ripped off by a douche

I love the idea of Intellectual Property. I love the concept that what I think and create from the sheer power of my own mind has an innate value, a value I can appreciate not merely from a purely subjective stance but also from a purely objective and empirical, pecuniary standpoint.  Even more than the idea of my intellect owning property, I love the reality built into the legal system in the form of copyright law that what I think and write belongs to me and to me alone, until such time I should choose to sell it to someone else. Intellectual Property, and its attendant laws, makes me feel as if I can sit back and look at all the great heaving mass of my writing and feel like I have created something as real, as tangible, and as valuable as a shopping center or an automobile.

As I’ve become more and more comfortable in this new skin of a writer, as I’ve more and more often gotten remuneration for my writing, and as I begin to see my future as a bright and shiny horizon of publication, I have come to take my writing more seriously. It is, after all, not merely the musing of my scattered mind, the emo off-gassing of a burdened psyche, or the busy work of a person who really should be doing something else; it is increasingly my livelihood. More and more, my writing puts food on my table, keeps a roof over my head, and buys me all those DVDs, Frye boots and books I need and love.

Therefore, I take it very personally indeed when I am plagiarized. A person who steals my writing is not merely stealing my words and my ideas; he or she is potentially stealing money from my bank account. A person who plagiarizes—and in the specific case of the plagiarism brought to my attention by an unknown reader last night, she—is doing more than just appropriating something that is not hers; she is also diluting my voice, reducing my ideas with her unethical appropriation, and taking credit for a creation that is not hers.

I recognize the praise implicit to someone stealing my writing. One doesn’t steal stuff that one doesn’t value, not unless one is more into the act of stealing than one is into the actual stolen goods. I know that the woman who lifted my post “so a girl walks into a bar…” did so because she felt impressed by my writing. Nonetheless, it angers me that she stole it, stole it willingly, and stole it so that others would read the post on her blog—edited of some difficult syntax, embellished by ellipses and increased in length by a Sex in the City quote—and think that she wrote as well as me, though she clearly does not. I recognize this blogger’s inherent appreciation of my writing, but it provides only some small cold comfort.

In other cultures, plagiarism doesn’t exist in quite the same way. In some Eastern traditions, notably Japanese painting and print-making, aspiring artists are encouraged to copy, to copy studiously, to copy copiously, and to copy until such time that they have reproduced every nuanced brush stroke with reverence to the original. This, however, is not the tradition of the West.

The tradition in the West, beginning with Hogarth’s Law enacted in England in 1735, a law that sprang from artist William Hogarth’s anger and frustration at having his prints ripped off by every immoral man with a printing press, gives legal weight to the person who created the reproducible art the exclusive rights to reproduce the art. When we sell a piece of art, be it music, writing, or visual, we sell our rights to reproduce it. When a person copies the art without attribution and/or payment, depending on the venue, she does so illegally.

The Internet has complicated copyright law. The Internet is, of course, a hot-and-cold running stream of writing and images. They seem free for the taking, and some of them are. I have no problem if someone uses a paragraph or more from my writing and gives me proper attribution. This kind of borrowing and citation is equivalent to when print writers cite other articles in their own pieces; plus with the immediacy of hyperlinks, my writing gets exposure that it might not get otherwise. If there’s attribution, there’s no copyright violation. If there isn’t, there is. But the Internet is so big, and growing every day, that policing plagiarism is nigh unto impossible.

I can even forgive new bloggers, people who don’t understand how to do hyperlinks, or haven’t been blogging long enough to know that when one borrows, one should give proper attribution. I have taught college on and off for years; teaching Freshmen what is and what is not plagiarism comes with the territory. Everyone should have the opportunity to learn from mistakes.

It’s another thing entirely, however, to not merely make a mistake in attribution but to steal piecemeal and then, as the blogger who plagiarized my piece did, act as if the writing is her own. Responding to comments that praised the writing of the stolen piece, this blogger said that she had “two sides” to her writing,  averred that she could “pull out the high-falutin’ vocabulary” when needed, and offered that she “would do more of this kind of editorial writing” if she had more time. The blogger in question is also a thirty-something year-old college student. It’s impossible that she didn’t know that what she was doing was wrong; it is, however, possible that she didn’t think she would get caught.

Plagiarism really hurts me. It makes me red spitting angry. Plagiarism in this Western culture is wrong. It is stealing. It is lying. It is unethical. And it is illegal. It is also a problem that is growing with the bloated urgency of J-Lo’s belly. To that end, let me do a little good and provide three links to help people like me who have found their work stolen, as well as help those of you from having your work stolen.

This link helps you to protect your work from plagiarism: How To Protect Your Website's Copyright When Someone Steals Your Content

And this one, for a small fee, helps you detect if it has been: Copyscape

(The title to this post comes from a common misconstruing of a lyric to "Blinded by the Light" copyright Bruce Springsteen, ASCAP.)

Comments

[Jess]

How rude.

[Jen]

That was pretty easy to find googling, but at least she's taken it down (I assume you sent her a takedown notice). Keep up the great writing - hopefully no more of it will be stolen!

And have a great Christmas - although living in New York, I'd love to experience just one New Year's there.

[Juno Henry]

I'm with Jess. How unbelievably, obnoxiously, bum-bitingly rude.

(Btw, CG, the first link to Lorelle calls up an error message. Just FYI.)

Happy holidays, sweetpea...
Juno xxxxxxx

[chelsea g]

Juno,

Thanks for the heads up; the site must not allow for html citation. If you want to find the piece from Lorelle, and it is helpful advice, then cut and paste this address in your browser window: http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/04/10/what-do-you-do-when-someone-steals-your-content/

cheers,
chelsea g

[ruleof78]

Human nature at it's most disgusting, crude, rude, and unattractive. Lying, stealing, cheating, hey, perhaps she could run for president, she has the qualifications.
Hope you are feeling better with that cold of yours Chelsea girl.

[Elizabeth Wood]

I've been immersed in student papers for the past week and have found more plagiarism than I care to acknowledge. It's been awful. I'm sorry that it goes so far beyond first and second year college students and extends into the "really ought to know better" segments of the blogosphere.

And thank you for the incredibly lucid discussion of intellectual property and copyright. I might just use that in class. With proper documentation of course!

Now, what is the correct way to construe the Bruce Springsteen lyric, please? I've never been able to construe it properly!

xoxo
Elizabeth

[chelsea g]

Dr. Wood,

That would be "revved up like a Deuce." Or so I read somewhere.

kissykiss,
chelsea g

[Bad Kitty]

What a twunt!
The worst part is that she probably doesn't understand why her ethics are sorely lacking, and is somewhere blaming somebody else for her deficiencies as a person.
ergh.

[Elizabeth Wood]

Thank you! I always heard "wrapped up like a douche a mumble mumble in the night." I never could figure out what it meant and I never wondered long enough about it to look it up later.

Come to think about it, that's the same sort of "lack of curiosity" for which I sometimes criticize my students.

I feel better educated already :)
xoxo
Elizabeth

[Squire1999]

HI CG
Plagiarism has always struck me as the result of the particular plagiarist's mix of personality traits, none of which are terribly redeeming. Depending on how they have implemented their theft of Intellectual Property a plagiarist shows their true colors. To me I see it like this: at its simplest, plagiarism is simple laziness. At its most extreme it also shows a lack of morals, narcissism, lack of self confidence, and an active desire to misrepresent (for all the reasons people misrepresent themselves). Its clear act of disrespect, and anyone that hides behind the argument that "copying is the highest form of flattery" is simply trying to heap more BS on the problem in hopes that you won't notice the original insult. The best way of dealing with a plagiarist, again in my opinion, is to expose them, let any who cares know that the plagiarist stole and misrepresented themselves. A plagiarist can't survive in the light of day. Expose them and they shrivel up or slink away.
Well done with your response and with your (as always) eloquent discussion of the topic. As always, love your writing.

[Marianne]

This post was very well-written, and I couldn't agree with you, and with your commenters, more. Thank you, too, for the links about how to deal with copyright infringement. Excellent advice. It's interesting... like others here, I understand that young people, students, will make mistakes when starting out, and they need to be educated about plagiarism. But why would a blogger plagiarize? We're here voluntarily, one would think out of love for the whole process. What is the point in having a blog then putting someone else's words there, when you started it in order to share your own words? People are strange.

[TW]

Lack of enforcement and consequences combined with entitlement culture means the lazy untalented attention addicts lie cheat and steal then rationalize it all as being some how ok.

[tom paine]

Blogging is a strange phenomenon. I referenced the same post of yours, but not only linked to it, but also simply paraphrased what you wrote, inviting my readers to go to your site and make up their own minds.

I have, in the past, lifted a few lines from someone else's posts, but this is allowed even in the strictest protections of copyright under the "fair use" principle. The idea is that I can quote a bit of what you've written as an illustration, the point-of-departure for agreement or disagreement with your thesis, etc.

Stealing is something different, but no less common. And on the Internet, it lives forever.

[peter]

Ah, but does the lady download her music and pay for it or does she P2P or rip other people's CD's? Enquiring minds want to know.

Also, doesn't Copyscape's home page resemble Google's? How ironic!