The Sounding Board

This morning I finally heard back from my other content thief, Ms. Nicole Brown of Full Service Virtual Assisting. Her email was simple. No excuses. No lies or half-baked truths. Just a simple sentence or two.

“Ms. Johnson,
 
The rates page has been removed and I apologize for the delayed response.”

I have to appreciate her response for what it is. A correction to a mistake she chose to make & an apology. What she did was wrong, but at least she didn’t try to lie about it. And she did take the offending page down, so I have to give her credit for that as well.

Thank you, Ms. Brown, for handling your mistake with a little dignity and professionalism. Maybe there’s hope for you yet in this industry.

Well, I finally received a response from one of my two site content thieves. Ms. Marr of Integrity VA finally responded to my email cease & desist request, although her response is quite indicative of her character. I’ll let you all decide what to think after reviewing the facts.

Here is her response to my cease & desist request:

Ms. Johnson,  I have never heard of you nor your company.  I apologize sincerely if the copy I wrote for my site is too similar in content for your comfort.  I did browse several other VA sites in order to get inspiration for my new business; however, I did not directly “copy and paste” content.  Your website was not one of those I viewed.  However, because you feel the similarities are too strong to ignore, I will take the page and rewrite the copy again.  Hopefully, this time there will be no misunderstanding. I appreciate your bringing this to my attention.

Hmm…the content “she” wrote is too similar? Okay. You guys decide.

Here’s the link to my site pages:

How it Works 

How a Virtual Assistant Saves You Money

Here are screenshots of her pages, as they sat this morning:

Now, I could see if there were only a few lines of text that were the same. Maybe I could buy the whole “I’m sorry if you think they’re too similar” angle then. However, as anyone can plainly see, she stole copy from two entire pages, word-for-word. That’s not “too similar,” that’s plagiarism, plain & simple. To call it anything less is simply a lie. Period. End of discussion.

Ms. Marr…you’re a liar AND a thief. And you DARE to use the word “integrity” in your business name? Hmm…

Normally, I don’t go around picking fights out of thin air over nothing. However, the copy on my site represents hours of agonizing effort on my part, both to pick just the right wording to convey my message, and the research that went into the facts and figures I present on my site. To sit back and quietly allow someone else to present MY work as their own is, in my opinion, condoning unethical behaviors.

If I were to adopt the same unethical practices in my business, I would fully expect someone to call me out on the carpet for it. I intend to do the same to anyone else. After all, my clients and the prospective clients I speak with have no other way to determine my trustworthiness than by my website, my marketing collateral, and our verbal conversations. They never physically lay eyes on me, so what else do I have to convey my trustworthiness than my collateral and my word/reputation? I have to uphold the highest ethical standards in order for my clients and prospective clients to feel comfortable trusting me with their sensitive business information. Anything less cuts my clients short - not to mention destroys my credibility and integrity. I won’t stand for that for myself, my colleagues, or my clients.

Would you?

I’ve had it! Absolutely had it! I will not abide another thief as long as I live!

What am I ranting about, you might ask? Thieves who would rather steal content from true professionals because they are either too lazy, or too unskilled to write content for themselves. I’ve dealt with copyright infringement more than once in terms of the copy I WROTE for my site. I’m just plain tired of being polite & kindly asking people to refrain from using content they’ve already stolen. I’m sick to death of it!

In the past, I would send a polite email pointing out the content which constitutes copyright infringement. I would give the offender the benefit of the doubt in that maybe they don’t realize that copying words from someone else’s site and using it as their own constitutes copyright infringement. I’d give them a week or so to take down the content, then follow up with an equally polite second email. Not until they made it clear they weren’t going to respond did I ever get ‘huffy’ about it.

Well, no more! I’ve heard all the standard excuses. “Oh, I didn’t know my site designer did that.” Yeah, right. You paid a site designer to upload a canned template onto a free web host. Or here’s another one “A friend of mine sent me an email with suggestions for my wording. I didn’t know they didn’t write it.” Or better yet, “My brother/sister/cousin/son-in-law [insert whatever 'inexperienced' relative, friend, high school student, whatever here] did my site.” Yeah, whatever.

The point is, if it’s YOUR site, it’s YOUR responsibility to ensure that whatever content is on your site is legit. If YOU didn’t write it, create it, or purchase it legitimately, then it’s YOUR job to ensure that whoever did write or create it did so with integrity & without infringing on someone else’s copyrighted work. It’s YOUR site. YOUR name is on it. It doesn’t matter if you built the site yourself or if you paid someone else, or just got someone else to do it as a favor for you. None of that matters. The site is yours, so the responsibility for it is also YOURS.

But anyway, my point to this entire post has been to stomp my feet and say I’m not playing Miss Nicey-Nice with content thieves any longer! I have every intention from here on out to call out any and all thieves I find as just that - thieves! If you don’t want your name, business name, web address, and specific examples of your thievery posted prominently for all the world to see you for the thief you are, then ensure your content is truly yours & not the product of someone else’s hard work which has been unjustly stolen and used without permission.

For example, Ms. Meredith Marr, owner of Integrity Virtual Assisting…you are now being called out for the thief you are! You stole content from my site & have the AUDACITY to use the word “integrity” in your business name?!? THAT is just too rich! To prove my point, here is her site page: http://www.integrityva.com/How_It_Works.html Here is my site page: http://www.virtuallyyoursllc.com/howitworks.htm Her entire page is a duplicate of the first paragraph of my page.

And another ‘pillar’ of integrity (NOT) is one Nicole Brown of Full Service Virtual Assistant. She has stolen content from my site as well. Here is her page: http://fullservicevirtualassistant.com/rates.aspx and here is mine: http://www.virtuallyyoursllc.com/howitworks.htm Her explanation of retainers (scroll to “Retainer Packages”) is an exact duplicate of mine (scroll to “Rates” and read under the “Retainer” heading.)

Ms. Marr and Ms. Brown were both sent emails early this morning, notifying them both that I had become aware of their plagiarism. They were given 24 hours to remove the stolen content from their sites. We’ll see if they respond. Regardless, if you’re considering doing business with either of these two, you should know their ethical standards for what they are. Obviously these two have either blatantly stolen content for their own personal gain, or they failed to do their due diligence in regards to whoever built their sites. Regardless, they aren’t the kind of ‘professionals’ I would want to entrust my sensitive business information & processes to.