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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Cyber Monday and Online Shopping as Virtual Pledge Drive for Your Favorite Blogs

I’m always terribly tempted during “that time of year again” on my favorite public radio and television stations.  You know that time:  Pledge Drive Season!

Of course I understand the importance of support from “viewers like you,” but I’m generally too lazy to randomly send in my support without a little enticement reminder.  These public stations, boy, do they have my number:

Thank you gifts in the form of a DVD of that amazing program about lost New Orleans restaurants!  A signed copy of a book of Mississippi Gulf Coast photographs!  Heck, logo sweatshirts so I can put all of my non-NPR-supporting friends to shame!  Wait Wait…  Don’t Tell Me isn’t free for our local stations, you know.  (psst…  the show is always funnier when Mo Rocca is on.)

It’s our support that makes these stations run.  It’s our cold hard cash that keeps our favorite shows on the air.  Or at least it’s someone’s cold hard cash.  It’s generally not mine because, as I mentioned, I’m lazy and distracted.

Which reminds me…  ahem…  I’m looking at you.

Blogs are, for the most part, free.  Bloggers occasionally scrounge together enough income to pay for hosting, graphic design help, and various applications and tools, but it is rarely more than enough to just break even.  Which is fine.  We do it for the joy it brings, right?

But, man.  It would be sweet to be able to buy a cup of coffee and a muffin, if you know what I’m getting at:

It’s that time of the year again! 

Online holiday shopping season!

For bloggers, that means Affiliate Link Season, the online equivalent of the public radio and television station Pledge Drive.  Your big chance to support your favorite sites, complete with gifts and yet without spending a penny more than you were already planning to spend for the holidays anyway. 

Ah yes, the lazy man’s pledge drive.  Here is how it works:

When you sit down at your computer to do a little online gift shopping at Amazon.com this year, take a moment to notice if your favorite blog has a banner ad for Amazon.  Banner ads are those square or vertical ads in a blog’s sidebar or horizontal ad in their post footers.  Usually something splashy like:

When you click on the ad, it takes you to Amazon.com (or whichever store is being advertised) and you shop just as you normally would.  That’s it.  The difference is that when you shop at your favorite store through a blog’s ad or text link (for instance: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon is my favorite book and I bet it’s even better when read on a Kindle), that blogger receives a small commission from your purchase, usually approximately 5%.

The blogger won’t know who clicked on what or who purchased what, so no privacy worries.  You can even use them for gift card purchases.

And that, “viewers like you,” is how Cyber Monday and Online Shopping can serve as your own personal Pledge Drive to support your favorite blogs this holiday season.  Sure, you could just type in http://amazon.com or click your bookmark, but why not let the Big Box share a scrap from their holiday table instead?

This holiday Public Service Announcement brought to you by:

“The more you know… 
the better the chances that your favorite bloggers will be able to
stay out of the po’ house and, well, yo’ house.” 

Okay…  I stole that line from some street performers in New Orleans.  I’ll have to remember to give them an extra couple of dollars next time.  Damn.  Plagiarism never pays.

Now then, go shopping!  I happen to know that Amazon has some amazing Cyber Monday deals…   ;)

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Writing Well Is *Not* Enough Anymore. Damn It.

{Audioblog} Download 'Writing Well Is Not Enough Anymore.' read by the author

...

Out of context quotes from the panel I moderated at BlogHer are exhausting me. 

In the “Have you found your Mom Blogging Tribe?” panel, I said:

“Writing well is n0t enough anymore.”

At the time, in context, the room nodded in agreement.  Because it was in context, surrounded by paragraphs of other words.  Now, sent out into the world to fend for itself without any explanation, that single sentence is haunting me.

Allow me to explain.  Excuse the mild teeth grinding.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, there were, like, five blogs.   If you wrote well, someone would eventually find you, stick around, and maybe tell others about you.  It wasn’t hard to find you.  There were five blogs.  Google helped a lot.

Maybe, just maybe, you never had to tell a single soul that you even had a blog.  Sigh.  Maybe.

Light-years later, there are five gajillion blogs.  You could be the reincarnated blend of Dorothy Parker and Walt Whitman, but without a little direction it is nearly impossible to find you.  Google can’t decipher what all those 1’s and 0’s mean on your blog, as it can’t tell the difference between your brilliance and the brilliance of the other 5 spafillion bloggers out there.

When someone Googles “blue poop,” Google has to have a little help in deciding how to order its search results.  It has too much to choose from now and doesn’t really care that you write really really well.  It just cares if anyone else thinks you write really really well.

Which means people have to read you first.  Which means they have to find you first.

People have to find you first.

Before anyone reads you, they have to find you.  Before anyone tells their friends about you, they have to find you.  Before anyone comes back to read your brilliant writing a second time, they have to find you first.

People have to find you first.

Writing well isn’t enough anymore, people.  You need to, at some point, let other human beings know that you are out there.

This is not an attack on good writing.  Are you freaking kidding me?  Did you honestly think for a second that I was suggesting that strong writing is irrelevant?  Honestly?  Did you, for one second, think that I value popularity and rank over writing well?

If so, please leave.  Yesterday.  Because I’m only going to explain this once.  Again.

You could write the most brilliant pieces of nonfiction ever articulated, all while cozy and warm in your deep dark cave, but no one is ever going to find you and read that brilliance if you don’t send out a few smoke signals.

Fancy yourself the next Emily Dickinson?  That’s fantastic.  Can you explain to me one more time how it is that everyone knew to come knock on her door and ask to read all that secret writing she had under her bed while she was alive?  You know, the really fabulous stuff she never told a soul about?

They didn’t.  

Writing well is everything.  In the long run.  But if you want anyone to read it and give you a chance at any form of a “long run,” a single soul other than yourself (and honestly, if you are publicly publishing it, I’m putting my money on that you do), then you need to let people know where to find you.

Add your blog to your signature on emails and message board posts.  Share posts on twitter.  Comment on other people’s posts.

If your writing is strong and you let people know where to look for it, you are headed in the right direction.  Writing well may even be enough.  Maybe you’ll only ever have to tell one person in the entire world about your blog and they’ll take it from there.

Maybe.

But if you think for one second that even one person is going to be sitting at home and magically conjure your URL in their head, I have a dot com startup to sell you.

In the session, I said that your tribe is busy.  They want to meet you, but you have to help them.  They will probably adore your writing, but you need to help them find it first.

I know it’s not fair.  Writing well should be enough.  Just hitting publish should be enough.  People should be psychic.

I love you.  I love your writing.  But I’m not psychic.

Help me find you first.

Because writing well isn’t enough anymore, damn it.

***

Related Posts:

I Got Soul But I’m Not a Soldier  (…this is the one about why your plain blank blog template is like a book cover with just a title, no synopsis, no blurbs, and buried in a bookshelf at Barnes and Noble…  and how I’m amazed that you are amazed that it’s not flying off the shelves.)

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