I did something yesterday that I'm not proud of. I Google'd myself. This didn't yield many results, thankfully. What is predator-watch.org anyway? Eh, probably nothing...However, when I decided to Google some of my blogs the results were eye opening. Most recently I interviewed Greg Kasavin about Bastion which is looking awesome by the way, so check it out. He was nice enough to tweet the interview to his thousands of followers and I was shocked to get compliments from Brad Shoemaker of Giant Bomb and a handful of developers from around the industry.

However, I have a feeling that some of his followers decided they liked the interview so much that they would simply steal it and post it on their own blogs. The "author" of a blog titled Gameaholics-anonymous decided he would copy and paste every single part of the interview onto his own blog. This is interesting since it is titled "Indiejones Interviews Greg Kasavin About Bastion" and this guy is certainly not me. I'm me! I would have been fine with him simply posting a link to the blog on his site and talking about it, but he didn't do that. He just ripped it right off like Coldplay ripped off Joe Satriani.

Then I just went down the line. I kept Googling and kept finding my words in places I never intended them to end up. I recently learned that there are companies/ individuals who set their Twitter to alert them when a certain word comes up in the twittersphere. When I tweeted my Dating Advice For Gamers blog, I didn't know that it would be re-tweeted by a cam model and several online dating "experts". Then when I searched the G to the double O to the G to the L to the E for it I found it on datinggirlszone.com. This was actually a great use of my blog. I was sort of pleased with all of these results because every one of them from the cam model, to the dating site, directed the reader back to my blog, my URL. If you're going to rip off my writing at least make sure I get the views to show for it.

Don't do what Gabriel over at half-life3source.com did when he read my blog about why Valve Isn't Making Half-Life 3 back in May. He read this and then immediately posted the entire blog on his fan site, complete with copy and pasted pictures that didn't match my captions at all. He massacred my work. And then he had the gall to write that (and I quote this verbatum including grammatical errors):

" gameinformer recently released an editorial talking about why they think Half Life 3 and Half Life 2 Episode 3 are not coming out at all. Needless to say, I not only disagree with the title of this article, but banish it to the depths of hell along with its author. The bottom line is that this article was a news spike, and picked up all over the web for it (hell, its on this site), but the fact remains that Half Life 3 is the sequel to one of the greatest selling games of all time, a sequel is not only inevitable, it will be worth the 7+ year wait."

I got news for you Gabriel if that's even you're real name! Daniel "Indie" Jones wrote this article. Not Game Informer. So don't go slandering my favorite video game publication because you don't agree with something that a lowly blogger wrote on their community site. Secondly, I explicitly say in this blog that I want Half-life 3 as much as the next guy. I'm just trying not to get my hopes up. And lastly, dude, I'll see you in hell (since you banished me there) and when I do, you can say all this crap to my face.

I emailed Mr. Gabriel to let him know that I was the author of this wonderful opinion piece and that I didn't appreciate the way he copied and pasted my blog onto his page. I kindly requested that next time he decides to slander mine or anyone elses articles that he could at least provide a link to the original URL so that I can at least get the proper credit for my blasphemous work (not that it needs it, as it still gets about 200 views a week and is currently around 7,650 views).

So what are the morals of all this? If you want to get your blog some views put some key words in the title (in these cases, Half-Life 3 and Dating Advice did the trick), tweet it, or get someone famous to tweet it. I personally don't mind that people are stealing my blogs as long as they direct other people to my URL. There are also copyright programs available, though I don't think they are compatible with Game Informer Online. I am just writing and trying to build a portfolio and network for my career in journalism. So far it is going well especially since I interviewed Greg. I plan on going places. So Gabriel can have his fan site. I have bigger fish to fry.

 UPDATE: I actually recieved an email from Gabriel today after I posted this blog. He apologized and said that he would add a link to my blog on the site. He said that he likes to just post articles on the website so that it's easier for people to see them. He was very nice and it kind of made me feel like a jerk for ranting against him the way I did in this post.