After a lovely weekend camping in the Sawtooth National Forest, I woke up to an email notifying me of another website’s pingback to two of my recent blog posts Low Nickel Gardening and Nickel Free Sunscreen. Whenever I write anything online, I enable the pingback setting in the rare instance another website will link back to my blog post. The majority of the time I’m aware when a blog post link will be pinged back because they have contacted me and sought permission or collaboration. However on this particular Monday morning, another website had scrapped or copied my entire blog post content, including my photographs. Not only was it alarming to have my content outright stolen, but to have my copy written content and photographs of Stevie and I gardening and my face claiming to be the work of another’s website hurt.

I went online to get support from other bloggers and one suggested I use the perspective that my content is “awesome enough to steal.” WTF. Who says that? Another blogger mentioned her food photographs had been stolen by a national magazine company and one was placed on the first cover of a national magazine. She suggested not paying for an attorney and letting “karma do its job.” I appreciate their perspectives, but no, a lot of time and energy went into crafting my content and the photographs were family photos. I’m not going to sit around and accept it’s okay for another person or company to infringe on my copyright rights.

What should you do if your digital content / intellectual property is stolen?