Googled My Name -- Discovered This

golding76 · ‎05-19-2012

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.]

PickyPicky3 · ‎10-22-2018

@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 Just because an article is on the internet does not mean a copyright is no longer valid.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.

Mz iMac · ‎07-26-2014

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

"Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."

golding76 · ‎05-19-2012

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.

golding76 · ‎05-19-2012

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.

PickyPicky3 · ‎10-22-2018

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.

On It · ‎03-15-2021

@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.

Q4u · ‎03-17-2010

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......

*~"Never eat more than you can lift......" Miss Piggy~*

PickyPicky3 · ‎10-22-2018

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.