Please Don’t Steal My Stuff: A PSA from The Infertility Voice

Oh hi there.

Yeah, I know… no posts here since May. Life has been a little overwhelming lately. That said, I don’t intend to let this space stagnate for much longer. I just need a couple of monthsa to do some major cleaning up around here. And yes, guest blogs are still welcome in the interim. I need to revitalize this space like whoa.

Meanwhile, I need to do a necessary PSA that sadly, I feel like I really should never have to do.

Please don’t steal my stuff.

Pretty straightforward, you would think, right? Nope. Apparently I need to write a whole post about this because “Copyright © 2013 · The Infertility Voice · All rights reserved” means nothing to some people.

Look, I know I haven’t updated in a couple of months and that’s bad. I’m a bad blogger. I know, I know. But that doesn’t mean that someone can just lift a post – in its entirety – repost it on their website and include a little “See the original post here!” with a link back to my site and think that’s okay.

Repost it without my permission, no less – and – AND! – this website links out to another website promoting their fertility vitamin supplement that I’ve never heard of before nor do I endorse?

Yeah folks, I really shouldn’t have to say this, but again, apparently I need to…

Don’t steal my stuff. That shit’s not okay.

I’m not a moron. I know my way around the internets and with a few quick WHOIS requests and carefully crafted Google queries, I can find out who you are. And the only reason I would have to do that is when you list a “Contact Us” email on your site that doesn’t work. So when I send you an email that basically says, “Please don’t steal my stuff. That shit’s not okay” and it bounces back – well, I need to find a way to get in touch with you. So then I go a-Googlin’. And when I go a-Googlin’ – and I mean some really deep sleuthing – and find out that not only are you a fellow web designer and marketing type person but you are ALSO a new mom to twins as of February… well, that just rubs a little salt in the wound. Because that tells me that A) you engage in shitty SEO-hijacking marketing tactics when you build your websites and B) you have time to build a new website with twins?! That’s bullshit. I’ve got one child and barely have time to shower right now.

I know I may not have posted in a while here, but when I do, I don’t just shit out a post for people’s entertainment. I actually spend time – something that is rather precious to me right now – on each and every post. So when someone rips off the writing I’ve basically written for free to benefit their brand or product – without my permission – they’ve just stolen from me for their monetary gain.

And this particular website (you know who you are) isn’t the first to do so. Apparently, I’ve got SEO keyword-rich content that random Chinese-hosted websites love to gobble up and call their own. With several hundred blog posts dating back to 2009, I can’t always catch when my content gets lifted and reposted elsewhere. But when I do, it pisses me right the fuck off.

And in my current state of sleep-deprivation, and after some internet sleuthing on who’s ripped me off this time – a new mom after infertility! – well, this one just tipped the scales into full-on “I’ve fucking had it” territory.

So let me say it loud and clear, one more time:

“Copyright © 2013 · The Infertility Voice · All rights reserved” is not a suggestion, nor a request. It’s my stamp of authenticity to my intellectual property. So please, don’t steal my shit. I work hard for this and make next to nothing for all this hard work here at The Infertility Voice. Don’t hijack my writing because yours sucks or you’re too lazy to make a for-reals website of your own. Don’t screw up what little SEO work I’ve done here because you have to go and repost ENTIRE blog posts of mine on your websites and try to pass them off as your own.

Don’t insult my intelligence like I’m not going to find out.

Just don’t steal my stuff, mmkay?*

*To clarify: you want to quote something from here? Provide a short excerpt? Link to my post at your blog? Go nuts! A blockquote or short excerpt is not a full repost of my original work – just make sure you link back to where you got it. It’s like writing a thesis: you can do an inline citation of someone else’s work to make your case, but you don’t copy and paste the entirety of that person’s work and call it your own. There’s no academic integrity policy on the internet, but there is a little thing call copyright protection, so don’t rip off my stuff, ‘aight?

/rant