What's mine is yours?

Over the period 1992-1999, I calculate I wrote around 1,700 articles, most of which were published in monthly, weekly and daily offline media. Many of these were extensive pieces, in the 1,500 to 4,000-word range, and a high proportion were based on significant quantities of personal research (interviews, visits and so on).

While I'm often happy for people to republish material subject to certain conditions, I'm rather stunned at the number of organisations who take it upon themselves to republish copyright articles of mine without any reference to me, in order to shore up their businesses.

Today's example: I get an email from website owner A, asking for permission to republish an article of mine that he tells me appears on website B. Which is how I find out that a copyright article of mine - based on interviews I conducted in 1999 - is on B's website, where it's being used to promote B's business (a firm with offices in the UK and US in direct competition with my own). A also asks if he should state that the article was originally published by B.

Following a complaint from me, B this morning agrees to withdraw my article immediately: "We apologise for the articles [sic] placement on the website without your consent, I am unable to explain how this may have happened..." He thanks me "for my understanding in this matter".

I'll now need to thank A, and let him know that the article was not originally published by B, but that B just decided to lift it without permission to use in the promotion of his own business. The problem with this continuous plundering is that in the end nobody knows who published it, who wrote it, when it was written, whether it is copyright, or indeed whether the article is being republished in its original form. This is all essential metadata that contributes to the authority, or otherwise, of the article.