Tuesday, August 19, 2008

How do you deal with blog entry theft?

Especially when it's been run through some crap translator and back into half-assed English?

This came up on my "Merujo" Google Alert early this morning. Yeah, I have a Google Alert for myself. And crap like this is exactly why. I had some spamtastic loser in the Netherlands post an entry of mine (in real English) once on his page, and he still refuses to take it down or acknowledge my ownership. It's a "made for Google Adsense" website. Periodically, I consider sending a complaint to the legal authorities where he lives (his address is available on his site registration), but I understand that the Netherlands is pretty loosey-goosey about dealing with stuff like that.

This morning's theft may not be immediately recognizable to you, but it is to me. It's this post, just run through some bad translation device once or twice. And I find it incredibly irritating.

What the culprit gets out of doing this, I don't know. But I don't like intellectual property theft, regardless of the form. The Internet makes it far too easy for idiots and assholes to get away with a lot of ridiculous crap. Frankly, I think every spammer and thief caught should be forced to sit for a couple of days with big buckets of crap over their noggins. They are big shitheads, after all.

Grumbling,

Merujo

3 comments:

J.M. Tewkesbury said...

What the hell is that? It doesn't even make any sense? Whatever they stole from you is completely unrecognizable unless you speak whatever speak that is they speak.

So bizarre. I'd like to say go after them with teeth and claws flashing, but given their crap translator, I'm not sure they'd comprehend your simple cease and desist. I think if you want this to stop, you'll have to tell them "halt complete and but for no longer participatory write write" or some such nonsense.

lacochran said...

I've been quoted with appropriate attribute a few places but, to my knowledge, nobody's ever taken my stuff and claimed it for their own. That's pretty lame. But not all that surprising given the freedom of the Interwebs. It's just not that hard to do. I guess you could be flattered.

Chuck said...

I especially don't understand the post theft when you make everything that you write freely available through a Creative Commons license (but then, they'd have to give you credit for the writing.) Of course, that last post was so jumbled after it went through the translators that it's pretty unreadable...you would think that if he put up your original post and gave you credit via the Creative Commons guidelines, his readership (whatever it consists of) would enjoy it much more.