copyright infringement.
Borrowing a few lines is considered to be fair use (for educational purposes only) under the copyright act.
Someone also lifted my Black Bart story, but a few emails later, it was resolved nicely...a Dutch fellow interested in old firearms, used my story to illustrate his antique gun collection. Turns out he just really, really liked my story.
black bart - Dutch Gunswww.dutchguns.com/black%20bart.htm Het origineel is te vinden op http://mohurley.blogspot.com/2009/09/black-bart. html. This article is not mine, but found on the internet. It is written by Maureen ...
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Another nefarious sort lifted my entire interview and photo of Jim Dodge, then posted it on his own blog, zoran rosko vacuum player with no link or mention. Grrr. I guess the word vacuum explains it all. I was able to leave a comment:
Maureen Hurley7/29/11, 5:19 AM If you're going to lift my entire blog post and repost it here, please at least use my name and offer a back link to it. BTW, you're also breaking copyright.
Maureen Hurley http://mohurley.blogspot.com/2009/09/jim-dodge.html
At the time, I thought there was no legal recourse for me. I've never resorted to legal means, but in each case, no one was actually making money off my pieces. To be fair, Zoran Rosco did remove my photo, and credited my work to a literary blog I belonged to, RedRoom, as the author. But not to me.
However, if you find your work appearing on other sites, do check out this helpful post from the National Writers' Union, Are Websites Stealing Your Work? There are some great links at the bottom of the post. (And see my links at the bottom of the page.)
A couple of blokes delving into brewing a heady quaff, did source me (not sure why!) for my bit on St. Patrick & Annals of the Four Masters. Cheers! I'll drink to that. Moor: Dining and Dwelling Part 4
This particular link is more of a tribute, than a theft, but it's done right. A synopsis, and a link back to me. The Hall of Heorot: Literrata: Olaf the Peacock's Irish Mother Which, in turn, was a reblog from Ireland's Eye on Myth, from Nov. 30, 2013. And also in Fuck Yeah Vikings and Celts! (But I couldn't find the post. OK, so I'm a little late to the party.... three years later. I't not like I have a huge following, "This domain listed #3 054 178 number in the world.")
Maybe I should Google myself more often than once every five years. I also found this BOOK! entry on my Tiki Junction piece. It looks like a bibliography.
The Tender Soldier: A True Story of War and Sacrifice - Google Books Result
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1439177406Vanessa M. Gezari - 2014 - History
See also Price, “Barney West Famous for Tricky Tikis,” and “Tiki Junction, Sausalito,” http://mohurley.blogspot.com/2007/03/tiki-junction-sausalito.html, accessed ...
- cassidyslangscam paid somewhat of a sideways backhanded tribute to me as well, in that he quotes bits of my blog, but didn't like Danny Cassidy (or my blog) all that much. "So, while there are things I dislike about the blog, she is displaying an admirable amount of integrity here and drawing a clear line between the man and his crazy theories. Unfortunately, this kind of integrity is rare."
- And yes, my photos are stolen as well; But most people do attribute them to me. Until I began to Google my name, I never even knew about this one from Bird & Beckett, a great indie bookstore in SSF, and I've read there... and I do love that photo of HD Moe, RIP.
I'm less happy about the outright theft of a Brownie Mary photo on a YouTube book review,, but my blog was given credit: The Long MANGLED MESSY MALIGNED Life of MARIJUANA. And it doesn't have a huge following (218 views in one year... So I'll wait and see,)
- "A footnote: The photo of H. D. Moe above is from Maureen Hurley’s blog (is she perhaps the photographer as well?) athttp://mohurley.blogspot.com/2009/09/black-bart-rides-again.html. There, you’ll find a wonderful account with stunning images from the Black Bart Poetry Festival held at the On Broadway Theatre in North Beach in 1983, with Dave Moe in attendance, among a cast of luminaries that will make you regret ever missing a promising gathering of bards. The post begins with the well-told tale of Black Bart, himself, “California’s first and most notorious stagecoach robber poet” and quotes a commentator who noted that “whatever Black Bart lacked as a rhymer, he sure made up for as a robber.” If you think poetry is a crime, you’re not alone! But crime pays, just like poetry, no? Bring a dollar or two for the poets!"
- I know I've pissed a few people off with my post calling Arby's dancing chimps ad racist and offensive, and also my Viking Redhead post ruffled a few feathers....many divergent threads there. But enough of this obsession, I'm onto page 5 of Google results and am cross-eyed and growing weary...a lot of spammy, bogus sites replete with the red herring siren call of seeing my handle mohurley.blogspot in print, merely as bizarre spam filler.
Of course this search process only works if my name's attached to my work. There's probably a lot more of my work out there with no credit at all. Not much I can do about that. Except use unique search lines for each post, and at 1500-plus posts, I don't see that happening any time soon.
That's how I stumbled upon my stolen Jim Dodge post, a unique line handle led me to a post where the writing seemed strangely familiar. Which led to that moment of epiphany: hey wait! I wrote that! The irony is, If I wait too much longer I won't remember that I wrote it anyway.
Ultimately, leaving my post up on the vacuum cleaner's blog site benefits my friend, writer Jim Dodge, so I did not invoke legal aid on that blatant post theft. I took screenshots of it, 11 of them, just in case....
So it boils down to this, if you write, you have a few options, leave your writing under lock and key, mouldering in a drawer, while submitting some of it in small sequential batches in the hopes that someone will eventually use it in a print journal, or you can electronically publish your work, whether with self-publishing in a blog, or with electronic magazines. (And that still won't stop people from lifting your work.)
Writing is a compulsion, I have to write, I don't seem to have much control over what I write, so write, I must. That's how I learn, how I comprehend the world around me. I never set out to write about a given subject. It's an organic process, with no tangible beginning, middle, or end.I guess the question begs, who do you write for, yourself, or for others, in the hopes that someone will read your work, and perhaps be moved by it? I do know that by publishing my writing here, such as it is, it forces me to rewrite and to work much harder at my sullied craft, than if it was strictly a private affair. It ups my game considerably. Ah, exposure, exposure, exposure is everything. I'm not sure theft is the most obvious form of flattery.
