I’ve posted a bit about this elsewhere, but I’m still kinda stuck about what to do.

So, earlier this week, in order to attach clips to a pitch to an editor, I Googled the title of this article that I wrote for Decider back in February. The piece apparently did pretty well on the site, seeing reprints in other Decider cities and getting cross-posted a bit to various Counting Crows fansites. The other thing I learned through my self-googling was that an almost-identical piece ran in an Iowa newspaper (and on the paper’s blog) a month later, under a different writer’s byline.

There’s really not much you can say to convince me that this other writer didn’t rip me off. The piece went so far as to use the “courtroom” argument style that I did as it made the same points that I had made, often using the exact same language – references to Duritz dating “two-thirds of the female cast of Friends”, the fact that Ryan Adams “even featured him in the ‘Answering Bell’ video’, the fact that Chris Carraba “brought Duritz in” for a duet on “So Long, So Long”, the notion that “your favorite band… loves these guys” (I said “fucking loves” he said “probably loves), and more – to say nothing of the substance of the piece, which is identical. I wouldn’t say I’m tooting my own horn to say that this dude ripped off my piece.

That’s further corroborated by the fact that I emailed him after I found “his” article (like the scare quotes there?) to ask for an explanation. I didn’t get one, but he yanked that shit off the paper’s blog right away. Which is good, I guess, but not really all that satisfying.

The thing is, I don’t really know what I do want. I’m pretty sure I’d have been ready to drop it if he’d sent me an apology and an acknowledgment that he bit the piece. But he never wrote back, which makes his yanking the post seem pretty weasely.

At the same time, plagiarism charges are pretty serious, and if I notify the editor, this dude’s liable to lose his job, and it’s a pretty harsh time out there for journalists as it is. I’m genuinely uncomfortable about it, which is why I’ve been harping on the subject a bit. If I don’t write to his editor, then am I doing them a disservice? Or Decider? Or, I dunno, the profession of journalism?

It’s really uncomfortable to be ripped off, especially because the piece is so specifically mine. It’s not even, like, a movie review where everyone’s going to say the same thing anyway – I put a lot of myself into it. The chance to redeem Counting Crows to my hipster peers! I did the research for it, tracking the references from current hip bands, and came up with the argument style because I spend so much of my week around lawyers, and – I don’t know. I’m pissed about it. I wish the dude had apologized. I think, if he had, I wouldn’t be really seriously considering emailing his editor. I just can’t figure out if that’s petty – or if it’s coming from petty motivations.