Laura

Thieves Among Us

You have three magic genie wishes, what are you asking for?

So.

This morning started out interesting as I woke up to a text from Kevin asking me if I had a re-blog on this post right here since he got a link-back to a site that appeared to have copied the entire post.

No credit given.

No link-back.

No ping.

Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada.

Is the title of the post supposed to be credit? Or what?

Here’s the fucked up part. I don’t even want to link this bastard because then they get views on their own site which looks like it was just put up recently.

This is not the first time I’ve had to deal with bullshit like this, but idea thieves and people stealing words or phrases or content ideas from you aren’t exactly something you can report to WordPress.

The entire post copied in full. Not a re-blog. Not a link-back
They were too stupid not to remove the other link in the post, however

Be annoyed about? Sure. Know when you read it or see it that they are pilfering off of you? Sure. And I’m sure some of those reading this have done it.

However…

Outright thievery?

The thing is – the post within the website makes no sense at all as the blogger appears to be male.

“Being creative and making things keeps me happy.” Really? Does also stealing content make you happy? 🖕

Thankfully he was moronic enough to leave the link in so Kevin at least was aware of it.

I am very thankful too as well to Sara who let me know about the copyright DMCA notice, as unfortunately she has also had her work stolen.

The nerve of some people, and they do it right under your nose, to your face.

This is why I told Ernie to copyright “Peaceful Insanity” and thank god he did.

Where do we draw the line? It’s AI images and my words. But…it’s still my own creation.

The very first post I ever made on this blog states that: “All writings and photos are my own unless otherwise stated.”

Does that offer me any sort of protection? Why do you have to tell grown ass people not to steal your shit?

Fuck off and get your own fucking content.

Asshole.

As you can see, my week is starting out brilliantly. But going forward, I unfortunately will probably have to put protection on my work no matter what, even something like a silly daily prompt post.

I put a watermark on photos of mine years ago, and they still were stolen.

It almost makes you want to stop posting.

People and thieves especially, always make life so much more fun.

260 comments

  1. I’ve been professionally writing since the 70s, long before most of you on this site were born, and I don’t know of any way to secure our copyright. Our work is ours by law, but we can’t go after every thief. I had one article written for a small magazine that published my article but said they decided not to take it and so wouldn’t pay me. I had an attorney friend contact them and they paid, but this is one of many encounters I’ve had.

    I’m sorry you experienced this violation, Laura. It is disheartening, disturbing, and frustrating. Thieves, scammers, and bullies are everywhere. There also are loving, compassionate, brilliant, and giving people who wrap their arms around you. You know that I’m your fan, sweet girl. Feel the love.

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    • Thank you so much Mary 🙏 unfortunately, I’m under no illusion that it doesn’t happen frequently, but it is so disheartening when it does and you feel like you can’t do anything about it. I do so appreciate your kind words and I appreciate you sharing your experiences as it helps, although it’s hard to hear ❤️ thank you again and I’m your fan too! 😊 much love ❤️ definitely 🤗

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  2. I had weird pingbacks like this a long time ago, but couldn’t make sense of what was going on. This sucks, and I’m sorry. You put so much love and creativity into your writing and images and certainly don’t deserve to have that skimmed off from it’s source. 😦

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    • Thank you so much ❤️ I emailed the host and they told me they don’t have sufficient evidence to take the post down 🙄 but Liz found another person on here that they stole from, so maybe I can see if he’ll file a report too, and THEN maybe they’ll remove it. Ugh 😩 so frustrating

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    • Sure, but it seems like the person in question wants to believe the stuff belongs to them which is obvious by the fact that they stole others’ stuff as well

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  8. Ooooh, I dislike these people so much! I had my work stolen/reblogged a couple years back – just copied my entire post, word for word, on their site. They did leave a link to my original post at the bottom, and that left a pingback on my post, alerting me that they had done that. Back then, I wanted to take action, but since they had included a link to my original post at the bottom of their post, and WordPress does have the “reblog” feature, I wasn’t sure if it would be legally classified as plagiarism. I sent them a message and left a comment saying that I was uncomfortable with their post copying my work, but they didn’t respond to either. I started the process to officially report them to WordPress for copyright infringement/plagiarism, but the wording of the legalese in the form freaked me out, because it warned that I’d face consequences if I made a false claim, and I wasn’t sure if the included link would be enough to them to retort that they hadn’t claimed to write the poem themselves, and had acknowledged the actual original poster – so I just gave up. I don’t know why they even reblogged/plagiarized my poem, since their blog was all about computer tech (new edition CPU news, monitor reviews, and the like), and my poem was about a dragon and a purple rose. I assume it was just to try to draw eyes to their site? But I didn’t think people whose work was reblogged without good purpose or permission would really be their core audience…

    Recently, I was checking my spam and noticed that someone had left a comment on a poem of mine (a sonnet), titled “A Journey of Trust saying “awesome journey,” and I was about to approve of the comment, when I noticed that they had left a second one, and this one was a sonnet, purely advertising their blog and web store – potentially impressive if they had written it themselves, but I got the vibe that AI had written it – regardless though, my comment section isn’t a free advertising platform for their web store. I looked at their site, and I think I remember seeing various posts related to shopping, and then, when I scrolled further, I saw that they had reblogged two of your posts! Same as with the site that had targeted me before, it made no sense why they would do that! When I clicked on those posts, they were obviously reblogged using WordPress’s reblog feature, not copied and pasted on their site, and the only way to read the full post was to click on the “read more” button that would redirect the person to your site. So… not illegal, nor actual plagiarism… but it still felt really scummy. And pointless. I was planning to mention it to you, but I got distracted by something else IRL and then forgot til now. The blogger’s username was Uthongo, and their blog is funshopping12. The posts of yours that they rebogged were “Full Moon Energy” and “Glitches, Spam, and Protests, Oh My!” (Yay for me having taken screenshots!)

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