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Someone Stole My Article! What To Do When It Happens To You
by Moira Allen
Imagine that you're surfing the Web, researching your next
article. You come across an interesting Web site, where you find
an article that looks tantalizingly familiar. You read a
paragraph or two -- and realize that the reason that it looks so
familiar is because you wrote it! So why is it on someone else's
Web site, under someone else's name?
Sadly, incidences of online copyright infringement seem to be
growing more and more common.
Following are just a few of the
incidents I've encountered in the last year:
A pet writer finds her article posted on a pet-related Web site without permission. The site owner claims that it's "OK" to post such material as long as credit is given to the author, and refuses to remove it.
A writer discovers that an article she sold to an e-zine is now included in a professor's online course materials, without attribution. Further investigation determines that the professor has posted several articles taken from other authors' Web sites in his materials, without permission, attribution or copyright notice.
A writer's article is published in an e-mail newsletter. A few months later, she sees the same article in another e-mail newsletter, under another byline.
An editor receives an article submission that seems just too good to be true. A Web search confirms that it is, in fact, cobbled together from three published articles by three separate authors, and submitted under a new name and title.
If you discover that your work has been stolen, your first
question is likely to be, "What can I do?" The answer is often
"it depends."
Defining Copyright Infringement
The Rainwater Press glossary of publishing terms defines
copyright infringement as "When another party besides the
copyright owner reproduces a copyrighted work, in whole or in
part, without the copyright owner's permission." Another type of
infringement is plagiarism, which Seattle Central Community College
defines as "Using another author's ideas or words without proper
representing someone else's creative work (ideas,
words, images, etc.) as one's own, whether intentional or not."
While the first example above is a case of unauthorized
reproduction, the other three examples are all cases of
plagiarism.
Some cases of copyright infringement are unintentional. Many are
the result of ignorance on the part of what I call "clueless
copiers." Often, these infringers are not even writers, and may
have only the vaguest notion of what copyright means. Many
mistakenly believe that anything posted on the Web is free to be
used or passed on (e.g., by e-mail). This category of infringer
includes many well-meaning Web hosts whose goal is to pass on
useful information, and don't realize that they need to ask
permission before doing so. (In fact, many are convinced that
they are actually doing authors a favor by posting their
material!)
Conversely, it is difficult to believe that many incidents of
plagiarism are "unintentional," let alone well-meaning. It is
difficult to imagine, for example, that a university professor
could be completely unaware of the definition of plagiarism, and
thus (as he claimed) have no idea that he was doing anything
wrong by copying articles from other Web sites, removing the
authors' bylines, and incorporating those articles into his own
material. Nor can one take seriously the outraged cries of
innocence from the woman who copied an article from one e-mail
newsletter and submitted it to another under her own name, or the
man who cobbled together an article from three published pieces
by three separate authors and submitted it as his own.
It can help to recognize what type of infringer you are
dealing with when you discover that your work has been "stolen."
If you are dealing with a "clueless copier" who honestly doesn't
realize that it's wrong to post someone else's material without
permission, your chances of working out a solution with that
individual are often fairly high. (Even clueless copiers can
prove unreasonable, however, as the pet writer discovered in her
attempts to persuade an infringing Web host to remove her
material.) If, however, you are dealing with someone who
knowingly passes off someone else's work as their own, your
chances of persuading that person to acknowledge the theft or
compensate you for the infringement are extremely slim without
actual legal action.
Surfing for Infringements
Ironically, however, a work's very accessibility online is also at times your readers are likely to be consumers of similar online
publications, and therefore likely to catch a writer who attempts to "borrow" material from one to sell to another. On several occasions, I've learned of an infringement of my own work from an alert reader who has noted a similarity between something I've posted and something posted under another name on another website (such as a pastor who posted his "sermon" on pet loss that was taken verbatim from an article on my pet loss website).
The Internet also offers an unprecedented ability to track down "original" sources of "borrowed" material. An intensive search using a few well-chosen keywords from the suspect article can often turn up the original source.
By the same means, you as a writer can take steps to safeguard your own material. Every so often, it's a wise idea to select a few key phrases or names from one or more of your articles and run a search online to see whether these phrases "turn up" somewhere they shouldn't. Proper names are an e if, for example, you've written about a specific person, company, or location, these details are not likely to be altered in a "stolen" article. Also, search now and then on your own name, to determine whether someone is using your material on their website without permission. (This is often done with the best intentions, and no intent to "" people often mistakenly believe that they can post "good content" on their site without permission from the original author.)
Before You Act
When one discovers an unauthorized use of one's material, one's
first impulse is often to fire off a furious letter to the
infringer. Before doing so, however, it's a good idea to stop,
take a deep breath, and analyze the situation more carefully.
Take the time to review your options and develop a plan.
First, check your contracts. Make sure that the use of the
material really is unauthorized -- i.e., that no one else had the
right to authorize that use. If you have sold all rights to your
material, or if you have granted a publication "nonexclusive
electronic distribution rights," then it is possible that the
"infringer" could have obtained permission from your publisher.
Check with the publisher first to make sure that this is not the
case. If you have transferred your copyright entirely (e.g.,
through a work-for-hire agreement), then you should contact the
publisher of the work, as the infringement is against the
copyright holder rather than the author.
Next, check your reprint records. I've known more than one author
who has angrily accused a Web host of copyright infringement --
only to discover that they had, in fact, authorized the use a
couple of years earlier and either forgotten about it or lost
track of the correspondence. So unless you have a firm policy of
never authorizing that type of use, check your files!
If the infringement is actual plagiarism, start gathering any
records that will help you prove your claim to the material, such
as contracts, editorial correspondence, manuscript files,
published clips, or dated printouts of the material if it
appeared online. Since most online plagiarism involves the theft
of published material, your best claim is to be able to prove
that the material was originally published under your name.
Another step you may wish to take is to search the infringer's
Web site for other stolen material. If the infringer is removing
bylines or passing off stolen material as his or her own, try
running a search on a distinctive phrase or two from other
articles on the site. Chances are, you'll turn up the original.
Make contact with the authors of th they
will be glad to know about the infringement, and often willing to
help in your campaign to end the infringement. There is strength
in numbers!
Finally, before you contact the infringer, make a record of the
infringement itself. Print out copies of the infringed material,
and make sure that your printer is set up to show the date on
which the material was printed and the URL of the Web site. More
than once, infringing material has simply "disappeared" as soon
as the author makes contact.
Taking Action
Only the actual copyright holder can initiate an action against a
copyright infringement. Your editor can't do it for you. It's up
to you to make contact, and to state your demands.
First, decide what, exactly, you wish to accomplish. Do you wish
to have the material removed from the infringer's site? Are you
willing to allow the material to remain where it is as long as
you're given proper attribution? Or do you wish to be paid for
the use of the material?
You must also determine how far you are willing to go to achieve
your goals. If the infringer refuses to accede to your request,
how much time and effort are you willing to invest in the battle
to come? If the only means of accomplishing your goal is to take
the infringer to court, are you honestly prepared to pay the cost
of such an action?
The first person you should contact about an infringement should
be, if at all possible, the infringer. If, for example, your goal
is to have a Web host remove your material from his site, you
should first contact that person directly with your request.
Copyright lawyer Charles Petit offers several sample
infringement-notification letters in his article,
In many cases, this is all
that is necessary to resolve the issue.
If you are unable to locate contact information for the
infringer, or if the infringer does not respond or accede to your
request, you'll need to take matters a step farther. In the case
of the plagiarizing professor, for example, the authors contacted
the professor's department chair. If your material has been
published under another name, contact the editor of the
publication. Most editors will be horrified to learn that they
have published plagiarized material, and will be more than happy
to remove it. Some may even offer compensation to the original
author. More importantly, this serves to notify the editor that
they are dealing with a plagiarist -- which will generally ensure
that at the very least, the infringer will never be able to
publish anything else in that venue!
If you cannot locate a "higher authority" to help you, the next
step is to contact the ISP that hosts the infringing Web site.
Under the terms of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, ISPs are
required to remove material if they are notified that the
material infringes upon someone's copyright. The infringement
does not have to be "proven" (e.g., in court); the statement by
the author that the material is an infringement is sufficient.
Petit notes that "The notice of infringement ... makes the ISP
responsible once notified of the infringement in writing, and is
signed 'under penalty of perjury.'"
If you are unable to obtain satisfaction by contacting the
infringer, contacting someone in authority over the infringer, or
contacting the infringer's ISP, then often the only recourse left
is legal action. However, many would say that the time to consult
a lawyer is not when all other options have failed -- but before
you even begin to attempt to deal with a copyright infringement.
Unfortunately, for many authors this option often appears too
intimidating or too expensive -- which is, perhaps, why so many
pirates still sail the electronic seas!
Sidebar: When Your Words are Stolen...
I came across a piece of published work that sounded very familiar as I read it.
So I looked back and found those words in an article I wrote several years ago for a magazine.
Even the sources I quoted and the books I referred to were used.
Some of the words were paraphrased, but most of the information was mine.
I have had this on my mind for about a year and have not said a word to anyone.
I didn't know what to do.
I don't want to be responsible for ruining some writer's career.
Did the publisher know, or just the writer?
What should I do?
Since a year has gone by since you discovered what appears to be plagiarism, your options may be limited. Here are some points to consider, however, in making your decision.
1) Are you ruining someone's life?
Let's think about this. If you stole someone else's article, had it published in a magazine, got paid for it, and then got "caught" by the original author, would you consider your life unfairly ruined? Would you "never write again"? Or would you, perhaps, think more carefully about stealing again? To look at it another way, if someone broke into your house, and was caught with your property, would you be more concerned about ruining the burglar's life, or (a) recovering your goods and (b) making sure this person didn't break into another person's house?
Plagiarism is theft. It is not research, it is not a shortcut to getting ahead or getting published. It is theft, plain and simple. It is not an act deserving of sympathy or respect.
2) Can you do something about it? That's a more difficult question. If you can prove the authorship of the original material (which, you said, came from a published article of yours, which is all the proof you need), you could, theoretically, file a lawsuit against the plagiarist. Whether it is worthwhile to do so is another question, however. Much depends on (a) how much the plagiarist "gained" from the theft and (b) how much you have lost, if anything.
For example, if your article turned up minus your byline (or under another byline) in a small "club" publication that pays nothing for contributions, it is plagiarism, but you would not be able to prove a "financial" damage from such use. So, you'd probably just want to write it off as an annoyance. However, if someone publishes your work under their name in National Geographic, they have made a bunch of money that you could have made by selling the same article. Therefore, you could prove damages.
3) Did the publisher know? Probably not. Publishers have no way of checking submitted material to determine whether it is stolen from another source. Chances are, the article sold because it was a good, publishable article -- as you've already proven by selling it the first time. However, if the publisher is still doing business with this author, the publisher would probably want to know, as the publisher might ultimately be made liable if the author is stealing from other sources besides you. So, you might want to contact the publisher purely as a means of providing information. Include a copy of the original article (yours) along with the pirated article for comparison. If you aren't expecting any "damages" from the publisher, make this clear. However, you might want to ask the publisher to issue a statement that gives credit to you as the actual author of the piece -- something that the publisher can do at no cost to them.
4) Does the original writer know? Of course! Again, don't succumb to misplaced sympathy here. It's easy to inadvertently quote a single phrase or paragraph -- say, a line of dialogue or a description -- simply because it stuck in your mind and you've forgotten that you actually read it somewhere. It is not possible to copy an entire article, or most of an article, complete with references, by accident. That is not a "fair use" issue, or "research." The fact that some phrases were changed or "paraphrased" may even have been the result of edit the original manuscript might have been identical to your original.
Whether you want to attempt to take action against the original writer is, again, up to you. Again, usually the key issue is that of financial damage -- taking someone to court for plagiarism generally isn't worth it, unless the financial damages are high enough to justify the expense of taking legal action.
DISCLAIMER: This article should not be considered legal advice or
as a substitute for legal advice. The best place to get
information on how to deal with a copyright infringement is from
a copyright lawyer.
Find Out More:
Don't Do Us Any "Favors" -- Don't Steal Our Work! - Moira Allen
Is It Research or Plagiarism? - Moira Allen
Understanding Fair Use - John Savage
Writing-World.com Rights and Copyright Links
Helpful Sites:
Voluntary Lawyers for the Arts
Copyright & 2005 Moira Allen
Portions of this article originally appeared in The Writer.
This article may be reprinted provided that the author's byline, bio, and copyright notice are retained in their entirety.
For complete details on reprinting articles by Moira Allen, please click .
Moira Allen is the editor of Writing-World.com, and has written nearly 400 articles, serving as a columnist and regular contributor for such publications as The Writer, Entrepreneur, Writer's Digest, and Byline. An award-winning writer, Allen is the author of eight books, including
and Writing to Win: The Colossal Guide to Writing Contests.
In addition to Writing-World.com, Allen hosts , a growing archive of articles from Victorian periodicals, and , a resource for grieving pet owners.
She lives in Maryland with her husband and the obligatory writer's cat.
She can be contacted at .
Copyright & 2018 by Moira Allen.
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