Velveteen Mind

Would You Steal This Mommy Blogger Photo?

This photo is stolen:

Most stolen mommy blogger image ever. Good times.

Not by me. From me. Every day. All the time. For years.

Please allow me a moment to talk directly to the, um, enthusiastic fans of the photo:

Hey you!

I'm happy you love my circa 2008 "mommy blogger" photo. It's from a really old post I wrote about the potential of mom bloggers to work with brands, way back before we were regularly working with brands. Super old post with now-lame-duck ideas but super cute pictures, right?

If you have stolen it or, let's be calm, used it without permission or credit, don't feel too bad. You aren't alone.

Your reasoning for copying it from who knows where and not crediting the source is probably the same reason I hear most every time:

"I'm so sorry! I had no idea it was yours! I took it from somewhere else."

I'm flattered that you would not steal from me, absolutely, because we're cool, right? But I'm befuddled as to why it's cool to steal from someone else. So we should probably talk. 

First: either credit the original source as "Photo credit: velveteenmind.com" and hyperlink the image in your post directly to the original source or take it down altogether. Immediately.

Done? Great. Now, back to that friendly talk we need to have.

Why did you use an image for which you could not find the original source? Or, at the very least, why didn't you link to the source who stole it before you took it from them?

We won't get into the fact that you should have asked permission to use the photo from whoever you found using it. Let's limit this strictly to crediting sources.

You need to credit your sources. Would you have been crediting a source who stole this photo from someone who stole this photo from someone else who stole this photo from a commercial site's page who stole it from a little blogger who stole it from me?

Google image search for all sizes. Yay. So, not a problem then?

Probably.

But each link in the chain of theft helps.

And, pssst, honestly? Tracking down every time this photo is stolen isn't really worth it for me. Seriously. Even copying and pasting pleasant takedown requests into comment fields on strangers' posts is a bad use of my energy. It makes me feel stupid, if we're being frank.

But still. Know what makes me feel even more stupid? Seeing this photo pop up in Facebook ads. Or on brand pages. Or in advertising campaigns.

You are making me feel stupid. You seem nice. I'd like to think you never meant to do that.

You didn't mean to plagiarize. It just happened. Just this once.

So, we cool? You fixed it and won't do it again? To anyone? Even if you are in a hurry? Awesome.

Because, sugar, this is me being kind. I have an incredibly short fuse when it comes to blown second chances and alligators live in my backyard. ;)

But we're cool. Brilliant. 

Love, 
Megan

• • •

Whew. Thanks for letting me take care of that little bit of business. 

Are you just... crazy, right? I don't even know what to tell you.

So, how can you protect your own photos?

Watermark. Back in 2008, I didn't watermark my images and I still don't really do so now. I'm not a photographer and my images are generally not worth stealing. However, had I watermarked that image the first time, none of this would have happened.

If you Google search this particular photo and view "all sizes," you'll see that a lot of people have watermarked it. With their own blog name. Awesome. (sigh)

I know this is confusing. Guidelines for proper image attribution seem to change all the time. When I first started blogging in 2007, I had no idea what I was doing and need to go back and fix a lot of mistakes. 

So what if it's too late now? Your image is already out there. How do you discover if someone is using your images without permission? 

Google image search is fabulous. Copy the image URL of your photo and paste that in the search field, then click "search by image." 

TinEye.com is a valuable reverse image search tool, as well. For the next 72 hours, you can see the results for my own TinEye search of my "mommy blogger" photo. (results expire after 72 hours, though just enter the image URL and you can search again)

What can you do if people are using your image without your permission? With or without credit? I genuinely try to take a relaxed approach. Maybe once a year, often when I see the image pop up on a commercial site without credit or permission, I'll do one of these image searches. Then I copy and paste a patient credit or takedown request into the comments of the post or directly via email.

If they don't comply? I either report them to their platform host or (now this isn't cool, but it's true) publicly reprimand them.

Every once in a while I'll blow a fuse and go straight to the public reprimand, usually when it's a commercial site that should really know better, but I'm not proud of that behavior and don't recommend it. 

After more than four years of finding this photo stolen by everyone from small bloggers (that may genuinely not know better and don't understand how to credit sources appropriately) to large corporations (I just won't name them, but seriously, brands you know and love and absolutely know better), the toothpaste is out of the tube.

However, I share this story (and hope you will, too) because

1. I am seeing this photo stolen significantly more often and, subsequently... 
2. Plagiarism in all its forms is growing into such a many-headed beast online that awareness is integral to the solution.

Half the time a blogger discovers that their content has been stolen because a reader recognizes the theft and notifies them. Nearly every time I have been plagiarized, a reader finds it first and lets me know.

Let each other know when you see plagiarism. If you see this photo used elsewhere without citing VelveteenMind.com as the source? Please let me know. 

Keep your eyes open out there. Watch out for each other.

Be cool. Again, I don't recommend leaping straight to public reprimands. In my case, most of the time the offenders profusely apologize and fix it. Several times, we have become friends or, at the very least, friendly. It's an opportunity to show grace and educate.

But then? If they refuse? I'm all for dropping the hammer. Because this is enough.

What say you?

 

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Hawking Writing Habits

How much of writing is muscle memory?

I sat down at the desk in my office yesterday and just... sat. I haven't worked in here for a while.

May was incredibly busy with travel, unusually stressful personal goings-on, and end of school. I ran through May with a tightened chest and my head down like a quarterback trying to break through, um, a bunch of other football players. Look, I don't know sports, but I kept my heart tucked under my arm and I plowed through a wall of offensive obstacles. With my head down. You know, football.

What I was not was head-down in writing. My writing was done in fits and spurts at the loud family computer in the even louder family room or on a glitchy laptop with a screen that keeps falling backward on the couch and keys that won't catch despite the fact that I type like I'm mad at the letters.

All the while, my office became the catch-all for life's detritus. Stress made physical in the form of piles and stacks. Everything I couldn't face moved into my office.

Including my own words.

So I put on figurative horse-blinders yesterday and sat at my desk in my office. I'm working on not needing everything to be perfect before I can write, so the blinders were necessary. Just sit. At the desk. No pressure. Just sit and look at the computer. Maybe blind type on the keys into nowhere. Jot some abstract words into my notebook and underline my favorites. 

I ended up watching Hulu.

20 minutes in and I felt like writing. Hey now! My body remembered what it was supposed to do at this desk and the ideas followed.

While researching a bit for a piece I'm writing for Babble (one of half a dozen pieces I've written a few lovely paragraphs for and then abandoned during the terribly May), I came across a Reddit AMA that Ethan Hawke did this week. AMA is an "ask me anything" in which Reddit users ask the OP (original poster) questions and they answer. Fairly self-explanatory, but click the link and it will become obvious.

All-around solid AMA, this quote made me scroll back and re-read:

"Write every day. Not every other day. Not tomorrow. Not after the party. But before. The more you write, the more comes out of you. If you don't give inspiration an opportunity, it will never arrive."

Write every day. It is the most repeated advice we hear. I've honestly stopped hearing it and I give that advice. I even give detailed life-hack consultation on how to actually pull it off, not just want to pull it off. Because I know how difficult making yourself write every day is. It is painful. It feels impossibly insurmountable.

You know how they say that psychologists shouldn't treat their own family, let alone themselves? That. Writers, writing advice, me, that.

It's damn good advice. I hate that advice.

I write far more than I publish on Velveteen Mind. That said, almost every brilliant opportunity I've secured has materialized because of this blog. This is my home base. No matter how much changes, this platform remains.

This is my springboard, as ever a platform should be. When I land in untested waters and decide I'd rather not stay, I return here. When I find new loves elsewhere, I keep the fire burning here. Smoldering. Let's say smoldering.

Hawke's statement pleading "If you don't give inspiration an opportunity, it will never arrive." is the line that made me stop and re-read. It took a moment for it to sink in, so I found myself halfway down the page when I stopped and returned to it.

I give myself far too many rules here. I know that.

• "Don't post twice in one week if you haven't posted in a month before that." 
• "Don't post less than five paragraphs if you haven't published anything recently." 
• "Don't post a photo on Velveteen Mind's Rummage Blog if there's nothing new on Velveteen Mind." 
• "Don't just jump into a random story if no one has heard from you recently. Sweet Valley High** it!" 

Crap rules that effectively leave me no room to do anything ever amen. Good job.

I frequently write about the writing process and, specifically, my writing process here. I am a champion of the transparent struggle. I let you see me trying and I, more often than not, let you see me abandon the plan and wander off again.

No one reads blogs during the summer. Sounds like a great time to write, don't you think? Abaondon some of those rules? Just sit down and sit and sit and see what happens. Nope, don't get up, yet. Sit. 

In the meantime, let's talk about your own writing process. What is your biggest struggle? Do you saddle yourself with arbitrary rules like I do?

• • •

*Hawking refers to this comment in the Ethan Hawke AMA, though works on a couple of levels so yay for double entendres

** "Sweet Valley High it" is my personal shorthand for catching the audience up before you start a new story.

photos via www.istockphoto.com and linked through awesome affiliate links because nickels

 

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