Dispute with Ezine

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  triciahuang · Member · Jul 9, 2007 at 5:25 am

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  Hi! I have a habit of submitting my post to ezines as articles. It kills 2 birds with 1 stone. Recently an editor found my wordpress blog and accused me of plagiarism or paying for articles not written by me. My account was suspended even before I have a chance to explain myself! I was, of course, very upset that I was wrongly accused. How do I prove to them that this blog belongs to me (my user name is not my real name)?

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  raincoaster · Member · Jul 9, 2007 at 6:49 am

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  If your blog is not hosted at WordPress.com, we can’t help you. You need to be asking over at WordPress.org, or at the EFF.org. If your blog is hosted here at WordPress.com, you need to be communicating with staff. Support will re-open soon and then you can use the feedback button on your dashboard. It should be a simple matter of proving when you posted the content and proving it was in your blog first.

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  triciahuang · Member · Jul 9, 2007 at 4:22 pm

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  Hi, Raincoaster

  Thanks for the reply. The problem is proving to the ezine editor that the blog owner and the author of the article are both the same person. I’m not sure why it is not obvious to him/her. Will try to contact support for help.

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  raincoaster · Member · Jul 9, 2007 at 4:40 pm

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  If WordPress is the one that deleted your blog, they’re the ones you need to prove it to. If your blog post went up before the ezine received the article, that’s proof of copyright and they have no claim on the WordPress text. If the ezine published the article before it went up at WordPress, that’s stickier, but still something for you to work out with staff here, not the editor there. If the ezine bought exclusive digital rights, you’re hooped; don’t sell those, ever, for stuff you want to post on a blog.

  If you contact the editor the way you sent the article in (using the same email and name) and WordPress then contacts that editor saying the blogger in question is the same person, they should accept that.

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  triciahuang · Member · Jul 10, 2007 at 5:27 am

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  Thanks a lot. In fact when I contacted support yesterday, that was what they suggested to do. But there is no need to do so since this morning, I received an email from another editor saying that my article has been approved. I guess they must have figured out that it is my blog after all. :-)

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  raincoaster · Member · Jul 10, 2007 at 7:39 am

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  Good, congrats.