I own and share a few websites which provide historical information to our visitors, all our material comes from primary sources, research is time consuming sometimes expensive, myself and my colleagues make regular trips to Archives and Library's in Ireland and the UK gathering and transcribing material (with permission) and making it available online.
More and more I see similar web sites using our material word for word and underneath "ref. used: "Ghost" this is not a link back to my site just a reference to our work.
The biggest offender is a community web site of which I am a PAID UP member and regular contributor, I knew their was a few bits of mine on the site but on checking to day I find 293 entry's submitted by other members are referenced back to me this does not include the articles I wrote for the site myself (I wont be writing any more). I know while writing you can use some one else's work so long as its properly referenced, but this is taking the Michael, I feel its unfair its certainly not Fair Usage but is it legal ? .
How do others feel or what do you do to combat this
Ghost
More and more I see similar web sites using our material word for word and underneath "ref. used: "Ghost" this is not a link back to my site just a reference to our work.
The biggest offender is a community web site of which I am a PAID UP member and regular contributor, I knew their was a few bits of mine on the site but on checking to day I find 293 entry's submitted by other members are referenced back to me this does not include the articles I wrote for the site myself (I wont be writing any more). I know while writing you can use some one else's work so long as its properly referenced, but this is taking the Michael, I feel its unfair its certainly not Fair Usage but is it legal ? .
How do others feel or what do you do to combat this
Ghost