As a creator of content you want to make sure you get proper ownership and credit over what you created.
Google has added author stats to their webmaster tools.
According to Google, “We're introducing “Author Stats” in Webmaster Tools that shows you how often your content is showing up on the Google search results page. If you associate your content with your Google Profile either via e-mail verification or a simple link, you can visit Webmaster Tools to see how many impressions and clicks your content got on the Google search results page.”
