Theft & Greed
Medium Writer Scam Exposed
I followed back.
I clapped and highlighted her stories.
I ventured to the comments and saw a comment from Medium writer, Sylvia Wohlfarth. She asked if the article posted was plagiarized or was it the same author because the exact same article was written on the Tiny Buddha website six years ago. Wait. What?
It must be the same author under a pseudonym…right?
Hmmm…would someone just blatantly steal a complete article and pass it off as their own and put it behind the Medium paywall? Curiosity kicked in and I went on a google title hunt.
all of the articles posted by this writer were pilfered
A few simple google searches confirmed that all of the articles posted by this writer were pilfered from various Tiny Buddha writers. The exact same articles without any changes.
I contacted and alerted Medium, the Tiny Buddha administrator, and as many of the original authors that I could track down. They were all appreciative and Medium removed the account today.
Most of the writers said they would have been fine if the thief had given them proper credit for their work.
Medium did a great job of taking swift action to remove the account.
The articles were starred which means they were behind the Medium paywall.
A note from Sylvia Wohlfarth informed me that there are several accounts that do this. This is beyond using an idea or using a few quotes without acknowledging the proper author. This is theft.
Today I received a notification of a new follower. The writer was following over a thousand writers and only had a few followers. I immediately googled the title of the only article posted and it turned out to be a Tiny Buddha article written by a different author. I sent a message to the Tiny Buddha author to let her know her work was being used on Medium.
I do not know how many of these accounts are out there. To track them all down would be a full-time job. I suspect I will see more in the future.
