Friday, January 2, 2009

HIJACKED!!!

Can anybody out there tell me how this ended up here:
My recent blog post was published, without any notification to me or permission from me, in the current publication of this paper. CAN THEY DO THAT???? Can they just copy and paste my words and sell them for profit like that? When I did research papers with my 5th graders last year, we talked about this little thing called plaguerism. I even taught them how to cite the websites they used to gather their information. Surely I have some friends - English teachers, photographers, college students, graphic design artists - who can offer me some insight here. In the meantime...

New Year's Lesson Learned: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU POST ON HERE. YOU NEVER KNOW WHERE IT MAY END UP!!

11 comments:

jamie b said...

whoa! No, they can't do that without your permission! i don't know the exact laws but that is not right.

Anonymous said...

They absolutely can't do that...
where in the paper is the article??

and who/what did they list as the author &/or source?!?!


You need to call down there.
I know a girl who writes for the Journal so if you need any help let me know... not only is that plagiarism, it's also invasion of privacy because they didn't ask your permission (and you're not one of their contracted writers.)

Don't let this go...

.....But...congrats I guess on having a good article!! ;)

Mrs. N. said...

Casey, it's in a forum called "What'cha Say Albany" and it doesn't list an author or source. There's another letter/post/entry right beside it and there's no author listed there either.
And the thing is, it wasn't that good of a post. I would never submit something having the word "dude" to a newspaper!!! I wrote it mostly to vent...

Amy Lynn said...

Holy Cow. My jaw dropped as I read that.

Here is the interesting thing. A while back someone from the Albany Journal (or Albany Herald... not sure which one) left comments on several Albany blogs, including mine, asking for people to contact them if they want to publish some of their posts in that section of the paper.

Apparently the have stopped asking and just started taking. That is just appalling.

Mrs. N. said...

AL - that is interesting. Never had any comments from any newspapers on mine. And I just started posting again, after several months of nothing new on here.

tammi said...

Nope. Not legal. It might not be plagirism, because no one is claiming that the words were theirs and not yours, but I would think it would be a privacy violation and it's DEFINITELY a violation of intellectual copyright. Your thoughts, your ideas, your WORDS, written by YOU - and they took them without permission.

At the very least it's really unprofessional, bush-league journalism.

My guess is that they've probably done it before, but no one take the time/effort/potential cost involved to take any sort of action against them. I find it especially annoying because #2's name is mentioned in the article. They have no idea anything about you or your family...what if you didn't want her name associated with the story, or for people to figure out it was you?? Not that there's anything to be secretive about, the "article" was a harmless vent, but still......

Here's an article written by a lawyer that I found on blog/internet posting, that supports that what they did to you was most likely not legal:
http://www.ivanhoffman.com/blogging.html

I wouldn't let it go...they shouldn't be permitted to do that. What a bush-league paper, that they wouldn't even call to ASK permission to use your words. *rolling my eyes*

Know any lawyers?? I would have them write the Albany Journal a lovely letter.....

tammi said...

Okay, I looked into intellectual property law a little bit more.
It would appear that the only "loophole" that the AJ could use in regards to swiping content off web forums and blogs is under the "Fair Use" clause of US Copyright.
BUT.....Fair use applies to the IDEA of what is and is not qualified as open game to the general public or reporting venues. Like, if someone wanted to take a sentence or excerpt from a blog or article, quote it, and then expound on it, argue it, etc.
Taking the ENTIRE content of someone's blog post would most likely NOT fall under fair use.

Here's more info on THAT:
http://w2.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-ip.php

TWL said...

Wow. Sorry.

Yeah, you should definitely do something about it. Don't let them get away with it.

Mrs. N. said...

Tammi - thanks for the research. I'm definitely going to look into those articles you found.

I plan to respond in some way, I'm just not sure how yet. I want to get some more info. first. I've got a friend who works at another paper looking into the for me too. I'll keep you all posted...

The Englands said...

sick em!!

In the Den said...

Call Wake Up Albany. Kevin Hogan Camp is on the radio RIGHT NOW