Taylor Mali's "What Teachers Make" Plagiarized in Country Song

The other day, I wrote about people who repost poetry on their blogs and how they affect poets. Interestingly enough, I just learned a bit of related news: according to the country music blog American Twang, a new country music song called "I Make a Difference" by Brad Wolf plagiarizes portions of Taylor Mali's poem "What Teachers Make."

Mali's poem is one of those pieces that went viral on the Internet -- YouTube has a clip of his performance with over 1.4 million views (with about a dozen copies and alternate performances with tens of thousands of views each) and the piece has been circulated countless times, usually credited to "Anonymous," through email chain letters.

Here is Taylor Mali's piece:

Resnik Music Group, which controls the publishing rights to the song, actually has recordings of "I Make a Difference" by three different artists -- Brad Wolf, Linda Davis, and Burns & Poe -- you can listen to the versions on their music player at the bottom of the page.

It seems to me that there are a number of people at fault here -- the songwriter, the artists who recorded the piece, the owners of Resnik Music Group. Any of them could have discovered Mali's poem with a simple Internet search and contacted him about the use and adaptation of his poem.

This isn't the first time that Mali's poem has been used in a public setting without credit -- according to a post on Mali's website, it was quoted (and attributed to "Anonymous") during a Yale graduation speech and, according to American Twang, has also been plagiarized in a children's book.

So what can other poets take from this? If you post your poetry on your website, make it very clear who the author is (don't rely on your domain name) and clearly state your policy on reposts. It's probably also good to use a service like Google Alerts so you can find out when people use your work, since they probably won't notify you.

If you're a reader of poetry and you want to repost something on your blog, make sure you attribute properly and that you comply with the author's policies.