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Another Day, Another Rip Off?

Written by: Karen E. Klein

Article Overview: Why do people think they can swipe Internet content and use it - without credit or permission - on their websites or blogs? Is there no ownership of intellectual content online - or no shame?

Free Download - Diamonds in the Rough By Karen E. Klein

Another Day, Another Rip Off?

What is it about the Internet that causes people to rip off content with absolutely no shame? Is there some Web protocol that I'm missing that outwardly encourages or tolerates this behavior?

Thanks to Google Alerts, I constantly find my articles posted on unknown (to me) websites with little or no credit to me or the publications I write for.

I don't even hope for permission or compensation any more, but credit would certainly be nice.

It really angers me to find something like this: Not only was an article that I worked extremely hard on posted on a site I'd never heard of, but there was no identifying information for me (beyond my byline) or the publication where it originated.

What's worse, the offending website seems to have obtained the article from an online syndication service. That means this company is making money by distributing my work without my permission, while violating the copyright of the publication that did pay me.

Arghhhhh ....

If you want to recommend an article, that's fine. But link to it so folks can read it on the site where it is originally posted. If you want to include a short abstract with the link, to catch peoples' attention, no problem.

But please don't do an uncredited, unauthorized copy-and-paste of the entire content. That's just wrong.

I've lodged my complaints over today's violations, both by phone and email. We'll see what kind of response I get. Based on past experience, I have to say I'm not holding my breath.

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Article Tags: angers, byline, copy and paste, google, holding my breath, making money, shame, syndication service, unauthorized copy, web protocol

About the Author: Karen E. Klein
RSS for Karen's articles - Visit Karen's website

Karen E. Klein is a Los Angeles-based columnist for Business Week and The Los Angeles Times. She has also written for Newsday, The Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Daily News and Sunset magazine.

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