Michael Snow wrote:I had this happen to one of my blogs a while back. It was a sewing how-to blog and each post was showing drawings and photos of a pattern I had designed and made myself, and was telling people how to make the costume. It became really popular just before ComicCon and suddenly I had #1 spot on Google search results for that character.
I found one of my articles on some website that specializes in spinning other people's work for profit. under the article they had a place to comment. I posted a comment using my real name, and it was something to the effect of: "I'm glad you enjoyed my work, but if you're going to copy it, a link is needed. changing some of the words in another's intellectual property does not change its status as a copyright violation, and while it's embarrassing to be in any way linked to this poorly reworded piece of infringement, credit is due." I made sure to use big legal words and post a link to the original article. the next morning the stolen article had been removed.
Next thing I knew, automated blogs were popping up, that were pulling my posts off my blog and reposting them as their own! There was no contact info on any of them. The blogs were all run by WordPress so I contacted word press, with links to my original blog and the copied blogs.
I left comments on every post - similar to the one you mentioned, each linking back to my original posts.
But the blog wasn't only stealing my articles - it was scooping up costume making how tos off tons of other sewing blogs too!
Than I did a Google search on the blog post titles for the other posts on the blog and tracked down the owners of nearly all of the other sewing blogs they were copying from, and contacted each of the original writers telling them about how we had been copied. Most of them likewise contacted WordPress with complaints. (There were about 3 dozen blogs that they were stealing posts off of).
I guess our complaints to WordPress worked, because those copy blogs no longer exist today, thank goodness.
I learned one thing about it: while getting #1 slot on Google does wonders to drive traffic to your article, it also results in your article being copied by every one under the sun! aRGH! It almost makes me hope I never get another article on Google's #1 slot again. It was just so frustrating having to deal with. I don't know why people think they can get away with stealing some one else's hard work. 
What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!
Obsessed? I'm Not Obsessed... REALLY, I'm not!
When Next You See Me I'll Look Like This:
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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
- All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.
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