You've seen them. The blogs that steal your content. The ones that copy and paste your entire post without even asking and without giving you any credit, as if they wrote it. The ones that steer traffic away from your blog, benefiting from your hard work, not their own. The Blog Post Stealers!
I happened to find a few pins on Pinterest last week that lead to many many discoveries of people taking my content and using it as their own. Some were just using my photos without giving me credit. One offender was none other than the website of the said "Bob Vila"! That was nuts. You'd think with a name that big you'd be careful. A big ooops for him! Other stealers just copied my posts word for word.
So what did I do? I first reported copyright problems to pinterest to have those pins removed. Then I went on a little rampage leaving emails and notes. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that some of them may not have been nice, but I was upset. Even if they had no ill intent, bloggers and writers need to know that it's not ok to steal. They need to understand that it is in fact stealing to use other's creative content as their own.
Has this happened to any of you bloggers out there yet?
What is the best way to handle this problem? Obviously the stealers are so profuse that it would be a full-time job trying to track them all down. Once your content is on the web, there are no Internet Police to stop people from using your creativity and photos and writing any way they please.
I knew this when I started blogging, but I still can't help getting angry when I see something of mine that was stolen. Maybe I just need to let it all go and not even care, but how does one do that?
I happened to find a few pins on Pinterest last week that lead to many many discoveries of people taking my content and using it as their own. Some were just using my photos without giving me credit. One offender was none other than the website of the said "Bob Vila"! That was nuts. You'd think with a name that big you'd be careful. A big ooops for him! Other stealers just copied my posts word for word.
This is my original image with a title and a watermark.
This is one website that stole it and my entire post. Notice how they cropped out the watermark. Those crafty little devils!
So what did I do? I first reported copyright problems to pinterest to have those pins removed. Then I went on a little rampage leaving emails and notes. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that some of them may not have been nice, but I was upset. Even if they had no ill intent, bloggers and writers need to know that it's not ok to steal. They need to understand that it is in fact stealing to use other's creative content as their own.
Has this happened to any of you bloggers out there yet?
What is the best way to handle this problem? Obviously the stealers are so profuse that it would be a full-time job trying to track them all down. Once your content is on the web, there are no Internet Police to stop people from using your creativity and photos and writing any way they please.
I knew this when I started blogging, but I still can't help getting angry when I see something of mine that was stolen. Maybe I just need to let it all go and not even care, but how does one do that?
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