Blogjacked

I’ve blogged a few times about intellectual property, most recently about the Kaavya Viswanathan book controversy, which seems to have resolved itself with shame and disgrace for everybody involved. I recently accidentally discovered that wholesale appropriation of intellectual property is of more than philosophical interest to me. If you were to do a blogsearch for “Kitchen Confidential” you may end up on this post dated April 21 which starts:

This may end up sounding like I’m gay for Bradley Cooper, especially since I’m already on the record lamenting the canceling of his show Kitchen Confidential, but the family made a special trip this weekend to see him in his Broadway…

If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s from my blogpost from three days earlier also titled Bradley Cooper on Broadway, which is about an up and coming actor starring in a play with Julia Roberts, and has NOTHING to do with custom glassware or flexible bakeware or any of the other ads linked to the post. My reaction is somewhere between befuddled flattery and bemused annoyance. It does link back to my original post, which is how I found out about it, but it also hijacks my content in a completely unintentional way. Since then I have found blogjacked dopplegangers of this post for Texas divorce attorneys and this post for breast enlargement pills.

If you have ever been bored enough to scroll all the way to the footer of my blog template, you will find my disclaimer which reads:

All the ideas on this blog are mine unless I have told you otherwise. Get some ideas of your own. If you use one of mine, give me credit for it.
This has not been cleared by a lawyer, but if your are unfamilar with the concept of common law copyright, you shouldn't use that as an excuse.

I've gone ahead and added an explicit copyright notice. I don't go for these trendy Creative Commons licenses that are all the rage. If somebody wants to use my stuff, all they have to do is ask. I'm not giving my thoughts away to anyone who thinks they want them. And that includes the Washington Post.

According to Random Bytes, the one remedy which is available is to protest under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Ironically, the law designed to prevent you from ever taping a television show again is the strongest protection for the little blogger that is being robbed blind by faceless organizations.

Someone once said:

Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands:
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.

I forget who said it, so just attribute it to me from now on.

Blatant Comment Whoring™: Have you ever caught someone stealing content off your blog or website?

P.S. Thanks to Keb for the snazzy new logo. It looks great and is well beyond my lam3 skilz. I like to give credit where credit is due.