Plagiarized.

February 19, 2012

No, *I* didn’t do it. Someone else did.

I found out today that someone grabbed my old Blogspot url, activated the feed, and copied and pasted six of my old posts (words AND pictures) there under the name Diana Reneina. The sidebar is full of text link ads.

I am beyond annoyed about this.

At first I was kicking myself for deleting the Blogspot url, figuring I should have kept it. Truth be told, though, anyone could post any of my stuff on any site.

I found out that my old feed from my old url was showing up in Google Reader for those people who never physically unsubscribed to the old feed when they subscribed to the new feed. After I found that out, I was surprised that it was even possible, because I deleted the feed in Feedburner. I have since discovered, in my frantic afternoon of trying to get the wheels rolling on the solution for this, that apparently once you delete a feed in Feedburner, it’s still in there somewhere in Feedburner’s servers. If you want it deleted so that a new person using the old url can’t leapfrog onto it, you have to make a direct request to Feedburner help at feedburner-feedback@google.com.

Only a week or two ago I was debating with friends whether I should leave my feed settings at “full” or go back to only showing part of my posts in my feed so people would have to actually click over here to read everything. I have always left the feed at full because people on mobile phones can’t always click over, and some people just get downright angry about having to click over. I don’t want to lose anybody, so I decided to leave it alone. Today I was thinking how I should have gone with my gut and shortened the posts in my feed, and then I realized that doing that doesn’t prevent my work from being stolen: this person that I discovered stealing from me today wasn’t skimming my feed: she actually copied and pasted six random posts from the feed.

I feel completely violated, and yet I know it could have been worse. In fact, I’m trying to feel like it was a good thing that she is using my old blog because I’m not sure I would have found out about it today if she wasn’t. I have been full of rage about it, sad about it, frustrated by it, and all kinds of other emotions I have yet to be able to describe, all in the course of one afternoon.

In addition to contacting Feedburner about my old feed, I have filled out a copyright violation form with Blogger, left a comment on the plagiarized blog telling her to take my material down, and even sent her a Facebook message. I’m anxious to see how long this takes to get resolved.

Actually, I’m just anxious.

I’m pretty sure of one thing, though. She made a mistake in selecting me and my blog.

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32 Comments

  • Tara R.

    February 19, 2012 at 6:12 pm

    I feel ya! Had the same person plagiarize from me twice. Livid doesn’t begin to say how I felt. I hope you can get this resolved and have her shut down. ALL of her stolen blogs.

    • Melisa

      February 19, 2012 at 10:13 pm

      Thanks. I hope so too: I’m hoping that I get an email from Google and can actually give them more information than what was on the form I filled out. I’d love for them to check out her profile.

  • Susan

    February 19, 2012 at 6:51 pm

    Shameless. Sounds like you’ve done the right things. I would continue to leave comments on every post she copied, “thanking” her for liking your work so much that she felt the need to plagiarize it and leaving a link to your real blog. Then again, maybe you don’t want to drive up her stats.

    • Melisa

      February 19, 2012 at 10:15 pm

      Yeah, I’m thinking I don’t want to do that. Just keeping fingers crossed that things move forward and this gets resolved!

    • Melisa

      February 19, 2012 at 10:18 pm

      After looking at her profile and the huge list of “her” blogs, I think it happens waaaay more often than we all think, unfortunately. 🙁

  • Ally Bean

    February 20, 2012 at 9:21 am

    I had the exact same thing happen to me years ago. It was horrible. I understand your anger and despair.

    At that time I talked with an attorney who specialized in media law and she told me that if the person[s] who steal your stuff are in a country that does not have copyright laws, then you, the victim, have no way of defending yourself. You are screwed.

    My content trolls were from just that sort of country, so I could do nothing to stop them. My only recourse was to either let them continue stealing, or leave the blogosphere. I chose the later.

    I’m really very sorry to here of this happening again… still… within the blogosphere.

    • Melisa

      February 21, 2012 at 7:12 am

      Well, in this case, the person has clearly violated the terms of use on Blogger, so I’m confident that I can get the blogspot shut down; thinking it will just take a while. Not giving up! 😉

  • Heather

    February 20, 2012 at 11:02 am

    Trolls suck, especially those who steal your work, and more so those who know you and steal your work or know you and start dramz or public blogs about you. Been there, done that. Part of the reason why I have such a love hate with blogging. I am so sorry honey. I wish I could make it better for you. xo

  • Michelle

    February 20, 2012 at 9:21 pm

    Boo. Just… boo. But you knew that already. Have you received any updates? I’m definitely interested in this one – and I’m going to try to find a good place/session to ask about this at Blissdom, too. Grrrrrrrr.

  • Cowgirl Chef

    February 23, 2012 at 1:54 pm

    Just found this post…the EXACT same thing happened to me. Same gal, same everything. I’m working on trying to figure out what we can do. Apparently this sort of thing is often generated by a computer that finds old addresses, or so a computer friend of mine says. I’m beyond annoyed, too.