Twice in the past two weeks I have been alerted to people posting my recipes on their Facebook pages, without my permission and without any credit to me or links to my blog. Obviously, my site is viewable to the world. Anyone can come to my blog, view my recipes and photos, download one of my lovingly created PDFs and print it off to use at home. I want to share. That was my goal.
But along with that my blog is a record of family recipes and recipes I've created to pass down to my kids. A lot of work goes into each post. Research, testing, photography, editing, writing, more editing, promotion and a little blood, sweat and tears. Every time these Facebook page administrators copy my photos and text and paste them onto their pages, without any reference to the fact that I WROTE IT AND THEY DIDN'T it's plagiarism, plain and simple. But on top of that it's a little piece of my family history broken off and passed off as someone else's, and that's what really bothers me.
Yes I don't earn a living off my site, but I could, if traffic were routed to my site instead of just stealing my text and photos. So please, if you want to repost one of my blog recipes, respect the law, respect Internet ethics, respect ME and ask permission. Chances are I'll be flattered and give it whole-heartedly. And then do the right thing and link back to my site instead of just taking it all and leaving me in the dust pretending that it's your content. Cause it's wrong. It's illegal. And it's a really douchebag thing to do.
