topic Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This in Community Chat

Googled My Name -- Discovered This

golding76 — Fri, 13 May 2022 19:11:55 GMT

Recently, I googled my name and discovered that something I wrote was being used in an "ELA packet." Not having any recent experience with middle schools (or any other level of schools, for that matter), I had to look up what an ELA packet is.

This is what I found:

ELA as a Comprehensive English/Language Arts Class

ELA is a teaching resource for reading comprehension.

The piece used was written for a U.S. government agency and is on the Internet. My entire article was not used; certain major paragraphs were culled from it for use in the packet.

The readings were followed by a set of questions that tested comprehension.

I am pleased that I am of use somewhere. To tell the truth, I am happy I happened to discover this; otherwise, I would never have known this was taking place.

Has anyone else had this or a similar experience? It is a bit odd.

[ETA: My name plus the acronym for my agency brought up this information. My name alone did not reveal this.]

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

PickyPicky3 — Fri, 13 May 2022 19:35:13 GMT

@golding76 Was the article copyrighted by you or your employer? Just because an article is on the internet does not mean a copyright is no longer valid.

I also have some articles I wrote for an employer available on the internet. I was 22 years old when I wrote them. I wish they would disappear.

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

Mz iMac — Fri, 13 May 2022 19:42:40 GMT

@golding76 Sounds like Plagiarism to me. Like Picky indicated, was your work copyrighted?

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

golding76 — Fri, 13 May 2022 19:44:58 GMT

PickyPicky2, the article was not copyrighted.

As an employee of the U.S. government, I do not think that I can claim any work I produced for my agency. To my knowledge, I have no proprietorship over anything.

Another piece I did on the head of my agency decades ago appears on many Middle-Eastern sites because the man had a parent from the Middle East. I see my name, the subject's name and then wording in Arabic.

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

golding76 — Fri, 13 May 2022 19:46:44 GMT

Mz iMac, as I wrote to PickyPicky2, I do not think I have rights to anything, although at first I wondered if I did.

I must admit that when I first discovered this, I felt a tensy bit of violation.

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

PickyPicky3 — Fri, 13 May 2022 19:55:03 GMT

I know someone who has a very, very popular website on historical topics. He's a great writer and researcher and he gets plagiarized all the time. Depending on the specific use of his material, his intellectual property lawyer goes for the jugular, or gets a reasonable cash settlement or just permits usage with attribution. He has never lost a plagiarism suit.

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

On It — Fri, 13 May 2022 20:09:19 GMT

@golding76 I did have something similar occur with a paper I had written for one of my graduate courses. At the conclusion of my coursework, I was to take a comprehensive exam. Some of us formed a study group and one of the members brought some study materials that were suggested by her advisor. My paper was in that group. I had never had a class with her advisor and only knew him by name. Somehow my professor must have copied my paper and shared it with others.

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

Q4u — Fri, 13 May 2022 20:28:18 GMT

Very interesting .... and having worked for the Federal Government I daresay that your ownership is most likely nulified because you worked for the Government and it belongs to them. Specific rules, etc you'll have to dig specifically.

I have sold on eBay since 2003 but in about 2014 I had a woman buy a Louis Vuitton from me and then tell eBay that it was a fake (it absolutely wasn't). A case was opened against me and my sale went into arbitration. Long story short, I won. The woman could not return the bag to me, no refund, etc. But here's the interesting part. She decided to sell the bag..... on eBay! She used my Text (for the sale) and all my pictures. I turned her into eBay for theft because they tell us sellers that we own what we write as well as the pictures we take. She was quickly dealt with and her auction was taken down.

It felt very good to win because Sellers on eBay don't often win and it was wonderful learning that someone can't sell the item they bought from you and use your text and pictures to do so.

Good luck, I hope you find out specifics regarding this..... I'm floored that people just don't have the ability to form their own text, lift it from whatever source they can find and act as though they produced it. I feel as you do, I would have let the lady use my words and pictures had she asked. But she didn't and acted quite nasty. As you stand now I'd try and find out if the Government owns your product and if the Government cares if it's being used. The Government may actually care and go after them......

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

PickyPicky3 — Fri, 13 May 2022 20:30:28 GMT

This topic stirred another memory. When I was 27 I took a course in advertising writing. (It used to be called copywriting; now it's called content writing.)

My teacher was not a big fan of my efforts. One assignment was to write a McDonald's radio commercial. I got a C-. "Totally unbelievable."

Three months later I was looking around in a furniture store that had a radio station playing through loudspeakers. I heard my McDonald's failure word-for-word.

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

golding76 — Fri, 13 May 2022 20:36:25 GMT

Oh my heavens, how horrible, PickyPicky! Did you ever receive credit or compensation for your ad?

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

golding76 — Fri, 13 May 2022 20:37:27 GMT

Q4u, I might ask about this. It is worth a try, but I believe I have forfeited all rights to everything I've ever written for them.

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

PickyPicky3 — Fri, 13 May 2022 20:52:50 GMT

@golding76 I had never received any kind of good vibes from this teacher and had no desire to deal with him again. In fact, he owned an ad agency and had an opening for an entry-level writer. Everyone at the school told him to give me an interview. He did, but it was a joke. Yet his transgressions confirmed that I had the right stuff.

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

Q4u — Fri, 13 May 2022 21:50:27 GMT

@PickyPicky3 - I wonder how much money that teacher made from the assignments turned in by his students!!? That's my first thought.... sure could be wrong.

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

Q4u — Fri, 13 May 2022 21:53:39 GMT

@golding76 - I think it's worth it, especially to know the law as well as the statue of limitations regarding it. Who knows how the Government handles it or for how long. But your time is worth a heck of a lot too.

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

PickyPicky3 — Fri, 13 May 2022 22:24:48 GMT

@Q4u No way I was the only one.

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

pjoy — Fri, 13 May 2022 22:36:59 GMT

I'm a journalist for the federal government. If it's written for the government, they own it. Can't tell you how many times a publicatioin has picked up one of my stories and ran it almost word for word without my byline.

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

golding76 — Fri, 13 May 2022 23:03:35 GMT

pjoy, I am fortunate that my byline has been included whenever I've spotted my work.

Then again, if the work wasn't attributed to me, it would not pop up when I key my name and agency into the search engine.

Hmm. Perhaps I should google only a sentence or two from my pieces of work, with no name included, and see what presents itself.

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

PickyPicky3 — Fri, 13 May 2022 23:16:46 GMT

@pjoy Do you know of any cases where the government wanted to keep control of an article and limit its publication? Or since the government represents the American people, everybody has equal rights to it?

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

Drythe — Fri, 13 May 2022 23:41:01 GMT

@golding76 wrote:
Q4u, I might ask about this. It is worth a try, but I believe I have forfeited all rights to everything I've ever written for them.

@golding76

I also believe it is required to relinquish intellectual property.

And, it does feel bit of a violation, but it is part of many hiring agreements. 😒

Re: Googled My Name -- Discovered This

golding76 — Fri, 13 May 2022 23:33:17 GMT

I wonder if part of the argument against any remuneration would be that I "would be getting paid twice for my work" -- once by the U.S. government and another time by the user of that work done for the government.

If a user agreed to paying me for my work, couldn't the government then argue that it is owed a portion of my gain, too?

Thinking out loud here.