Blog Parable the Second: Beware the Post-Takers

Pin It 1 And behold, on the twelfth day of the ninth month of the year of our lord two thousand and eight, there did appear in the land a post.

2 And behold, it was a post that was taken from the owner and changed only slightly; and behold, the post-taker did receive many accolades for her post.

3 And there were also in the land two other people who took the post and claimed it for their own, yea, without making a single change to the post they did claim it.

4 Now there was in the land a blogger, yay, even the original author of the post, and she did see their acts, and she cried out, saying "Surely I am cursed among all other women, oh, woe - WOE be unto me."

5 And behold her wrath was mighty, and she did stomp around the house exceedingly, even rending her garments, until her husband did say, "If thou wisheth it, I shall SMITE the post-takers with my mighty staff - - or perhaps if thou wouldst consider it, it wouldst be better to take a small break."

6 And the blogger did see the wisdom in this plan, and she did walk away from the computer and take the children to McDonalds with her husband, and they made merry for the space of an hour-and-a-half.

7 And after a space of several hours, the blogger did return to her computer, for she had begun to see the humor in the tale, but that was because she had not yet checked her email.

8 For behold, it came to pass that even more people did come forward and did confess by email to their sins, for behold, they did also take the post and claim it for their own; yea, they took even the comment plea from the sidebar.

9 Yay, one even confessed to taking the slightly out-of-date tagline, which seemeth to be kind of a waste of time, quite franklyeth.

10 And behold, the blogger began to have a migraine.

11 And she began to feel that it was all quite ridiculous, but she did implement a Copyright notice, which thou shalt see on the lower right, and she did also subscribe to Copyscape, that she might find all of the vagabonds in the land.

12 And she did declare this day Blog Amnesty Day, which should be known throughout the land.

13 And the blogger did say, if any of ye have sinned in this manner, go and sin no more.

14 And if ye have committed this crime, thou shalt email me and let me know that thou art sorrowful, and all shall be well.

15 But I say unto you, woe be unto those who do not take heed.

16 For if ye do not email me, I shall send my minions out to find thy blog with their all seeing eyes, and my mighty elves of plagiarism shall SMITE THEE in the eyeball.

17 Thus it is written, thus it shall be.

UPDATE: Apparently that post has become an email forward that's going around with no author. So two or three of the people who posted it, like this girl, Megan, posted it completely innocently. Just wanted to make sure people know that Megan, for one, never intended to swipe content. She just thought it was funny, and hey, how can I argue with THAT?! ;>