Plagiarized.

No, *I* didn’t do it. Someone else did.

I found out today that someone grabbed my old Blogspot url, activated the feed, and copied and pasted six of my old posts (words AND pictures) there under the name Diana Reneina. The sidebar is full of text link ads.

I am beyond annoyed about this.

At first I was kicking myself for deleting the Blogspot url, figuring I should have kept it. Truth be told, though, anyone could post any of my stuff on any site.

I found out that my old feed from my old url was showing up in Google Reader for those people who never physically unsubscribed to the old feed when they subscribed to the new feed. After I found that out, I was surprised that it was even possible, because I deleted the feed in Feedburner. I have since discovered, in my frantic afternoon of trying to get the wheels rolling on the solution for this, that apparently once you delete a feed in Feedburner, it’s still in there somewhere in Feedburner’s servers. If you want it deleted so that a new person using the old url can’t leapfrog onto it, you have to make a direct request to Feedburner help at feedburner-feedback@google.com.

Only a week or two ago I was debating with friends whether I should leave my feed settings at “full” or go back to only showing part of my posts in my feed so people would have to actually click over here to read everything. I have always left the feed at full because people on mobile phones can’t always click over, and some people just get downright angry about having to click over. I don’t want to lose anybody, so I decided to leave it alone. Today I was thinking how I should have gone with my gut and shortened the posts in my feed, and then I realized that doing that doesn’t prevent my work from being stolen: this person that I discovered stealing from me today wasn’t skimming my feed: she actually copied and pasted six random posts from the feed.

I feel completely violated, and yet I know it could have been worse. In fact, I’m trying to feel like it was a good thing that she is using my old blog because I’m not sure I would have found out about it today if she wasn’t. I have been full of rage about it, sad about it, frustrated by it, and all kinds of other emotions I have yet to be able to describe, all in the course of one afternoon.

In addition to contacting Feedburner about my old feed, I have filled out a copyright violation form with Blogger, left a comment on the plagiarized blog telling her to take my material down, and even sent her a Facebook message. I’m anxious to see how long this takes to get resolved.

Actually, I’m just anxious.

I’m pretty sure of one thing, though. She made a mistake in selecting me and my blog.

Tagged as: Don't Steal My Stuff, Riding the Rage, Sadness