I’m all about fair use, and I love it when people link to things that I’ve written. They’re even welcome to quote a couple of relevant paragraphs, because that’s totally kosher under fair use.
What gets my knickers in a twist are folks like 7 Day Web Design that just copy my work wholesale, as they have with my article from Linux.com on WordPress plugins. I’m not alone, I also browsed and found that they seem to have knicked this piece from About.com here, and this About.com article is replicated here. See a pattern here?
Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve noticed my stuff being copied wholesale. Since I have written thousands of articles, blog posts, and suchlike, it’s probably inevitable that someone would decide to rip something off — especially since many of my articles appear on (semi-)high-profile sites.
I tend to grin and bear it when it comes to splogs on Blogger and WordPress.com when it’s obvious that it’s either an automated thing that just grabs content and reposts it, or when it’s obvious it’s someone that really doesn’t understand copyright and just wants to put up a blog. I report the site to the host, or contact the owner (or both), and leave it at that. This, however, really horks me off.
This is a blog from a company that professes to do professional Web design. By blogging, they’re trying to increase their visibility and make more money directly off of my work, which really pisses me off. If a company wants to promote their services with professionally written content, they can pay the writer the rates they deserve. I’m sure this company would be pissed if their site designs were copied wholesale by another company.
Whichever employee or employees are maintaining the blog should know better, and should be fired for this. I hope that their designs are more original than the content that they put up on their blog without credit to the original authors.
