In 1998, I published the above Op-Ed in the New York Times. I had found several articles I'd written reprinted on the web -- retyped, really, with several errors -- without permission, payment or recourse, and wondered what this meant for the future of journalism.
I cited other then-current examples of misappropriation: a Mary Schmich essay that had been circulating as a graduation speech by Kurt Vonnegut; a Tom Tomorrow cartoon and an Ian Frazier piece which had been stripped of authorship. I concluded, "It looks as if the only possible policeman of the Internet may turn out to be the Internet itself."
I was reminded of that line this weekend when I tried Googling my old Terrence Malick article (to illustrate my previous blog post).
Instead, Google directed me to a blog by Jeffrey Wells, which told of his Terrence Malick piece that ran a decade after mine -- for the same editor! -- which he admitted "pilfered from" my original piece, whose title he recalled, but not the author nor publication.
Annoyed, I wrote to Wells,
