CYBER Theft: Cracking the Case!

If you haven't been robbed in one way or another by cyber thieves yet, 

consider yourself lucky - and in the minority. It's happened to me multiple times, 

and I hear about it happening to others every day. Here is one such story:

Original Jewelry Designs by Gretchen Johnson Shaumann of Mimi-Toria's Designs
(She has some GREAT display ideas, doesn't she?!)
IMAGE: property of Gretchen Schaumann / Mimi Toria's Designs 2011
All Rights Reserved . used with permission

Last month, Gretchen, a friend on facebook, posted this question on her wall:

It has been brought to my attention that a blogger in the UK has basically stolen 13 pages off of my blog!

I've written, photographed, edited, designed the jewelry on it, as well as edited the photos, etc. This literally involves 1,000's of combined hours of my time. There are no other designers under the JEWELRY heading other than mine.

I do have a copyright statement on my blog, etc.

What would you do? How would you handle it if it were your blog? Would it bother you? Would you be flattered? Or would you insist it all be removed at once?

Just pretty much blows me away that someone would do this first off...

She received dozens of comments - most of them to the tune of 'WHAAAAAAA? Why would someone do this?!' Many people just don't realize the extent to which this happens, especially in the creative world.

I commented on her post and shared that my experience with it was that the offender was simply channeling traffic to his own blog, where he was making money through ad clicks. I also gave her the link to my blog, and told her about the resources I have posted on my right sidebar for 'Content Theft'.

I learned a lot when my own design blog content was scraped by the unscrupulous Danish man whats-his-name a few years back. I yelled and screamed at the wrong person (the template designer... who responded by posting on his blog. I am STILL getting irate emails from techies coming from his post, so may I just say ONE MORE TIME "I am SORRY, Andreas! I still had a lot to learn at that point!") I posted resources on my own blog sidebar, in hopes that they would help others who find themselves in this less than appealing position. There are a lot of links ;0)

My friend checked out my links, did some recon, wrote some complaints, took action, and eventually got satisfaction. I received this from her today:

Hi Deb!
I just wanted to update you that my issue in the UK with the blogging 2 years of my content that was stolen, has been resolved. It was removed, and a nasty cinderella/wicked stepmother cartoon was put in place of it, as well as a lot of other vulgar stuff.

I don't understand people.... They steal, and then get mad when caught...???

Anyways, just wanted to be sure to THANK YOU for your valuable help and encouragement you shared with me. I ended up emailing GOOGLE first as it was their AD SENSE program that this person was selling using my content. I didn't hear anything from them, and than recently went on again to check and it was removed.

Then this weird cartoon about the wicked step Mom cutting off Cinderella, etc. was on their wall. People are so strange... Thanks again!

 I love to hear that the good guys win once in awhile! And I thought that the Google Ad Sense avenue to approaching this mess was a GREAT solution, so I wanted to share it with you. If you have tips to share in regard to protecting online content, please share in the comments below...

Make sure you visit Gretchen Johnson Schaumann at Mimi-Toria's Designs, to see her beautiful vintage jewelry designs... and her great ORIGINAL blog content. ;0)