Last week, I was alerted by Pippirose that someone over on Adult Friend Finder had used two of my pieces on their blog and passed them off as their own.
Not even two of my best as far as I was concerned but, nonetheless, still mine.
The words have been lifted almost exactly from my blog, even down to my trade mark dot dot dot. There might be an attempt here or there to add in a sentence or change a word and put in an opening or closing paragraph, but that almost makes the attempt to pilfer my thoughts seem worse in that they have enclosed mine within their own as if they were one and the same.
I have contacted AFF direct and they have assured me that these two pieces have now been taken down. But I have no way of confirming this or ascertaining whether any more of my work has been purloined since I am not a member. And, even if I was, the blog itself has now gone private so I would be unable to check without being invited. I am told that for ‘reasons of privacy’ they cannot divulge what other action has been taken against this individual.
I was not the only one involved. This person and the other one mentioned by Pippirose had actually stolen many posts from various other blog sources and taken the credit for themselves.
I had been talking about this only the previous day with the friend of another victim who had wondered if I might also have been involved. I laughed and felt very flattered to be considered in such good company and I recall that I described the possibility as a ‘theft of my imagination’.
In the event, I don’t feel violated, just very angry and frustrated that someone could do such a thing with impunity. I never mind if people quote my stuff, so long as they give the credit back to me via a link or a mention and I am always very careful to do the same if someone else’s words tickle my imagination or emphasise a point that I am trying to make within one of my own posts. Stealing is still stealing, even if it is not of a material asset.
It made me wonder about the self-image of a person who had to plunder someone else’s thoughts to achieve their own validation. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how they could make that match up to improved self-esteem. The whole idea of ‘Having my cake and eating it too’ was that I learned about myself, faced up to my own shortcomings and tried to achieve some goals that made me feel good about ME. To access thoughts and emotions that had been suppressed and give them free rein through my writing. The fact that other people seemed to enjoy reading what I had to say and took the time to tell me that I was not the only one was a huge added bonus.
I also find it very strange that these people are allowed to commit these thefts but are neither sanctioned nor ejected from the umbrella websites on which they are posted. Public villification would seem to be the only answer – not only by the writers who have been affected, but also their audience. If you, as a reader, recognise something that you have read before elsewhere, you should investigate via google or one of the other search engines. There is always the chance that a story or scenario will be similar – after all, there are only so many sexual positions/interactions – but if the prose is clearly word for word exact, then there is something amiss and this should be drawn to the attention of both writers.
Hopefully, if enough attention is drawn to this problem, those who run umbrella organisations within which blogs can be set up will accept that it is also incumbent upon them to be more vigilant about what is posted on their sites.
As an aside, this incident also made me think of copyright issues generally and, in particular, my use of pictures to illustrate the Mute Monday series and other posts. I shall attempt to credit the source of any visual images used on this blog from now on.
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