It has been brought to my attention that a person over at MySpace, under the guise of “officialjudygarlandfans” has been copying and pasting entire sections of websites and passing them off as their own. Including The Judy Room and Jim Johnson’s wonderful Judy Garland Database.
Although on the one hand it’s flattering that someone would deem our work good enough to copy, it’s sad that they would randomly copy and paste these pages out of context – rendering all of the original formatting and design useless. The blogs look horrible! And this person never once says “courtesy of…” or “these pages from….” or even “if you want more info, check out these websites…”.
I checked it out and posted comments to these blogs telling people that if they wanted more information, and if they wanted to see the complete sections as they were originally intended to be seen, to go to the links I provided.
This person deleted those comments. This person then emailed me via MySpace and said I was rude for doing that, and that they can copy and paste whatever they want. That they can’t give credit to every single photo and item they copy and paste, as that would take up pages and pages. And that I don’t know how MySpace works, that that’s what it’s all about, evidently copying and pasting. And on and on.
I tried to tell this person that copying and pasting random photos is one thing, but taking entire sections from websites, original graphics and writings included, and pasting them into their own pages without credit is another. Especially when accepting credit for them!
I then tried to post comments again, thanking people for their kudos about my writings and work. This person simply deleted my comments. Again and again. And then accused me of being selfish and only wanting to “commend” myself for “their blogs!”
This person has proven to be very rude, all the while justifying their actions with “everyone does it” and under the guise of trying to get information out there to Judy Garland fans. And all I asked for was TWO simple credits noting where this information came from. The person said that if I really cared about Judy Garland, I wouldn’t need to be “commended” for my work. I asked them why, if they were so interested in getting information “to the fans”, that my comments to these blogs were deleted – when all I did was give links for people to find out even more info about her??
So, you can see where this “conversation” was going.
The person then blocked me from these pages (blogs) all together.
[The night of Thursday, May 10th] I suddenly was unblocked, and was notified via a slew of emails about new blog posts to this page. Which showed that the two Judy Room sections in question (A Star Is Born & Meet Me In St. Louis), were “under construction”.
Now suddenly [Friday, May 11th] I’m getting more notifications that these blogs are being updated, but when I click on the links, I’m blocked again. So, I have no idea what this person is currently posting. I can only imagine!
It’s very frustrating to have someone take the pages that we webmasters work so hard on, and ruin them by (poorly) copying and pasting them elsewhere. And then taking credit for it!
This is very similar to what The Judy Garland Club did with their newsletter, but at least the Club worked with me after I brought the issue to their attention and we came to an amicable resolution. They were great! This person is not.
I’m relaying this here so people know that I do not approve the use of my pages in this manner. I am always willing to work with anyone who wants to use information on the site, for whatever purpose. All I ask is that if it’s any of my original writings or graphics, that proper credit be given. This is simply common courtesy. If this person had come to me and said “Hey, I’d love to include stuff from your site on my page…” or if they had simply put on these pages “courtesy of…” or something showing where all this information had come from, then I wouldn’t have an issue.
But the fact that this person is taking credit for my work is another thing. I’ve contacted the MySpace Copyrights Team, and am working with them to rectify the situation.
I have taken down the A Star Is Born and Meet Me In St. Louis sections from The Judy Room. I’ll put them back up when I’m able to hopefully fix them and make them harder to copy and paste in this manner. This is such an incredible nuisance!
So, if you go to this MySpace page, please know these blogs were done without my knowledge or approval.