The other day, I received an email from my editor that was forwarded from a reader. The subject was “possible plagerism (sic) on About.com”. And it proceded to point to my article on the pros and cons of splash pages and say that it appeared that this was a duplicate of a page on an MLM website. And the email author closed with “and I believe the MLM page was there first.”
This made me angry. Not only was I being accused of plagiarism, but it came on the exact same day that I had just posted a blog post about copyright and the web. So I felt the need to prove that I had written the article and that the MLM site had simply copied it and added "MLM" to the front. But how to prove it? In this case, I used an independent source: Google. Learn how I used Google to help show that my article was live long before the MLM site was even running.
Good on you. I give you much respect for that.
Wow unbelievable! Glad everything turned out okay. You probably have more knowledge than most people…so you’re the last one who needs to steal stuff from others.
Thanks for explaining how to prove that your content is yours. I’m working on a huge project right now and I’m writing a lot of content and I’m a little worried that someone might steal it. But reading your tutorials makes me feel better! Thanks Jenn!
Now that’s something nobody likes to hear.
I personally had a case of designing a website, then submitting the design to a design gallery, and someone came to my client claiming I took the design from that gallery. It was pathetic to say the least.
Glad it all worked out fine for you.
@Alexander: Ugh, that sucks too. I mean, it’s nice that people are willing to try and step up to prevent piracy, but it would be nice if they did a little research before they started throwing accusations around.
Good for you for not just letting them do that to you. No one wants to be told that what they worked hard for was copied. I’m just glad that not all MLM sites are like that.