I have a website for my critters, and on that website I have several articles about various items of interest and/or debate within the breed. I try to be educational, rather than simply opinionated, and without being too immodest I do get a lot of praise for those articles. So it irks me when someone steals them and posts them on their own website -- even if they give credit, it's still copyright theft. (Most people simply think everything on the Internet is free for the taking, but of course that's not remotely true.)
The other day someone linked to an article that, it turns out, lifted quite a bit of text directly from my website (and rephrased quite a bit more). Not only that, but the text was also used as part of an e-book they are selling. Well, that tipped me over the edge -- bad enough to steal, but to steal and then profit from it? Plus it was one of those cookie-cutter sites that's basically the same for every breed, with a few specific items thrown in. So I dashed off an email demanding they either give me credit or remove the text, and also that they compensate me for the use of my work to day or purchase the rights to it for the past and future.
I'm not usually confrontational, unless I get worked up, and of course I immediately felt I'd been a little rash. Of course I also didn't expect any response, or at best a flat-out refusal, and had decided I wasn't going to bother pursuing it regardless. Imagine my surprise to get an email from the site owner apologizing, along with a $100 goodwill payment! I thanked her, told her I'd consider the matter settled, and offered my services on a work-for-hire basis if she ever had a need.
That $100 snowflake will go toward my 52-Week Challenge, knocking out a couple of the larger numbers.
Totally Unexpected Snowflake
March 17th, 2015 at 09:40 pm
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