Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Love it? Then protect It.

My friend MaryAnn Johanson of Flick Filosopher fame has recently been dealing with theft of articles from her website. I post a link to this message because I agree entirely with her righteous anger. I've noticed a proliferation of theft from my own site and blog this past month: whole entire posts or huge sections of posts without any link back or acknowledgement that I wrote it --and no way for the reader to go back to the original to find out.

Links are what drive internet traffic and traffic is what drives ad rates and general awareness. Awareness is a big deal. It leads to larger readerships and freelance and career opportunities for writers whose work you enjoy. I don't know why people lift articles without credit but it's bottom feeder behavior. Sometimes the thievery is baffling: recently I found a stolen post of mine "to the boyfriend on his birthday" that would make no damn sense anywhere but right here. And even then it wouldn't be of much or any interest to a non-regular. If you see my stuff elsewhere --without attribution or linkbacks. It's definitely OK to quote stuff and linkback -- please call people on their shit and notify me. I have to send nasty e-mails and monitor the thieves and alert the other people they're stealing from (usually if they steal from one site they steal from others). Should you happen to chance upon stolen items, please notify me. It'll make my life easier.

3 comments:

J.D. said...

Exactly. It hasn't happened to me, which I am kind of glad for, but I have noticed it with your blog and Glenn's. It is horrible, but I figure of they take the entire post, always put a link to somewhere in your blog in your post, so people unfortunate to go there can come back to you. I notice it through Technorati, when someone puts a link of my blog somewhere, and I end up having up to three links for the same exact post, the post, the blog, and a duplicate. It is sad and disgusting though.

Glenn Dunks said...

JD, where have you seen my stuff? I haven't noticed it anywhere. It appears on those silly fametracker sites, but that's it.

But, yeah, it is ridiculous how these idiots just think the other person doesn't care that the work they've done is being taken by someone else.

Glenn Dunks said...

Actually, I have noticed it before. I'm noticing it right now. I'm on a blog called Sexy Celebrity who have totally posted an entry of mine. Right there. Crazy. What does this person care about an Australian film I mentioned in the post?