Several years ago, a student in one of my tech writing classes needed a bit of extra credit, so I asked her to write up a set of tips on e-mail etiquette. I've modified and expanded it since then, and now it's one of the most popular pages on my website. Today I found that an e-mail marketing company has reproduced the text of that handout, re-branded it, changed the title, removed our names from the top, and left them in very small type at the bottom.
I'm flattered, of course... and it's not actually plagiarism -- though I certainly feel my intellectual property is being misused. What should I do? What would YOU do?
Original: Writing Effective E-Mail: Top 10 Tips
Extra Crispy:How can you get the most out of your mails?
I'm tempted to fisk my own handout, just out of spite. :)
Oh, and please forward this e-mail to ten friends, or else your hair will turn grey and start falling out before you are 35, and you will be doomed to spend bright sunny Friday afternoons grading stacks of papers, and you will desperately grasp at any excuse to distract yourself from the tedium.
Hmm... I think maybe my stapler needs a refill.
Re: What would YOU do?
Add a Creative Commons license to the text on your site. Then ask them to add it to theirs. That should induce a state of confusion :)
Re: What would YOU do?
Hell. Is that company making any money off their site? If so, you should be entitled to some of their earnings.
Re: Worse than a plagiarist.. a SPAMMING plagiarist!
I am currently working on gathering the permissions from an online textbook by Joe Moxley. One of the things the publisher was concerned about was that I get permission (in email form) from everyone who Moxley cited more than 250 words or 10% from. The publisher informed me that if the textbook ran without proper permission, anyone that he borrowed from could sue for a share of the profits.
I think you may have a clear-cut case here.
Ignore it
Spammers stink. But this one is in Switzerland. So I have no idea how or if a cease and desist order might work, if at all. (Do the Swiss have an "implied copyright" law like the US?)
They didn't remove your attribution information. Heck, that's more than most borrowers. Accept the flattery, pass congratulations on to your student, and move on.
Stil steamed? As Charlie said, make sure you put some sort of copyright on future pages. It looks like you are using a standard header and footer, so that shouldn't be too hard. My UF site has a copyright page linked from my standard footer. This appears on most of my index pages, providing me a chance to protect my work and push "share and share alike" as well. :)
best,
cbd.
Re: Worse than a plagiarist.. a SPAMMING plagiarist!
Matt --
Is that 250 words/10% thing a standard with publishers? Or is this just something his particular publisher asked for? And if he just links to a page, you don't need permissions for that, do you? (I know that a lot of pages/sites ask that you notify them...)
If it is something semi-standard, I can't believe permissions weren't considered earlier in the process.
jlm
Re: Worse than a plagiarist.. a SPAMMING plagiarist!
Well, they can't stop you from linking to their sites, though some sites get annoyed if you link to some inner-page rather than the frontpage.
I think the 250 words thing comes from copyright laws, though that's my expertise by any means.