Being a freelance writer has it’s ups and downs; I work from my own bed, but have to put up with my accountant laughing at me once a year when I show him my books. As bloggers go though I am one of the luckiest ones, my stuff goes out on the Huffington Post every week (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-miles/.) So imagine my surprise when during an aimless tour of social media I discovered my work on another travel website being passed off as their own.

My first reaction was to kick the coffee table but this was self defeating as now not only have I been plagiarized but have a lop-sided coffee table and a limp. I felt a more mature solution was required so took the opportunity to email the offenders to share a few thoughts.

Hello (Name of thieving s**t weasel’s website)

I am the author of this particular piece (insert link to my piece on thieving s**t weasel’s website) which has been copied directly from my blog on the Huffington Post and produced here without permission, and I also notice, without crediting me whatsoever.

I’m sure that this could not be intentional but would you mind awfully taking it down now that you are aware that you’re in breach of a little thing called copyright? As a freelance writer I work very hard on my published pieces and in particular those that go out on a wonderful forum like HuffPost, and while I am indeed flattered that you enjoyed it enough to use it, I am unfortunately not flattered enough to allow you to pass it off as your own material.

I am of course willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps you were not aware that you had not written this piece. It does happen. My father was unaware that he’d crashed our Honda Civic into a post office until the Police showed up and mentioned it to him, but then he had been on a three day rampage.

I will check in again later to ensure that this has been done, at which point I will return to my zen like world of happiness (I am generally a very content person), if not I will have to report this as copyright infringement to your web hosting service, Twitter, Google and all the other mighty forces of righteousness that do in fact run the world, at least if you believe in conspiracy theories like my friend Aidan does. Personally I don’t believe that they are actually running the world per se, though admit they might do a better job than some governments are actually managing right now.  Don’t get me wrong I will feel bad about this, no one likes a tattle-tale; at school Shuggy Morris reported me for playing hooky, which I totally didn’t do no matter what that lying b*****d says, but it will help prevent outrage costing me a good nights sleep, something I can’t afford as my girlfriend has a cold right now and is snoring like a bellows, making getting any sleep already a little dicey.

They do say plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery, but I’m not convinced that this is the case. I find payment to be the sincerest form of flattery, as well as karmically much better for you. If you would like to explore this option then I can provide you with a series of numbers that you can use upon upon which a major banking cartel will transfer said payment to me, after keeping it for a brief period of time in order to rinse me out of a little bit of interest, and before putting their profits towards the lawyers that stop them paying taxes.

Apart from the above issue I thought your site was very nice.

All the best.

Dan Miles

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