Copycats! Some funny - some not

[Erby]

Years and years ago, when I had time for such stuff, I wrote several articles and posted them around the internet on one or two of the article sites.

A while ago, I decided to do a blog outside of Active Rain that was more under MY control.

Erby, The Central Kentucky Home Inspector's Blog

I've taken some of the stuff I wrote years and years ago and / or on Active Rain to put on that blog to get it started.

Today, while checking to see site statistics for that site, I wanted to see if Google had picked up the new site yet.

So, I took a random sentence out of the middle of one of the articles "Home Fire Safety "posted on the new site to see if it would come up on Google.

"When you move into a used home, you have no way of knowing how old the detectors are"

It didn't surprise me that it came up on several of the "Article" sites out there, with attribution. That's one of the reasons I wrote it.

What did surprise me was the home inspectors who now lay claim to that same article.

Bruce LaBell, Scottsdale, AZ, wrote the same article in February 2009.

The Home Inspection Information Site uses it without attribution and some slight editing.

Steve Rinner, GLH Home Inspections in Norwalk, OH wrote the same article on his website, without attribution, but with a couple of minor edits, like taking out the B4U Close.

Maybe they hired the same guy to do their websites and don't know about what he did)

Maybe I'll write 'em something nasty, maybe not. But then maybe I just wrote this to embarrass them and to drive some traffic to my blog.

Ah well, what the hell. I wrote it to spread it around.

It's a wonderful day when you wake up in the morning!

-

[kurt]

It's a harsh reality, but web published articles are public domain, regardless of what the law and decency tells us.

All you can do is shame people a teeny bit by pointing it out.

[Mark P]

I had to get on the case of one of my local competitors for copying directly off my site. I mean it is one thing if someone from another state copies your stuff, but when we are in the same market that is another story.

[Les]

A client tried to sue me and an inspector that works for me using a local inspector and my reporting format and protocols. Nearly letter for letter and comment for comment. The action never made it to discovery.

[Erby]

One local guy, in the SAME TOWN as me, had pictures of MY vehicle on his Google Listing.

Turns out it was Mainstreet Host is a scam that took his money and put it on there. Gone now.

[Jim Morrison]

Articles posted on the web are protected by the very same copyright laws that print articles are.

What they did is unquestionably wrong and actionable.

It's just probably not worth pursuing through the courts since the cost of that would likely exceed any damages you could hope to recover.

Depending on how much it upset me, I'd probably write them a nastygram demanding that they give me attribution or take it down immediately.