Plagiarism Abounds

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
Thomas Mann

It happened, it really happened. I was looking at someone’s blog this morning and they had a post titled, HOPE. A poem followed, all out of stanza form mind you, but there it was, my words.

There was no name, so if you were a reader of this persons blog, you’d assume that he or she wrote those beautiful words. But guess what? They we MY beautiful words, and I was not receiving credit for writing such words.

I keep proofs of all my poetry and writing. Rough drafts and what not, all my work is copyrighted and lawfully protected. But to see your work on someone’s blog, without credit has a tendency to raise the antenna and make one wonder.

I know that when we release our work publicly, there is always the chance of someone stealing it. But we as writer’s respect one another and have a code within our community that plagiarism is unacceptable in all ways, shape and form.

If I’m quoting someone, I always give credit to the author. Why? It is the morally right thing to do and it is showing great respect for the author. We live in a morally corrupt world, where people do what they want with no respect to any other human being. We have a diverse world where beliefs are not all the same, colors differ, religions are being trashed, and people are not being exposed in their best light.

But among writer’s, plagiarism is the most feared aspect among writers. Who feels like pouring their blood spilled pain onto the paper, working their fingers to the bone, exhausted by the aspect of tapping for hours on end, only to have that work stolen? I say stolen because anything that is taken and not rightfully the persons who did the taking, that in any place in the world is called STOLEN.

Plagiarism is stolen work any way you look at it. I post that all my work is mine and copyrighted, and that is unlawful to use without my permission. Following my blog DOES NOT give you permission to steal my work, or use my hard work, and post it as your own.

I’m honored that someone loves my writing so much that they would take it, but please, give me credit for doing all the work. Ask my permission before taking. And first and foremost, RESPECT the WRITER in ME!! And I’ll respect you.