I Am a Great Big Ol' Content Thief...

...And I take other people's hard work without permission to use in entirety for my own financial gain because I'm too lazy to write my own original material but still want the dough. My advertisers should drop me like a hot potato...

My friends and family should shun me...

And my beloved dog should bite my leg.

Okay, so maybe I'm not a content thief-- me, the true author of Of Cabbages and Kings upon which this post resided first. But the dude or dudette who seems to be leveraging my Feedburner feed, complete with my illustrations, for what Feedburner calls "Uncommon Uses" very well may be.

As the site in question I refer to doesn't allow for comments, and their email form leads apparently only to an advertiser site, I hadn't found a way to contact them to ask them politely to remove my posts. Y'know, the posts that make up the content on their shiny new, highly-ad-filled site.

So I thought it would be entertaining to write this particular post on the topic. I imagine their automatic posting program will load it under their "Epic Fail" category, like they did a number of my other posts.

Let's enjoy the irony of that together.

And while I'm on the subject--

Providing me with a linkback guised as "Click here to read the whole post" when my whole post has already been included in the site, and there's absolutely no reason to click, does not make it all hunky-dory.

It is neither hunky nor dory.

If anything, it is fair-usey loopy-holey. And not as flattering as one might think.

So, this is a test of the Emergency Head-Off-The-Folks-Who-Don't-Know-What-a-Copyright-Statement-Is-All-Rights-Reserved-Please-Remove-My-Posts-Now Messaging System.

I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt. That the person just somehow didn't know you can't simply lift whatever you like from someone else's site without asking.

That the person doesn't realize I actually really care about what I post here, and that all my content isn't just LOLCatz photos or jokes your grandmother forwards to everybody who goes to Bingo with her.

So here's to new beginnings! As in, you, Content-Reappropriator Dude or Dudette, can begin to find all new content to plop in your ad-glutted site and operate it without me. Thanks!

Because I kinda don't think your advertising sponsors would find seeing this post scraped and slapped up on your site quite as funny as I would.

Just sayin'.

___________________________

UPDATE: Ah! It looks like they've suddenly truncated the posts and offered attribution!

Three cheers for choosing to take the path of proper Fair Use! He shoots, he scores!

To Google, With Love

My Dearest Google:

Something’s come between us, and I thought we should clear the air.

I post, and you ignore me. I add my feeds, and you turn away, as if I’d never typed.

Your friends, in Webmaster Tools, claim my pages are indexed... but no traffic do I see. I fear I know the score; they’re just telling me what you’ve told them to say. What you think I want to hear.

And then I learned today, from an insightful friend, that you think I’m not good enough for you.

You think the archives of content, which were a labor of love so many years ago, you think they were… SCRAPED. Stolen. Some illicit business on the side.

But I tell ya, I’m misunderstood is all, Google! I’m the same gal you always knew. The gal who wrote regularly. Who always had something original. And even did her own photos so as to avoid any copyright issues. I haven’t changed!

It was a bum rap, see? It was all in the past. An old site with my content on it that just had never come down. A mistake. That content was mine for the taking, Google. Mine! Mine, I tell you!

So I’m trying to make it up to you, Google. I’ve gotten rid of the archives that made you so steamed. And I’ve gotten my old hosts to finally pull the dead site.

It was an honest mistake, you see. I’m not one of the baddies—the kind writers like me fight every day in this great big world of the web. I’m one of the good guys. And I hope I can earn your love once more.

Try and remember how much we've shared, dear Google. Why, we've even got two blogs together! So maybe you can see fit to send just a little traffic my way?

You may not realize it, but you really do need me, just a little. In a land of spammers and scammers, you need all the real content generators... the writers.... the ones who truly care... that you can get. So, please say we can work this out?

I’ll be waiting right here for ya, sweetie.

XXXXOOOOO
Jenn


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Well, at least Google loves Humor-blogs...