In the last three months, the FCPA Blog has been forced to ask due diligence companies, NGOs, law firms, and others to stop republishing our original content. Aren’t we all compliance professionals?
Anyone who has ever written a post for the FCPA Blog — or any other publication — knows how much effort goes into writing and editing each one. It’s heartbreaking and discouraging to see someone ripping you off.
When an FCPA Blog contributor emails us and asks why their original piece is circulating under someone else’s name on another compliance site, it’s a difficult conversation to have. It makes us feel sick.
In our experience, due diligence service providers are the worst offenders. One company copied full FCPA Blog posts en masse — scores of posts — and republished them on their own “blog,” creating the impression that that’s where the posts first appeared.
When we become aware of someone republishing our content without our consent, we send them a notice of a copyright violation. Some respond and take down the offending material, others don’t.
Of course it’s not all malicious. Many people we get a response from tell us they didn’t even think about it and are apologetic.
We even consent to the republishing of full posts, under specific circumstances and on a case by case basis. If you are interested in republishing one or more of our posts, please ask. We work with many educational institutions and other public and private organizations that use FCPA Blog content with our permission.
6 Comments
I fully support this initiative. I am often ‘forwarding/reposting on LinkedIn my making direct reference to your site and direct link to the post and sometimes #FCPABlog together with the repost. I feel by being transparent we are also encouraging others to educate yourself via additional content that your site offers to the overall community.
Yours sincerely,
LA
thank you! Very good reminder and thank you for what you are doing. Your articles are valuable for what they remind those of us in business is important. Your material is valuable and you are right to protect it. THANKS
This is really heartbreaking
Terrible tendency in all areas as far as we see it. It is good you do not keep silence and thanks for providing very valuable information to compliance professionals. One positive side of it is most of my colleagues get your daily news directly and can easily judge if they see the same elsewhere. Do not give up 🙂
Fully support, it is not hard to imagine how much work an author has devoted in each blog and post.
Thanks for the work, by the way, which keeps me up to speed on what’s going on in the compliance world, even though my focus now is legal.
From an occasional FCPA Blog author’s perspective, I’d note for other potential contributors that Harry and Dick Cassin have been exceedingly helpful in instances where I’ve requested permission to print and distribute (e.g., for classroom or conference use) posts.
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