My Words, You Can't Have Them (Unless You Ask.)

I had the strangest experience -- maybe not experience, but feeling -- today.

Last night I was looking around the Internet to see where my writing had been republished, since I'm never sure how far out these words get. And on three sites, one of my articles was accredited to another author. The other author used about 1200 words of one of my articles and then tacked on about another 100-200 words of their own.

Nowhere in the article was there a reference to the fact that most of the piece was written by someone else, but the guy who copied the article actually thanks his readers and assured them that there would be more coming soon. I sent the "author" a message to either pull the article or give correct accreditation, which is just courtesy. I haven't heard back.

I suppose I'd better get writing faster.

I've never been plagiarized, and it took someone congratulating me today, and pointing out that that's what had happened, for me to realize it.

Surprisingly I'm not cool with it. I worked really hard on this particular piece, finding subjects and interviewing them. It was good enough quality that the LA Times quoted me, and Time Magazine Online did a phone interview with me. I was, and am, proud of that work. That someone who didn't put the time or effort in would use it and take credit for it is actually offensive to me.

I guess I must be a writer after all.