Who Owns Your Writing? Your Ideas? If You Think You Do...
Never One To Go Quietly!
Going quietly has never been a personality trait that has been used to describe me. Recently, I joined a liberal political news site and sent them a couple of articles that I had written on Hub Pages. I cross-posted to Hub Pages, hoping to do two things: one, increase readership of my articles and two, introduce myself to a wider audience. The articles were picked up by dozens of liberal (progressive) blogs and my readership went up three-fold on Hub Pages. If the articles were not accessed via HubPages, they were accessed by way of the news site that I joined. My Hub Pages profile address was written on the articles I had submitted.
Ownership of my articles was never in question. They are mine. They are my thoughts, my ideas and my work. I make no money from Hub Pages. That was never my intention. My intention was to write, plain and simple. To write about things that interest me: the health care field so fraught with fraud, the political arena so filled with secrets and lies, cooking, saving money, living on a budget and about advocacy for those less fortunate or ill-equipped to advocate for themselves.
Within a few days, the two articles that I had posted on the news site were removed from Hub Pages as duplicate content. I received a letter from the Hub Pages team saying that my articles had been removed. Part of the letter went like this:
Dear Jillian Barclay,
"Your Hub has been identified as a violation of our Terms of Use. If this is the first time you've gotten an email like this, don't worry! You'll have an opportunity to fix it.
Problem: Duplicate content, including:
* Text that appears in whole or large part on another site, even if you wrote the text or retain the copyright.
* Text that already appears in whole or large part on HubPages.
* Text copied from multiple sources.
* Substantial similarity to another work. This includes close paraphrasing, among other forms of misappropriation or copying of content (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantial_similarity for more information)..."
They were right!
- The text does appear on Hub Pages because I wrote it!
- The wording is the same because I wrote it!
- It does have a substantial similarity because I wrote it!
Finding My Writer's Voice and Almost Losing It!!
It is difficult to begin writing. I put in many hours of research on most topics. I want each piece to be fact-supported and relevant. I attribute quotes to their proper sources and I link to other publications that support my conclusions.
I had decided to stop writing for awhile until I determined what the best course of action would be. But then, as they say, I received an offer that I could not refuse. No, not from Hub Pages, but from another site.
I will continue to write on Hub Pages, but most of my political commentary will appear somewhere else. They do not have issues with cross-posting. I can submit to them and cross-post as I choose. As soon as I firm up the deal, I will update my Hub Pages profile page with a link. I hope to help the website grow and at the same time become another voice for the progressive community. The future is too important to sit back and allow corrupt voices drown us out.
The Decision To Stay or Thank You, Peter!
This morning I received an email from Peter Lumetta. If you don't know him, get acquainted. He is a certified gemologist, originally from Detroit, and now living in Thailand. http://hubpages.com/profile/PETER+LUMETTA
He wondered where I had been, so I told him what had happened. He is to be blamed for me staying, so, to all of you Tea People, send your hate mail to Peter...Sorry, Peter, had to--couldn't help myself.
I will also not revise my two articles. They are mine and they are out there on countless web sites.
Because I am not one to go quietly.
