Every file your put on your hard drive has a date of origin in the properties. That's one help. Copyrighting and trademarking are ways to protect your stuff. I just exposed someone who plagiarized 64 articles from AC content on their business blog. The truth is someone is always going to be doing it on the net.
A lot of folks are using copyscape to find plagiarism, but it's a tough battle. One suggestion would be to do a "poor man's internet copyright" and put your content in a pdf file on memoware for folks to download. It would affectively put your content in a dated format, pdf, with the date of submission. It doesn't help the after-the-fact. Sometimes if you write webmasters and send them a cease and desist it will help your cause, but a lot of tiems, you have to specify that you will take it up with their ISP if they don't c&d.
Social bookmarking is a way to find plagerized material. Places like Digg.com that will tell you if someone already bookmarked the material. That's how I broke open a lead to a Dr. who was pilfering a ton of other people's work.
After reading all of this my blood is boiling. I guess I'm luckier than most because my best friend is also an attorney and handles stuff for me pro bono. I have a few people attempt to invoke "free use" on me and she handled it. My all time favourite was when I was accused of stealing my own stuff.
But then I also have people on several forums I own complain to me about me. Fully expecting for me to ban myself.
Humans never cease to amaze me.
ACCER Wrote:After reading all of this my blood is boiling. I guess I'm luckier than most because my best friend is also an attorney and handles stuff for me pro bono. I have a few people attempt to invoke "free use" on me and she handled it. My all time favourite was when I was accused of stealing my own stuff.
But then I also have people on several forums I own complain to me about me. Fully expecting for me to ban myself.
Humans never cease to amaze me.
That's too funny! But at the same time is so horrible to imagine that would happen to someone. I guess as you say, humans are "special" that way!
ACCER Wrote:After reading all of this my blood is boiling. I guess I'm luckier than most because my best friend is also an attorney and handles stuff for me pro bono. I have a few people attempt to invoke "free use" on me and she handled it. My all time favourite was when I was accused of stealing my own stuff.
But then I also have people on several forums I own complain to me about me. Fully expecting for me to ban myself.
Humans never cease to amaze me.
Can you explain what they are complaining about? Are they accusing you of stealing their work".
No, they accuse me of stealing my own work, not understanding that my parents did not name me "ACCER". Then they refuse to believe that I am me, even though several of my forums are local ones with members who have known me in person for decades!
As for the complaints, they are generally from people who post "facts" that are opinions or urban legends and then take issue if someone disagrees or corrects them. You know the types....they call people idiots and morons then take issue if someone calls them dumb.
I'm the type who laughs at stuff like that.
lol this is a funny thread...
I used to run into the same problem. I would program utilities and internet applications, but would publish them under my pseudonym. People would never believe that I was myself and that my work was mine.
In the end, I just included my name in descrete places of my program, such as inverted at the bottom, or even as the first letter of every sentence.
Zach,
I tried both of those methods. Over the years, however, my real name has become intertrwined with my internet name (it's even on my license plate) to the point that I have few problems. Heck, I even answer to ACCER in public!
There is a lot to be said about taking advantage of branding.