Arghhhh, C’mon people.  I knew when it happened I was going to go on a rant, thus the title of this post, pre-meditated rant-oxymoron?  Of course initially, I didn’t really care, I just wanted to rant, now that I’ve calmed down I’m finding some humor in the whole situation.

So yesterday I was doing some research and while reading a forum post (removed, see comments) and some of what I was reading seemed vaguely familiar.  Well, I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed so it took me a while to realize that the reason it sounded familiar is because I WROTE IT!  Imagine my surprise.  And then I got angry.  The “stones” of someone to just lift my content and paste it into their post.

Well either “stones” or idiocy, I mean, it’s public.  Did they think no one would notice?  And did they consider that stealing someone’s intellectual property (yeah, I know but it’s only a little hyperbole in my case) and posting it publicly, that if they got caught it might not look so good for them?  Couple that with trying to promote a company that promulgates a very high level of integrity, did they think it might not reflect so well onto them?  It’s almost laughable if it weren’t so pathetic.

And then my morbid curiosity got the better of me and I Googled a long-tail keyword, “Club Sea Breeze Founding Associate” that is unique to the particular pilfered passage and I found another forum post (removed, see comments) and what do you know, she copied, pasted (stole) the same exact passage.  Actually that was kind of funny, two people have the same very unoriginal thought.  I wonder if they are single, I could introduce them to each other.

And then I set out to see how I could correct the  situation with the least amount of effort, after all, it should not be up to me to police the forums.   If someone brings something like this to their attention the forum should take it upon itself to police itself, right?  Yeah, ok, I know and you’re right, that was me being very naiive.

I did some additional research on the eZine Articles site about what other authors do when this happens to them and got some very good ideas.  And it was actually time well spent because I also learned a lot, seems this happens with annoying frequency.

With my new found knowledge I drafted a letter and sent it off to the admin of each forum indicating I was aware there is some stolen content posted on their site, here’s the link, here’s the passage, here’s the link for the original article and work and that all I want is for them to remove my content from their site or post it in its entirety consistent with the terms of service for eZine Articles.

Well, maybe naiive, but worth a try.  So while I’m still a little “hot” about this, it’s a small comfort to know that I can write something worth stealing.  As for what comes of my letter, time will tell.  If either Chris (removed/comments) or Deb (removed/comments) has Goggle Alerts set up with their names, Google will point them right here where they are welcome to offer their apologies (see photo).

But now, my RANT is over.  This is far too exciting a time and there is still way too much to accomplish with Club Sea Breeze pre-launch just around the corner to waste valuable time and energy on this nonsense.  And now there’s the “Revolution Panel” to get out there and explain to people.  “Revolution …what?”  Exactly, I’ll catch you up in the next post.

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Tags: Be Free Faster, Chris Morrell, Club Sea Breeze, Deb Baxter, Recession Proof Home Based Business, The Panel Revolution, Top Tier, travel consultant, Travel Online