An update for Tairis with added plagiarism (again...)

Là Fhèill Brìghde arrived, and our little household welcomed in Brigid, and the Spring with ceremony and feasting. Rosie did the honours with making our dealbh Brìde this year, which now takes pride of place on the shrine in the kitchen, and she also took charge of inviting her to come visit us. Brigid was welcomed with the words of a very shy, but excited, ten-year-old.

As I posted a while ago, last year, I bought a mould with the idea of making some small candles, and I finally got around to having a go at them. For a first effort they came out pretty good, I think, in spite of the bubbles (I need to regulate the temperature of the wax better, I'm guessing is the problem). I tried out a few colours and the kids are still debating which ones they like the best. I think Rosie did a fantastic job with our Brigid doll – she made several and then picked out the one she thought was most appropriate for the occasion, which she kept under wraps until the big reveal:

We also put out our brat for Brigid to bless, and Rosie chose to put out a necklace she got for Christmas this year, so she has something she can carry around with her.

I made a few crosses while the kids were at school, and then when Rosie got home she decided to join in. I helped her make a three-armed cross out of rushes, and then she had a go at some more out of pipe-cleaners. They really are easier for kids to work with, though I have some reservations about the metal in them. If it contains iron, it kind of defeats their purpose, you know? But still, they weren't the only ones we made, so it's OK. The different colours helped Rosie keep track of where she was, as she tried her hand at a four-armed cross for the first time:

I felt like mixing things up a little so decided to try my hand at something new this year. I've made three- and four-armed crosses most years, as well as the "diamond" type crosses I grew up with, so this time I figured I'd try making a style of cross I've never made before. I settled on the "interwoven" type, which is when, during some searching for images I could work from as a guide, I found a web page that's plagiarised my own page on making the cros Bríde (or crois Brìghde, if you want to Gaelic it up). So that's nice.

On the plus side, it helped me realise that the type of cross I was looking to make was wrongly described on my own page, which has followed through on the plagiarist's page and had a knock on effect in wrongly describing other crosses as well (the Bogha Bríde is a cross inside a circle; they've shown the interwoven type as a Bogha Bríde instead). So I've corrected my own page and I apologise for the confusion, folks. My bad – I think an older source I looked at used the same term to describe an "interwoven" cross (referring to multiple crosses woven together) as other sources did to describe something else (the type of cross I was actually looking to make).

On the negative side, I'm a tad bit annoyed that once again someone is using my words to sell their own religion... I mean, come on. If you want to write about something, use your words! Do your own research! I suppose they at least acknowledge the original source this time, and haven't gone so far as to prevent other people from copying text on their own web pages because they don't want people to do to them what they do to others themselves. Like my previous plagiarist did. Twice.

It's still frustrating, though. And fucking rude. I could report the page with a DMCA takedown notice, but that requires giving my personal details, including home address etc, which is then publicly available online, and that sucks. You can be sure that negative comments to the blogger herself are ignored.

Still. Besides updating the original page, I've also added a new page on Tairis with a guide for making the interlaced or interwoven cross. It's an easy cross to make, with a little bit of preparation, and Rosie had a go at making one, too. I tried a simple version with only three strands along the horizontal and vertical (as did Rosie – in the picture below), and then I tried a bigger one with five strands each – that was all I could fit in, based on the length of the rushes.

From what I've read, these are common to Co. Cork, where much of my nan's side of the family come from. The three-armed crosses are common to Co. Antrim, where most of my husband's family come from.

Oh deary me...

As you may recall, I've had a small problem with plagiarism and people using my articles and associated photos without my permission. Mostly it's been the same person, who has plagiarised a whole slew of my articles not just once, not just twice, but three times (I had to issue another DMCA takedown against the "Lady" Cattra earlier this year after I discovered her blogs were public again, and there were even more of them, with most of the articles I'd had removed via DMCA re-added).

It's been a hassle and extremely frustrating trying to deal with it, but I'm hoping that it's all done and dusted with that particular blogger. But while the sheer level of plagiarism beggared belief there, I'm now dealing with a whole new level of unbelievable: I am dealing with a serious case of "hapless." If I'm being charitable.

A recipe website has been using my pictures without my permission. No biggie, really. It's a bit cheeky, I think, but at least the images haven't had fairy sparkles shat all over them, and nor are they claiming copyright or threatening to sue me for publicly pointing out the fact that they're the ones who've done wrong. Whatever.

But I feel I should point out that the recipe for Fife bannock at:

"Perfect Diet Recipes.com"

Was originally accompanied by a photo of mine for the Selkirk bannock. (To add insult to injury, the image was credited to "Bing Images." Oh dear, Microsoft. They're not really helping your image, are they?). The recipe isn't mine, just the image. Seeing as I thought it was a bit cheeky, and the wrong image, I left a comment to point this out. I mean, the bannock in the picture clearly had dried fruit in it, which Fife bannocks do not. You'd think someone running the website would notice, no?

My comment was left in the moderation queue for a while and after checking back occasionally to see if it had been published or dealt with, I eventually found it had been deleted and the picture was still there. I don't have a paid account on flickr right now so I can't just go back through my photos to find it, but I finally realised at this point that I could probably search for it, just like they did. Problem solved (even if I did feel a bit slow for not realising I could do that sooner...). So that's what I did, and that, I thought, was that.

I happened to click on the page in my bookmarks list just now, only to discover that they're using another of my bannock pictures to illustrate their page. This time, a picture of a Brodick bannock...

I mean really. They can't even thieve the right image.

Check out their 'disclaimer' page, though:

All of the pictures that we display on this web are not belong to us, all copyrights belong to the image creators / manufacturers. We have great respect for the pictures owner, we are sorry if we can not display the credit to all the pictures. We just collect automatically from Google Image Search with Google Search Image API. 

Video Content :
We use Youtube APi to give automatically related video content on this web.
If our content in this web have ilegal issue, copy right protected, DMCA Policy or other reason please contact us . We will read your message early and make evaluation to make this web be better for our and visitor in this web.

So yeah...Perhaps not surprising. 

I've removed the image again, but I suppose I'm finally going to have to bite the bullet and start watermarking the images I use on the website or keep on with the occasional moaning and/or bemused head shaking.

The yellow of Bealltainn

Before I go on, I just want to thank everyone for the outpouring of support I've received since my last post, both publicly and privately - it's really meant a lot to me; as frustrating as this whole thing has been for me, I find myself in the midst of an amazing community, so really - thank you.

I asked Lady Cattra Shadow the Scarlet Cat to remove the posts, and I've since been contacted by her and received assurances that the articles in question were (re)posted by accident, and that she's taken down all of her blogs while she makes sure that everything of mine is gone. I've asked for confirmation that this time all of the articles have been deleted from the various places she's hosting them on, including something called myfreecopyright.com, which makes copies of your work and gives it a digital watermark...and stuff...She's been using it on her blog, so if it automatically makes copies of everything then there are articles of mine hosted there that need to be deleted too.

And then hopefully that will be the end of it.


In the meantime, I've been busy doing family stuff (with my sister and her family visiting) and thinking about the places I can drag my husband and kids along to when we go down to stay in Kirkcudbright this weekend (we get an extra Bank Holiday for the royal wedding, so it's a longer May Day weekend than usual). There has been some working in the garden, and I've finally had some of the veg I've sown outside sprout - radish, carrot, onions, but mainly leeks - lots of leeks. I was starting to get a bit worried that they'd all fail, there.

Seeing as we've been having a bit of a heat wave, it's not just the veg that's springing into life. Because winter hung around for a long while, round here it seems like some of the flowers and trees are quite late in coming into leaf and bloom. The good news for me, though, is that the rowan tree I planted when I moved here is coming into blossom for the first time ever:

Hopefully that means we'll have some berries in the autumn. I planted the tree a little too close to the fence and there's a branch trying to work it's way through the slats, so I'm going to have to chop that bit off at some point - I'll be leaving that job for between the two Bealltainn's, though. I can use the wood for charms for the next year.

And of course, with the warmer weather come the bluebells in the woods:

But mostly it's about the yellow - dandelion (which came out very late this year):

Lesser celandine, everywhere you go in the woods (where the bluebells aren't, at least):

And round here, gorse - lots and lots of gorse:

 
In previous years I've seen it flowering from around November or December if it's been mild enough, but this year it seems like it was very late to get going.

As yet, I've not spotted any marsh marigolds, I don't think - lus-buidhe Bealltainn, the yellow plant of Bealltainn that marks the start of summer - but the cowslips I planted around my little garden shrine are in full bloom:

And the primrose I put in looks like it isn't far behind.

With Bealltainn approaching, thoughts have been turning to what I'm going to be doing; seeing as we'll be away I think I'm going to have to have a fairly quiet and low key celebration while I'm at the caravan - some offerings down at the beach, a quiet bit of time for some meditation, and maybe a barbecue if the weather stays as sunny as it has been. Since most of the ritual stuff that I do centres on the house and securing protection for it in the coming year and season, I'll have to wait to do that when I get home on Monday.

Usually the kids and I churn some butter, and we make bannocks, and a seasonal picture together. Thanks to my disorganisation and then my back problems we never got round to doing a picture for Spring, and I'm not sure if we'll have time to get one done before the weekend this time round either - I haven't even thought of a theme we can do yet. We'll just have to see. It's going to feel strange celebrating Bealltainn when I'm not here at home, in my own space.

Yay! Plagiarism. Again.

And yes, it's by the same blogger as before. And yes, the title for this post should be considered to be sarcastic.

Last year I discovered that somebody had been reposting articles from my website under her own name, on her own blogs - going so far as copyrighting them herself and removing pretty much any and all mention of my own site or authorship. On top of that, she'd taken to using some of my images, and even used one to make her own 'button' or 'badge' that people could post on their own blogs to link back to hers and proclaim their support or fandom at the same time. Perhaps one of the most amusing things about it all was that she was so concerned about people stealing from herself, she disabled the right-click feature or the ability to highlight any text on her web pages in order to physically prevent this happening (unless you happen to have a bit of technological know-how). Apparently she had no such qualms doing it to other people, but it was a big no-no once she'd collected it and published it as her own.

All in all, I found the whole thing annoying. A tad irksome, in fact.

Even more annoying was that while I initially met with some success in getting some articles and images removed from her blogs after contacting her again and again with each article I found (I asked nicely, I promise), I kept finding more of her blogs, and more of my articles posted under her own name. My requests for my work to be removed became terser and terser as I got more and more frustrated and upset at the extent to which I'd been ripped...And then, after finding even more articles, and meeting with less and less progress in resolving the issue, I eventually ended up deciding that my only course of action was to issue a DMCA takedown order for the articles and images that remained. It was something I'd initally wanted to avoid, but ended up not knowing what else to do.

After all, and as I've said before: This is the internet. It's SRS BZNS.

For the most part, although it took a while the takedown was a success; Blogger removed the remaining articles and images themselves, in as much as they could, and that was that. Some of my images remained on her blogs because they were evidently not deleted from the blog as a whole (it seems she uploaded the images to her own blogs or image host, rather than hotlinking them from my flickr account or webpages), and were still being used by some sort of widget to promote articles that were no longer live. A bit of back and forth with some of the nice folks at Blogger led to a dead-end because the widget in question wasn't owned by them and that meant there wasn't anything they could do unless I was able to link directly to the content of mine in question, that was still appearing on her blogs. I couldn't do that, because of the way the widget thingy worked, and in the end I decided to give up. The battle was mostly won, I figured, and not long after the blogs were switched to friends only anyway, so I'd be none the wiser if anything happened in future.

Or so I thought. Now she's amalgamated all of her old blogs into a shiny new one, and as a result has evidently reposted some of the pages - not all of them, admittedly, but that doesn't really make me feel much better about it all. Behold! A list for posterity (and one should always back up one's argument or moaning with evidence, if possible, shouldn't one):

Samhainn Divination - copied straight from my own article here with some additions in the references, I think
Celebrating Samhainn - Scottish Style - copied straight from my own article here
Scottish Samhainn Celebrations - a slightly different version of the previous link, with different references/links given at the bottom. I presume this is a duplicate post as a result of various blogs being amalgamated
Samhainn - copied straight from my own article here
The Festival of Samhainn - the same article again, this time without the introduction. I presume this is also a duplicate post as a result of various blogs being amalgamated
Carving - copied from my own article here, but evidently amalgamated with another post/article on the same subject

One thing that makes me wonder is that - while it's been about six months since all of this began - I don't recall seeing some of those articles in the format they're appearing in on the blog just now. I suppose I have to assume that they're from a blog, or blogs, that I didn't even know existed and therefore didn't complain about the first time, so she just left them or overlooked them. Or it's possible she deleted some pages and simply unpublished others, perhaps, and these are just the unpublished ones that hadn't been got rid of the first time round.

But as I said, some of the pages seem unfamiliar to me, and! And! Another thing that makes me wonder is that all but that last page I listed above now credits my site - which she didn't do originally. Either these are indeed from blogs I wasn't aware of, or she's knowingly reposted these articles now (and they're all notably on her favourite subject of Samhainn, whereas the ones that haven't been reposted are about other things) because she thinks crediting my site doesn't make her repostings copyright theft anymore. As if I can't complain about any of it now (and I even sent her a link explaining about what copyright is, and what's allowed, I'm sure). If that is what she thinks, then she's mistaken.

Needless to say, I do claim copyright of the articles - was forced to, publicly, when this whole thing kicked off originally - which means that nobody can copy them without my permission.* As copyright holder, I hold the rights to who can and cannot copy this work (the clue's in the name, really), and it's now clearly stated in the footer of the site that the articles are copyrighted, after a commenter previously suggested I should do that to avoid any confusion. Seeing as there's a widespread misconception that if it's on the internet it's fair game unless otherwise stated, fair enough.

So yeah, that'll do it, I thought. While I don't have to do that in order to claim copyright of my work, fair enough if that does help to avoid confusion. So I made it clear. And really, I thought I'd made it abundantly clear that I want nothing to do with this woman, and that would be that. She wouldn't just do it again, would she? It's a good job I'm paranoid.

To be fair, I suppose that this all could be a genuine oversight on her part, somehow or other. Considering the fact that she shouldn't have done it in the first place, however, let alone twice (it's a dubious honour, and I should be flattered, I'm sure), I don't think that lets her off anything - especially considering the fact that, as far as I can tell, very little else on her blog is her own work either, and also happens to be copyrighted. Clearly, as far as it seems to me, she's learned nothing.

I suppose the only thing I can do is give her a fair chance and ask her to remove the posts before I have to start hassling those poor folks at the DMCA again. It's not a prospect I relish, but I really, truly, don't see what else I can do otherwise.

* I should clarify that of course there's fair use and so on, that does allow for that sort of thing (although this doesn't generally mean that you can repost a whole article online if you feel like it), but it doesn't apply here; I'm talking specifically about someone reposting articles wholesale, without permission and proper credit, and claiming copyright of that content for themself. 

I have absolutely no objections when it comes to copying/printing for personal use, or sharing with others in groups and so on. 

Really, it's about respect...

I find myself in a bit of a pickle.

It seems I've had partial success since yesterday's post, as Lady Cattra Shadow the Scarlet Cat has at least taken down the articles she ripped from my site (as you'll no doubt see if you click on the links of my previous post). I'm thankful for that, and appreciate her quick response on that matter at least.

Unfortunately, it appears she's still passing off some of my photos of the turnip lanterns I've carved over the past few years as her own, or she's at least using them without permission for the sake of making her own buttons and illustrations for other people's articles she's hosting on her sites. See this?

Those are the first turnips I ever carved. And now they've been sparklified and are more sparkly than Edward Cullen in glorious daylight, so people can use it to link to her blog. 

You'll also find this picture of another turnip, from another year, being used in a few places:

Possibly more pictures elsewhere as well, I don't know.

And I've asked once again for her to remove them, and once again, I've received no response from her. I think that's poor show. But really, now I'm stuck with two options: Leave her be, except for a quiet rambly snark to myself here on my blog, or b) issue takedown notices through the DMCA with both Blogspot and Photobucket to force her to stop using my work.

Option b) seems overkill. I mean, yes, this is the internet and of course it's SRS BZNS, and yes, it would be within my right to do so as the copyright holder for those pictures - it's thoroughly (legally and morally) wrong to use my work without regard for copyright laws or even my thoughts on the matter, but still. If I do that Lady Cattra will more than likely lose her blogs and Photobucket albums for breaching their terms and conditions, and all I really want is for her to stop using my pictures. It's not too much to ask, surely?

Why does this annoy me so much? Honestly, I'm surprised at myself that I'm annoyed. I mean, they're only pictures, aren't they? And it's not like this sort of thing has never happened on the internet before...It's rife within the neopagan community in particular.

To be fair, this is the first time that this sort of thing has happened with my work, that I'm aware of, so it's kind of new territory for me. And my dismay is not so much that somebody's taken my stuff (it's not like it's uncommon, as I said), but that the person who took those articles, and continues to use my pictures, has an outlook that is so antithetical to my own. Her beliefs and my beliefs are apparently very different, spiritually, and we don't find ourselves in agreement on many points, I think.

People have asked to use my work and my pictures before now, and I've always said yes because they asked, and I was more than happy to share and help a friend out, or whatever, because the people asking have generally been on the same wavelength as me. Had I the choice in this case, though, I would not choose to have my work associated with someone like that, not least because they don't seem to see anything wrong with just taking things as they please to suit their own purpose and blog stats. Although I have to say I'm amused at the fact that Lady Cattra appears keen to prevent people from stealing her work (or the other articles she's copied and pasted from elsewhere, that is - try right clicking on one of her pages). Clearly she thinks it's wrong for people to do it to her, but doesn't hold those same standards for herself. Hmm.

Plus, it's just rude.

I put time and effort into my research and writing. I enjoy doing it, and I enjoy sharing it - and I might as well do something with it. Realistically, though, I know that once I put them out there, there's not a lot I can do beyond that. People will take from them what they will, good or bad - ideas and interpretations that maybe I didn't intend, on the one hand, or on the other, I'm well aware of the fact that there are some unscrupulous people out there who are more than happy to pass them off as their own. Or they see a pretty picture, and decide to use it as their own.

To me, though, those pretty pictures are memories. Those are pictures of intimate spiritual experiences that I've chosen to share on my blog or website because I believe that in doing so, maybe it will give people a better idea of what reconstructionism is all about, in that it's not just about reading and book lists and researching and talking about stuff. It's about doing and living, and expressing one's beliefs, too (and it's not just me who's doing this, I hasten to add. I'm not special or nuffink). But in sharing what I do, I learn about myself, too, and it helps me figure out what works and what doesn't as I evolve along this path. Sometimes I look back and see what I can do that would work better, sometimes it's other people that help me figure stuff out. For someone to come along and blithely take those photos without a second thought other than 'those'll look great on my blog!', that kind of irks me a little. It's disrespectful.

But as I said, in making a choice to share this stuff, I open myself up to various problems, not least having my stuff stolen. And they're only pictures, aren't they, really? Unless I want to take a legal route, for the sake of some pictures on someone's blog in an insignificant corner of the internet, there's not a lot I can do, other than make it very clear that I'm not happy about it.

I suppose I should be flattered. But it's kind of like being flattered that a burglar chose my house to nick stuff from, rather than them next door with the bigger house and nicer fixtures and fittings. It's not flattering, really. Not at all.

Really, it's about respect.

Huh

So I got a comment on my flickr account asking to use one of my photos for a St Andrew's edition of a food magazine (website thing, that is). Cool, I think. How flattering. So of course I say yes - they can use the picture with the proper credit, and I thank them for asking. Because it's always nice when people ask before using your things, especially on the internet when some people are under the impression that the whole thing is 'public domain'.

I don't expect payment for it - I used to work for a local newspaper so I know how difficult it is to produce these things and make a living from it, but they offered to put my name on it and want to send me a wee something as a show of appreciation. A wee something's really not necessary (and I'm a little leery of giving out my address to random people on the internet, to be honest, even nice people who work for magazines), but it's a nice gesture.

But I did wonder how they found the photo, so I did an image search and sure enough, it's the first result for 'brodick bannocks' on Google, so that makes sense. It's also the second result on the image search. Except that photo isn't linking to my flickr account, or my website where I use the photo. No, it's linking to someone's blog. How rude, I thought, nicking my photo like that without asking. So I take a look. And find that they've ripped a whole load of pages of recipes, including the photos, from my website. And my article on Samhainn.

See: The Blog - Recipes
See: My website - one, two, three, four, aaaaand five
See: The Blog - Samhainn
See: My Samhainn article

Oh, and the blog author's ripped a picture of the turnips I carved a few years ago to make an icon to link to another website, plus a few more for image links, and they've reposted the Samhainn article again. Without any attribution.

Now that's just really rude. And ironic, considering the fact that they have a little icon saying 'Blog with Integrity' on their side bar.

I've left comments asking for the articles to be removed, but whether that does anything I don't know. The comments are being screened, so people won't see it even if the blog owner ignores it. I wouldn't be so annoyed if they'd at least given some credit, and asked first.

Plagiarism's bad, y'all.

EDIT:

Seems it was worse than I realised, even. She's also ripped:

Turnip carving
Celebrating Samhainn - Scottish style
Samhainn divination

Compiling screen captures, just in case...