countrycat - 2:48 pm on May 15, 2002 (gmt 0)

I had an article published in Web Developer's Journal about a year and a half ago. Then later, when I was doing research for a follow-up article on the same topic, I came across an online article by a guy writing for a Web development company in India.

My office mate and I were laughing at it because the writing style differed drastically from paragraph to paragraph. It was obvious that he had copied content from many different places.

I stopped laughing when I found part of my WDJ article included without attribution. I did a little more research and found that the paragraphs immediately before my stuff had been lifted from the spider-food site.

So I contacted the Marketing and Sales manager and the CEO of the Web company, explained that their author had copied content from at least two other sites - without even changing the wording! - and passed that work off as his own. I sent them links to the other sites and particularly noted the copyright notices on each page.

The did take down the article, but I subsequently got an email from the so-called author. His excuse: "I never read your article. Perhaps somebody else copied your article and I read it on their site."

So if he stole stolen work, then it's ok? I couldn't believe it. I ended our little exchange with a link to the dictionary definition of plaragarism.

And I "Google" him every month or so so make sure he's not stealing anything else - at least from me.