Coupon Previews - a little venting and a tad of rant

I usually post the a coupon preview on several couponing forums, but will be posting them here from now on.

For a little over a year now, I would post the coupons coming in the coming Sunday's paper on Tuesdays.  And yeah, other blogs and sites would copy/paste the list to their site - sometimes giving thanks to me - sometimes not.  Typing the coupons usually takes between 1 hour for a not-so-good-week, up to 4 hours for weeks like 1/3/10 when there were 5 inserts!  So I would get a little upset that someone couldn't take the time to write 'Thanks to' with my name and the forum they found it on.  But being that the list was getting out there and benefiting fellow couponers, I let it slide and never said anything.

Well, that's changed.  All of the sites I was posting the previews on have a TOS clause that gives them license to use anything you post in any way they want - without any compensation.  So if they would copy every one of my posts and publish a book out of them - they have that right according to the Terms Of Service.

Of course, when I read that section of the TOS, I thought more along the lines that if that site wanted to tweet or post the list on facebook, or have some kind of Alerts site - they could use the information you posted.  That's fine.  But was I was wrong!  One of the sites decided to make a whole website containing my work to provide a source of income to themselves.  Some weeks they would give a 'Thanks to', other times not.

I did some digging to find out just who was using my work - at first I thought it might be a random forum member trying to make a buck.  But using my experience as a web researcher, I eventually found out that the preview site was owned by the same owners as one of the coupon forums!

Now, I don't know what upset me more.  The fact that this site just used my hard work without even considering my time and effort, or the fact that I let them do it by agreeing to the TOS and posting the lists to the site! Argh!

Sooo, that being said.  If you would like to use my coupon or ad previews for a site other than your own personal blog or coupon forum - please contact me first!  If you would like to post it to a coupon forum or blog -  you MUST include the copyright disclaimer and/or give credit/thanks to SpendingImpaired or Spending Impaired Momma!

I won't stop posting on forums though.  I am still active on a couple that I trust.  Thanks for reading, and I'm sorry but I really needed to vent!