Stories Ripped off the Pages of My Memoir Sites

THE BOOK: Along Came Cindy, which will be a combo of my offline and online memoir sites.

THE PLAGIARIZED SITE: Our Town is a memoir told via my childhood POV. One particular section is titled Haunted Buford.

THE NEWSPAPER EDITOR: The paper is small, but it has been in publication since Heck was a pup, is sponsored by ads from the largest businesses in town, and the editor is no less than a correspondent of the Atlanta Journal Constitution--she says.

WHAT HAPPENED: Not long ago I announced on AW that this newspaper wanted to publish one of my essays. Whoopee do da and all that. Not now. I started to send a PM about that essay and found she had tried to contact me in October this year about publishing my Haunted Buford section. Twice. And I had somehow missed the PMs. So I sent her a reply. She didn't answer. Being the suspicious person I am I clicked to the newspaper and lo and behold she had published every single one of my ghost story articles. Without permission. I can understand she wanted to use them for her Halloween issue, but she needed my okay first. Duh. I sent her another PM. I posted on her timeline and our towns group a "I PM'd you," but she ignored all my attempts to contact her. During all these attempts she was online and apparently ignoring me. So I went back to the paper and wrote a comment below my stories warning her not to publish anything else from my websites. Not that there's anything I could do about it. I certainly don't have the funds for a lawyer and the FBI intelligence property investigators wouldn't be interested in such small fish. What I could do is call her out on our town's group.

This theft, and the special images a "friend" stole from my Brandon Lee site, is why I don't trust anyone anymore.

Helix said:

It's bylined "Staff Writer" with no link and no acknowledgement? Bloody cheek. I'd be looking at filing a DMCA takedown notice.

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Yes. I'll look into that.

First, I sent this creature another warning that I will not only call her out in public but report her to a DMCA agency I've lined up. I'll giver a week, which she doesn't deserve, but I'm sweet.

Also, I did some investigating. This person is just the e editor. So I dug up the publisher and sent her an email.

Next time somebody wants to publish something of mine I am going to do a check on them and their outlet. Sheesh.

UPDATE: Just talked with the actual editor. Something will be done about this thief, she says.

At any rate, I took down the website and am in the process of editing it into book form for my protection. I have a huge Brandon Lee site that I may do the same with.

RE the article that was stolen. I received an apology from the managing editor. He gave me the choice of them taking it down or giving me a byline with an error thingy about it first being credited to a staff writer. I chose the latter, made Our Town accessible online, and--here's the kicker--the thief had the nerve to say she didn't realize what happened and she was so sorry and she hoped we could work together in the future. Yeah, no.

Yeah, and she has since been shooting me PMs blaming everybody but herself, including her father's lung operation.

veinglory said:

That;s not exactly something that can happened without being "realized". Unless they have a very complex sleep-plagiarizing disorder.

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Haggis said:

I think an apology accompanied by a couple hundred bucks might be more appropriate.

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I thought about that, but decided to let it go.