TBTB may wish to look into this site, which appears to have reprinted complete articles from the Straight Dope archives, including a Staff Report from yours truly. Bastards!
Sic 'em, Ed.
Apparently they think that jauntily saying “Shamelessly copied” makes it okay.
They could have copied my article if they’d just asked me in advance. It wasn’t a stellar one anyhow. Since they didn’t ask, it’s now a copyright violation on their part.
I’ll round up the villagers, you get some torches (the burning kind, not the battery powered one our UK friends might have).
Shit. There goes my epic fantasy trilogy.
Terry? Is that you?
Noted. We’ll get the right folks on it.
TubaDiva
Send the goats!
What? It’s still there? Man, you guys are slow. 
Just teasin’. I know these things take time.
Seriously, thanks for getting right on it. 
How did you find this, QED?
Mr. Blue Sky, don’t forget the horny, rabid, hungry Rottweilers.*
*Not a slam on all Rotties. I could have said Pit Bulls and pissed off Pit Bull owners, so it wouldn’t have mattered what dog I named. Void where prohibited, not all prizes available in all areas, blah blah blah
If we’re looking for people to beat over the head with lawyers, here’s a couple more shamelessly copied Cecil columns. Several of 'em even have Slug’s artwork attached to 'em.
http://www.macrobiotic.org/SaltSubDanger.htm
http://commonsensewonder.com/mtarchives/007567.shtml
http://www.uta.fi/FAST/US8/PC/squaw.html
http://ezra.cornell.edu/posting.php?timestamp=1114491600
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/heidegger_nazijerk.htm
http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/whatJwas.htm
http://www.ringleader.com/quest/menu/resources/ask_cecil.html
http://www.suicidereferencelibrary.com/test4~id~1367.php
http://www.mscd.edu/~infotech/helpdesk/popups.pdf (I really like this one; a Denver based IT college has taken the webpage, turned it into a pdf and are providing it to their users thru an online helpdesk)
http://www.fools-errand.com/02-at-the-carnival/mummy.htm
https://www.totse.com/en/politics/us_military/haarptsd.html
http://www.ihs.gov/MedicalPrograms/MCH/M/documents/steril3705.doc (A federal gov’t site redistributing Cecil’s work as a Microsoft Word document)
http://www.sensationdesigns.com/scriptdemo/kbase_express/article.php?action=view&id=5
http://www.eliteskills.com/u/_n3pt
http://www.movingon.org/article.asp?sID=2&Cat=17&ID=1025
http://www.heart-disease-bypass-surgery.com/data/articles/68.htm (This website is quite curious)
http://www.horsedoctor.homestead.com/breedinfo.html
http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/animals/monkey_business.htm
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/15/1252/63148
http://www.coconutstudio.com/Coco%20LocoXYZ.htm
http://www.conqueroo.com/themeaningofconqueroo.html
http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry0a43.html?recid=2244
http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/family_farm_wind_power.cfm
I’ve tried to concentrate my listing to sites which appear to be commercial ventures (more or less) which have republished Cecil columns thru the knowledge/efforts of the site owners. Sites I’ve not included here are several which claim to have permission from Zotti/Chicago Reader to republish an article. I have also ignored the many verbatim postings of Cecil’s work I have found on various message boards. It’s amazing how many of these ripoff artists attach a copyright note at the bottom of a webpage they’ve stolen from eslewhere.
Well, I was reading the Pit thread about Google now spidering the Boards and allowing our posts to be searchable via their engine. Out of curiosity (and probably a sense of vanity), I sought to see what posts of mine had been thus cached. Turns out “Q.E.D.” is FAR too common on the internet, so I narrowed it down by including “Straight Dope” in the search terms. And this was one of the results.
Man, Lynn’s cousin Vinnie is going to be working overtime! Or maybe Lynn has a very large family…
See, it’s like I always said . . . you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!
Once a staffer, always in service.
Thanks, Bob. If you do have that list of message boards handy, I’d love to see a copy of it. You can send me email, please. Might as well drop some hammers all the way around here.
TubaDiva
Uhh, I didn’t save all those URL’s. But a Google search on: “Cecil Adams” + “Dear Cecil” returns at least 12 pages of results - most of which are links to copyright violations of one sort or another. Surprisingly few of them are links to www.straightdope.com pages. I chose those search terms because “Dear Cecil” is the salutary on all of his columns, and “Cecil Adams” is the signature. Since there are so many results, I thought perhaps it would be best to go after the guys who appear to be trying to make a buck off their sites. That type of violation seems to me to be more egregious.
The worst infringer I remember was that website that actually copied posts word for word from this message board (with only the names of the posters changed slightly) in order to make their messageboard look more active than it actually was. :rolleyes: Pathetic.
That actually has happened a few times. Seems to be standard practice among some of the shadier internet types out there.
Wasn’t that the bizarre “chicken board”?
I was always disappointed that I couldn’t find any threads with my posts in them over there. I wanted to know what type of chicken they’d turn me into. 
OMG, look what you did to Google Ads! 
Wrong kind of dog, though. I wonder if they’ll ever have ads for Death Rays.