By It’s the season of love, joy, and peace but instead, my mind is occupied with an unpleasant topic today.
About a week ago, I came to find out that someone from another continent has been stealing my blog posts (word by word with my photos) and publish them on their website for the last two weeks. They have stolen 14 articles in total.
It took us a while to get in touch with them but finally, we made a contact yesterday on their Facebook Page where I found they were using my photo for other links as well.
The most important character I value in a person is integrity so you can imagine the emotions I feel about this incident. When I confronted them and asked them to remove my work from their website immediately, their response was “I will remove them. :)” A smiley face emoji? No apology. No shame. They acted as if they were doing me a favor. What is going on here? How is this OK? I am totally flustered with their response.
Since yesterday, they took down 6 articles but 8 articles are still running on their website. So our interaction isn’t over yet. It is obvious that the entire website is running with stolen other people’s hard work.
Have you experienced something like this? How did you handle it? Do you have any tips?
Hiking Girl with Dog 
With my business blog I had another business copying & pasting my articles, changing a couple of words and not linking back to my blog or giving me credit – so I had no way of knowing my information was being used at all. My images had my blog address on them, so they didn’t use my images. It made me feel sick in the stomach when I accidentally came across it. They were doing it to some other bloggers as well. Very annoying because I’ve been in my industry quite a few years and my blog posts came from my hard-earned studies and industry experience. I can sympathise with you…hope it gets sorted before too long.
Wow, that’s crazy! And I can sympathize with you! I hope it got sorted out OK at the end. Thanks, I am not going to stop until they remove all my articles from their website. I can see that all of their content is stolen too. After a bit of research, we found out where the site is hosted and who’s running it but even that is a façade and not true. Ugh. I think I found out about this by accident. They’ve been stealing my work for two weeks and just now their out bot started linking back to my site and that’s how I found out. A naturally positive person that I am, I’d like to remind myself, I guess I am doing something right with my blog because someone thought it was worth stealing. So I am sure your business blog content is solid and valuable!! 😀
I guess the internet is a big place & these things go on all the time without the original content creators knowing. It sounds like you are on top of it & will get it sorted though.
Thanks!
I’m so sorry that happened to you. What a nightmare! Hopefully the person takes the rest of the posts down.
Thanks Allie for your kindness. I am sure it will all work out at the end. I won’t stop bugging them until they remove all my articles from their website. Have a wonderful day!
Wow, this makes me super suspicious now. I had no idea this was even a thing. Hope you can work it out, Jamie.
I’m glad to hear I wasn’t the only one who is shocked by this! I plan to work this out. 👊 Thanks Mickey!
Yikes, so sorry to hear that! We use public domain images so no point in stealing our pictures. Did have to remove the “reblog” button because it was discovered that one particular blogger who reposts other people’s content was constantly abusing the reblog feature. Perhaps you could add watermarks to all of your original pictures, and a very prominent “all content is property of Hiking Girl With Dog, do not use without permission.” notice.
My photos have a watermark but they still used them! I will need to make them more noticeable going forward and also adding a copyright disclosure is a good idea! I’ve seen it on other blogs but never thought I’d need to use it. I guess I was too trusting. Thanks for the tips!
Good luck to you…content stealing is definitely not legal and not cool. I’ve seen some good copyright statements out there, definitely worth doing!
Thank you! All of my articles are taken down from their website now. It’s time to implement the prevention measures. 🙂
I’d report them to WordPress… they may have suggestions. Another option might just be to have their arms broken… or maybe just their fingers… if they continue stealing your content/photos, etc. Of course you could always sue them and try to collect. You’d have to decide which options to try first, tho! I agree, integrity is of utmost importance and lack of said virtue and outright theft demands consequences… again, there are many options. Google ‘international online enforcers for hire,’ and variations thereof. Good luck, should they continue. 😉
LOL!! As of this morning, they have taken down all my contents from their website and removed me from their bot program. So problem is gone for now. On a side note, I did find some helpful information on how to prevent content theft on WordPress and I am implementing the suggestions.
Congrats, well done… and no bloodshed!
Haha! Thanks, Mike!
Friggin’ catfish!! I’ve had a couple of experiences that were kind of like this. The worst was when people, that appeared to be businesses, stealing pictures of my child from Instagram and then posting them on their website like we were clients of their business. My son has Down Syndrome and he’s really cute so I’m sure that’s why they did it. Special needs families were there target audiences. Each time, they had the nerve to be REAL crappy about it when I called them after sending them several e-mails and messages on Facebook. I was really angry. It’s one thing to take photo’s and content and another to take pictures of someone kid without permission. Another time, again via Instagram and Facebook, I’ve had travel agents, blogs etc steal pictures and content without saying a word about it. I am loud about the fact that if you like someone’s work then you need to pay them something for it. They just take stuff and hope they never get caught.
Wow… that’s so wrong on many levels!! Stealing is stealing no matter where you got it. I hope you got that squared away eventually!
Has anything else happened or come of this?
They took down all my articles and removed my site from their robot!
Also, I am sorry that happened to you!
Thank you, Jenn!
There is a long list of bad words that I would rather be typing. If they liked your content that much (which we all do), why not ask you to write a post? No…they have to thieve it and give a smily? People suck.
Haha, I know. I still can’t believe they gave me a smiley face! Speechless.
Oh my!!! That’s CRAZY!!! I’m glad they took down the posts – how on earth do people think this is ok?? 😞
It took a little but they took down everything at the end. I know, right?!!