Can you copyright an idea?

Last week I posted an article offering tips for choosing a blog name. Yesterday morning, I’m checking out Technorati when I notice a blog has linked to my article. “How cool!” I thought. Since this gig is relatively new, it’s nice to know others are reading. A click on the link brought me to a “Science and Technology” blog which had the whole piece posted in its entirety, without permission. Not too cool after all.

The blog conveniently offered no way for me to contact the blogger to have my post removed, all I could gather was that my piece was stolen and posted by a “Mr. Blogger.” I posted to Mr. Blogger’s comments letting him know he used my article without permission and requested its removal. Mr. Blogger responded by posting a teeny-tiny “source” link under his post.

I commented again that my article was being posted without permission. Though I never received the courtesy of a reply, Mr. Blogger’s response was to post an even bigger “Original Post” link to the bottom of his post, which still contained my article, in its entirety and without my, or About’s, permission. I contacted Blogger.com who, I’m sure, will be in touch with Mr. Blogger. I think I'm going to contact Adsense too.

I’m choosing not to offer up a link to Mr. Blogger’s Science and Technology blog because I don’t want to send traffic his way. I did notice there are plenty of articles with teeny tiny “source” links underneath, leading me to believe I’m not the only victim. Mr. Blogger has also turned on comment moderation so no one will know about his stolen content.

On a more delicious note, I’m inclined to believe Mr. Blogger isn’t all that intelligent. You see, he left all my links in my articles. If not for them, I never would have found his plagiarized content. Unethical and stupid!
From Deborah Ng,

Deborah,

Let people — no, encourage — people to remix your stuff. They’re doing it anyway. They’re taking a paragraph from here and a quote from there — or video from here and audio from there — to tell the story from their perspective. Stop thinking of that as theft and start thinking of it as a compliment. If you’re not being remixed, you’re not part of the conversation. And the conversation is the platform of the today. So feel free to set some rules — it’s only polite to attribute and link — but then open the doors and let people create more great stuff on not only your finished product but also your raw material...

Nicely written, I do not remember where I copied it... Patrizia