Elmar Schneider!
The incredible thing is I learned about the Spanish posting on Twitter from Elmar Schneider, @der_schneider, a Web Consultant with developer roots. A developer with design roots. A Mexico resident with German roots. And a fine human being to boot.
I'm not sure Elmar knew what he was getting into when he Tweeted to me, “@BradFriedman I found a spanish copy of huge parts of your Post (not mentioning the source). Thought I'd let you know.” This Tweet was followed by, “@BradFriedman if you consider taking steps and need help with the spanish, just drop me a line. I have a Screenshot & Copy here, too.”
Well, I did take steps and I took Elmar up on his offer to translate a fairly lengthy email into Spanish. My email with Elmar's tweaking, got an immediate response and my name on the post on a Spanish marketing website. My email resulted in a reply Elmar translated for me and my response to that which Elmar also translated into Spanish.
What a nice thing Elmar did for me and he asked for nothing in return. I was extremely disturbed at this happening to me. Especially since it was twice in the same week with the same post. The first one I was able to resolve because the act was done by a person who speaks English. I never could have handled the second situation without the help of my new Twitter buddy.
I'd like to publicly thank Elmar and urge you to follow him on Twitter. Learn more about Elmar. Check him out on LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+. This is a man with grace and integrity!
I'd also like to share the fact that both situations were quickly resolved by working with the two very reasonable parties who responded to my emails by giving me credit for the content they posted on their websites. All-in-all there were several very good things that came out of this experience.
Thank you so much for this post, Brad!
Copyright violations and Plagiarism are simply wrong and I think everybody should help fighting it when ever having the chance to do so. I firmly believe I’m by far not the only one out there doing so. We hear so much about the “Internet of Things” these days, that sometimes it’s easy to forget that it’s first of all the “Internet of People”. You – as many of your blogging colleagues do – help your readership with the content you post (inbound marketing orientated or not) on a daily base. This particular incident was a chance for me to give a little something back. Especially since the copied article was truly helpful for me. So let’s just say we’re even!
Okay, we’re even! 🙂