Every now and then I Google my name just to see what comes up. Most of the time its accurate, things I have done, where I work, what I have written. But I am aware of the fact that what I write on our website can end up elsewhere. And not always the way it was intended.
The first time was a few months after the election and people were wondering about President Obama and his cigarette smoking. I wrote that I hoped he would stop citing all the problems cigarette smoke can cause. Less then two weeks later something from the article appeared in someone else’s article on the Internet. It was not a misquote, it was where it was placed that caused my concern. I also made me understand that what we post on this worldwide site is up for grabs.
A few months later something else I wrote showed up in the most unexpected place. It was an innocuous ad for an upscale grocery store chain in the city and what they quoted from something I wrote had nothing to do with the ad or the store. It seems they liked the one or two sentences and put them there with my name attached. Nice that they did that but why?
This is just a reminder that this can happen to anything we post. It will be misquoted, misdirected and sometimes stolen. The Internet leaves us wide open for this abuse but it does give us something in return. People actually are reading what we write.
This is why it’s important to include the words “Copyright Minnette Coleman 2009″, at the end, then you have stronger legal recourse. It’s a kind of fair warning to people who might use your work. You could still call those guys up or just send them a bill. Because you have the original and it is dated by your computer and the site, you still have rights to it. Usually it’s not worth the battle, but some times it is. Any they don’t know how far you will go.