I have to say, until the point where someone is making money from my hard work I am pretty relaxed; not to say I do not take an interest, but if someone takes an idea and runs with it, develops it or simply offers it for another readership… that is really okay.

Of course I love it when they give a nod of recognition and even more so when they make the effort to link back to my blog or website! That can lead to a fruitful relationship.

It took the plagiarist consort and the conscientious copyrighter’s friend, Google to pin down a quote I recalled – Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, the American journalist, once said: “There are no original ideas, only orignal people” – which does put it into perspective.

Here in the UK, if copyrighted material is published online and through a UK ISP, it is relatively straightforward to get it taken down with the threat of legal action – we’ve had to do this over stolen photography before – but once it goes international it can be much harder – I guess you could always go viral if a polite request failed!

Best of luck!