Sunday 23 February 2014

The sincerest form of flattery…or plagiarism? someone's been stealing my blogposts...



I had a bit of a blogging hiccup last week. More than a hiccup, it was a shock. I wonder if you’ve had a similar experience.

I read my blog somewhere else. Not in a feed like bloglovin or website like alldishes. I’m happy to share my recipes and I love to see my images on pinterest, and am very flattered, and feel humbled if anyone every links over to my blog. Or even mentions it. 

But there I was, reading somebody else's blog but I was looking at my kitchen, with my pots and pans, seeing images of meals that I’d cooked, and reading about my life. Even images of me.  All with someone else’s name at the bottom. Everything that I’d written over the last few years right back to 2010, attributed to another person.  Not just little bits cut and pasted, but the whole thing copied word for word. Even my blog name, but with four initials and the word blog written before it. It is a very weird feeling.

I don’t know who they are, whether they are made-up or real. The worst thing was that I couldn’t find a profile for that person or an email address to contact them.

I stumbled over the blog accidentally. But apparently if you want to check to ensure that no-one is copying any of your work from your blog, you can do so by copying a section of text from your blog, use speech marks and do a google search for the text. That should direct you to anyone whose copied your content. 

As soon as I discovered that someone had copied mine the first thing I did was to check my security. I changed my Google password and added a little note about copyright at the top of the page of this blog. They’d obviously missed my little plea at the bottom of the page. Or maybe just decided to ignored it.

Then I started to research to see if this happens often. It does and Google do have a process for copyright issues, but by asking them to look into the situation you are taking the first steps in a legal proceeding against someone else. I always like to give other people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it’s someone new to blogging and they don’t understand the moral code of practise. 

Although my blog is not in wordpress, I found this article very helpful. Especially with writing a copyright note. 

Plagiarism is something that was drummed into me whilst studying fine art at uni. You don’t copy some else’s work or ideas, especially written content. I’m careful, but I know we all make mistakes and may occasionally write an article maybe using a google image, meaning to credit the author but then forget and publish without doing so. 

So rather than start the legal process straight away, I added a comment on the last post of the blog that had copied mine, posted on 7th of last month. It's the only way that I could contact them. I've politely but firmly asked them to remove my content from their blog...which appears to be the whole of my blog. I gave the author (I use the term loosely) one weeks notice  from the 19th to do so before I contact google. I apologised for not contacting them personally but couldn't as there were no contact details available. 

They haven't done anything so far. I hope they do because I really don't want to have to take legal action. My blog is very personal to me, I've made lots of friends through it and I don't want to feel pressured to stop writing. 

Actually the other blog looks really nice, the layout and colours are lovely...maybe I could change mine a bit... copy  the colours..Oh no but that might be construed as plagiarism, mightn't it? 

Another blogging hiccup that I'm having is trying to find out how to delete some of the hundreds of blogs that I follow and don't exist any more so that I can start following all the other new ones that I'm loving. For some reason I'm struggling to do so.

...any clues...?

debx

22 comments:

  1. Oh that sounds awful.. how can someone pretend to have written your Blog. they are such personal spaces....I hope you get it sorted out soon
    Thea x

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    1. Thanks Thea. I hope I can.The weird thing is that even though there's someone else's name with the date posted, sometimes they've still left in my name that I put at the end of the post. It's really creepy.
      debx

      Delete
  2. OMG Debby I am so sorry! I never would have thought of someone doing something like that and think it is terrible. I like to think the best of people too and it really hurts when life shows me that not everyone is so honest, makes my heart hurt. I do hope you can get this resolved soon.
    [[hugs]]

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    1. Thanks Tracey. I know I feel the same and yet I really don't want to have to start the legal process but it seems it's the only way that I can contact them as I haven't been able to do so myself. Apart from leaving a note in the comment section of the blog.
      Thanks for the hug I appreciate it.
      debx

      Delete
  3. oh, Debby, this is awful....something I never thought would happen. sure, I get the spammers from some 3rd world country occasionally, but I don't know what i would have done if i started reading my whole blog!?! Let's hope the route you took will solve the issue. fingers crossed.

    oh, that deleting old blogs and adding new ones....so time consuming...and then I find I leave off great blogs and i'm always afraid i'll hurt someone's feelings. never an intention. not an easy solution!

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    1. I think it's a similar thing Steph. I think they hacked into my google account and somehow redirected or copied the feed. If that makes sense...I'm not very technical but something like that.

      My problem is that I like so many blogs and follow them all and have reached my capacity, so can't follow any more in google. I'm sure there's something I can do if I just spend a bit more time researching. Maybe I can increase my limit, like you can pay for extra images...I reached my limit for that ages ago.
      debx

      Delete
    2. Hi Caz, thanks for your kind thoughts. It's very weird a bit like being burgled and knowing that someone's been wandering around your home. I know that it's there for everyone to see and I have to expect the odd pinching of a photograph, it's my fault that I don't watermark anything. I don't really mind, I find it quite flattering, but this was a bit extreme. Thankfully they haven't copied any new content since January 7th maybe they've noticed that I've been reading them... I do hope they remove it. I really don't want to have to do the whole legal thing.
      Thanks again.
      Take care.
      debx

      Delete
  4. Oh Deb, how horrible. I just can't imagine what would possess anyone to do such a thing. One of the things I love most about you blog is how personal it is. I always read it with a sense of privilege that you share these quiet and beautiful moments with us and now some bastard has gone and tarnished that. For shame!!! Hopefully you will be able to get it resolved without legal recourse.

    Thinking of you
    Caz x

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    1. woops...I just wrote a reply to you on the comment above...sorry.
      debx

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  5. Argh, that is DREADFUL! I have found several of my photos on other blogs lately, some credited, some not, and that has made me a bit cross. I don't mind people using them IF they have asked first. Forgiveness is not always easier to get than permission. I know some people watermark their photos but I a) don't know how to do that and b) I'd rather not the hassle. Sigh. On a funnier note, I once found a feature I had written for work (in the UK) on another website - in German! I only found it because it had my byline. I thought it was quite amusing, but the company I worked for was most annoyed and I think they called the attack-lawyers in.
    Now - I know just what you mean about getting rid of old blogs - Google keeps telling me it can't access my list, which is most annoying because I don't necessarily want to get rid of the blogs, I want to remind myself about them. Surely one of your clever readers knows the answer?
    And good luck with the naughty bloggers x

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    1. Hi Lucy, I noticed that you'd recently written a copyright note on your blog too. Or maybe changed the wording because it looked a bit different than before and I wondered if you'd had some issues. I should have asked. Like you say it is cross-making. It takes so long to download all the images and then write text...not my forte, and something that I'm pretty slow at doing. Especially with recipes it takes time to try them out, write them down and check them over to make sure they are ok. I'm with you on watermarks too...I think they spoil the images...but know I really should learn how to do it. Weird about the German thing...seems everyone's doing it. I'm sure that I'll eventually suss out the sorting how to stop following non-existant blogs. Hope you manage to access your old list too.
      Thanks for the good luck wish.
      debx

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    2. I have to confess - I copied you by following your advice and going to the same Wordpress page for the copyright notice!

      Delete
  6. I am sorry about all of that nasty business. makes me sad. I use two step verification on all of my accounts, hope this is a layer of protection. Unfollowing blogs on blogger is tricky, do it on a computer. there is a wheel on the right if you click it sometimes lets you get to a list of the blogs and then you "unfollow". Frequently it crashes and you have to x out and start all over again :)

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  7. Hi Karen, thanks. I'll have a go and see if I can do it. I think I just need to save a couple of hours to try and figure it out.
    debx

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  8. Oh, Debby, how horrible! I am so sorry this has happened to you. Why someone would do this is beyond me. I can completely understand how you would feel violated. Your blog is yours...something personal and to have someone steal it is unthinkable. I do hope you get this figured out without having to take a legal course of action, but if that is necessary, don't feel bad for doing it. HUGS

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  9. Thank you Emily. I really appreciate your kind comments, and the hug. It's so good to know I have some lovely blogger friends out there.
    debx

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  10. Oh my how terrible. Gosh some people amaze me - I wonder what pleasure they get from just adding their name to your thoughts?? Or I wonder if there is not something more sinister at work here. I don't seem to have any problem unsubscribing to some blogs… if fact I have deleted some by mistake!! I'll have to run myself through the process and then see if I can step you through, although you may have figured it out by yourself by them.

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  11. That's what worries me too. That it might not be one person but an organisation because I don't think it's just a case of cut and paste but hacking into my account. Maybe using my identity in some way? Im sure that in the past I may have deleted blogs when I noticed that they had stopped writing...but I don't know why I find it so difficult now. I will try again but thanks about the offer.
    debx

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  12. Debby this is terrible. I think people who write blogs do for our satisfaction and to share with people and friends, but it makes no sense to copy what others do.
    I hope this incident does not make you leave your blog that I like!!
    If you copy this link you can see and delete blogs:

    http://translate.google.es/translate?hl=ca&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpersonalizaciondeblogs.blogspot.com.es%2F2013%2F05%2Fcomo-dejar-de-seguir-un-blog.html

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    1. Hi Montse. I agree with you I so look forward to reading what my blogger friends have to say and read their comments. I hope to try and sort it out soon.Thank you for the link I'll have a look at it now.
      Take care
      debx

      Delete
  13. (((Hugs)))) It makes me frightened just to think about this. It seems like a form of cyber stalking. Or identity theft. I can't imagine what a shock it must have been to you. I'm so sorry.

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  14. Thanks Susan it was. I appreciate the hugs. :o) Thankfully they seem to have stopped copying but it's still up, hopefully I can do something. I've had some helpful suggestions.
    debx

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