My
writing has understandably become very important to me, a life line of sorts
giving me purpose and opportunity to contribute to society. Suffering from two
chronic diseases, I write from personal experience and straight from my heart;
my works are original and entirely from my own thoughts. Whenever I can, I support others campaigning in promoting awareness of a worthy cause, and I oblige by giving
the name and link to the relevant site. If I share a piece of information or
writing that someone else has written, I always ask permission from the person,
accrediting their name and link to a website. This is how it should be done, if
you understand the laws appertaining to "Intellectual Property" which
refers to creations of the mind for which exclusive rights are recognised such
as any artistic or literary works.
I was upset to find a
site has been copying some of my articles and passing them off as their own.
This is plagiarism in its purist form - in other words, and to be rather blunt: you are stealing my
work. I will not publicly put to shame by mentioning the site's name, but would
urge you, to please have the courtesy that I afford others and write to me
asking my permission. If you like so much what I have written, that it's worth copying
and putting up on-line, please have the decency to accredit who originally
wrote the piece.
In today's world, with
the Internet at our fingertips, easy access to copy and paste anything on-line
is temptingly easy - so in future stop and think a moment, please bear in mind the person who has spent
the time and effort in writing. Parkinson's has robbed me of so much, my
writing is one of the few things I have left and is what keeps me going. You wouldn't steal a bar of chocolate from a
sweet shop, or a pair of sandals from a shoe shop, so I appeal to your sense of
decency and ask you to show me the same respect. 
So sorry to read this post, Elaine. I'm sure this practice happens more often than we know. I posted a one paragraph excerpt from one of my novels at a book site and later found it had gone quite viral, with numerous postings on websites and blogs around the world. Fortunately, I haven't found any that don't credit me. But then, maybe I wouldn't find them, since a search by my name wouldn't reveal them.
ReplyDeleteWhat a shame this happened to you. You are right to blog about it, and I hope the offending party reads it and understands the wrong they committed.
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ReplyDeleteIsabelleNovember 12, 2021 at 9:44 PM
Hello Elaine, I am a student in UK who's looking to write an essay about Gaucher Disease to enter into a competition. I came across your blog, and I've been reading all your posts from the first one and I've read them all with the intent of centering my essay around your narrative. I have found your stories sometimes funny, sometimes saddening but overall extremely uplifting, and I would like to ask you for permission to use your name and introduce your works in my essay to direct even more people here. I couldn't find your email anywhere, and I'm not even sure if you will see a notification for this comment, and if my request is brought to your attention too late, be assured that I will most probably have to shorten your name to initials (there is a rule for patient anonymity) but still definitely cite your book and make sure it will be known that the brilliant quotes are all from you.