Many of my blogging friends and readers will recognize the above post of mine that I posted January 13, 2009. This post is one of my most often Googled posts and people seem to love the pictures of my treasured glass on glass mosaics that I made and mounted in my garden. In fact, it is such a beloved post another 'blogger' (read thief) decided to 'gather' a bunch of Internet articles that the person (not sure if a he or she) felt were 'wonderful' articles from the Internet. The problem is that these wonderful articles don't just appear on the Internet and don't belong to the Internet. Someone has to post these wonderful articles and hopefully that someone is the creative individual who originated the article. Posting someone else's work as your own is so not cool and this is what happened to my glass on glass mosaic post.
When I found this post of mine I was absolutely shocked. First at the audacity, then, well just at the audacity and I am outraged. I found my post when I checked my Sitemeter for outclicks. I almost always check Sitemeter for outclicks because you can kind of see what people are interested in, where they came from and what photos they like best. This particular visitor was interested in a picture and outclicked on a picture that was posted in my original Glass on Glass post. I then went to look at the referral words which were "Glass Mosaic". When I clicked on that referral it took me to this other blog! That was not what I had expected at all needless to say.
At this point I did two things. I left a very loud comment about letting the 'owner' of the blog know that I was the lawful owner of the post the person had posted and that I was reporting the theft to Blogger. You see, Blogger has its own policies for operating and copyright infringement is clearly in contradiction to those policies. They have a wonderful reporting page where you can report these kinds of thefts. Reporting this theft was the second thing I did.
I am happy to report I promptly received a response that my legal complaint was received and was in the queue for action. It took another two days to finally receive an email that the offending site was removed and no longer available. I went and verified it myself and I was ever so happy the system worked! You see, had Blogger not taken the site down I'm not sure what I could've done. The 'blogger' who posted my article did not acknowledge my comment though the blog is still active-with a post on the same day I left my comment! The person did not try to contact me or apologize or offer to remove it at all. That would've been the right thing to do.
I certainly realize that when you post things on the web, whether they be comments, words, pictures, or videos then those things are there forever and that other people can access your stuff. I get it. I do, but that does not mean that you can republish original work as your own. Certainly I don't mind links to my blog and my work and I'm sure Skeeter does not mind that either, but republishing work as your own??? Even when links within that original blog link back to the original blog? There was no link in the post that gave me credit for my work. This blogger, and I use the term loosely, made it seem as though the work belonged to him or her. Even though in the blogs header it says 'this is collection of articles from the Internet'. People don't understand what when there is an article on a blog that it might be from someone else. Blogs should be from the blogger unless specifically stated that there is a guest blogger. There are problems with bloggers or anyone else publishing the work of others. It is not the way to go even without legal problems republishing another's work as your own is unethical and amoral. If you are going to have a blog then have a blog for your own use of things you do. Surely no one has a life that is so boring they must collect articles from other authors to post on a blog? If this person appreciated my article then he or she should've copied it or bookmarked it for their own use and/or included a link in their blog for others to locate. This is the normal procedure I see used by most bloggers. Note: I must say that this blog was not a commercial blog and as far as I could see did not earn any money from ads or anything else but I still did not appreciate my blog post reposted word for word by another blogger.
We at In the Garden never have to worry about anyone saying they found their blog work on our blog because we post all original artwork and thoughts from our own lives and experiences. We post our own pictures and our words because this blog is a scrapbook of our gardens and experiences that we just happen to share with all of you and the world. When it gets to the point that our lives and experiences are stolen like this it really makes us wonder if all of our work is even worth it.
This is the second time this has happened to our blog posts that I am aware of. In the first case Blogger took the offending website down once I proved the post was mine. While I don't mind proving the post is mine; which I do by keeping all of the original emails of my posts and by the fact that once I hit publish my photos and words are time stamped in the great world of links and urls; I think people need to discipline themselves and act how they would like to be treated. I wonder if this person would appreciate me stealing their words (if they have any) and republishing them as my work?
in the garden....
Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden
