May Palacpac, Storyteller

I cried last night.

I was very disappointed because I realised that someone who belongs to one of the blogger communities I hold dear to my heart, has been jumping off my blog content.

I’m not in the habit of humiliating people and I really do not want to invite my old self back and involve myself in some cheap chick brawl at this point, so there will be no pictures and I will not get into bigger details.

All I can tell you is that I first noticed odd similarities of one of her blogs to one of my blogs several weeks ago, but being the non-suspecting person that I am, I shrugged it off and dismissed it as coincidence.

Until I accidentally came across her blog again and found out that she also jumped off on some of my “other” content, tweaked them to make them her own, but must have missed one detail, because she ended up copying that detail to the letter – and though it was still applicable, it was somewhat off to the other details she had fashioned her own.

It’s a case that can easily be twisted to justify what she had done, or worse, deny it.

They may seem of not much value to others, they’re not even SEO-friendly details; I’m far from being a celebrity blogger, but because they were mine to begin with, they have value to me.

That’s what hurts. Because the details she imitated were details my husband and I have brainstormed on, and spent late nights on, in preparation for my blog’s hosting and migration, which I’ve been waiting for so long.

My best friend comforted me by telling me that maybe that person was blessed and inspired by me to have done what she had done.

I get that.

But I also believe in practicing ethics. I never use anyone else’s intellectual properties without acknowledging them, nor asking for their permission. I make it a point to be respectful of boundaries, and to give credit to whom it is due. Copyrighted or not copyrighted.
We’ve exchanged blog comments more than once, she could have simply sent me a private message.

But she didn’t, and there’s that.

I’m very disappointed. I’m very sad.

And yes, I cried.