Warning - Check If Your Content Has Been Stolen . . .

and your copyright violated.  Kathryn Doyle over at the California Genealogical Society and Blog gave me a heads up about my recent content being "lifted" posted at what I consider a "splog" or spam blog.

Here are is a link to the offending website and all genea-bloggers might want to check to see if their content is being stolen or their copyright is being violated:

http://genealogy-expert.blogspot.com/

Here are the details on the blog owner:

Name: Dragan Mizeric
E-mail: draganmizeric@gmail.com

Blogger Profile: http://www.blogger.com/profile/04414595013167039868
Blog With Stolen Content: http://genealogy-expert.blogspot.com/

What can you do in these situations?  Well I relied upon a fantastic post over at Lorelle on WordPress entitled "What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content" which outlines what you can do about copyright violations.  I also reviewed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act - Blogger information.

I sent the following e-mail to the blog owner:

Dear Mr. Mizeric:

This is to advise you that you are using copyrighted and protected material on your website/blog. Your illegal use of various articles including "Magazines Now Included With Google Book Search" at http://genealogy-expert.blogspot.com/2008/12/magazines-now-included-with-google-book.html is originally from my website/blog called "Magazines Now Included With Google Book Search" at http://destinationaustinfamily.blogspot.com/2008/12/magazines-now-included-with-google-book.html. This is original content and I am the author and copyright holder. Use of copyright protected material without permission is illegal under copyright laws.

Please take one or more of the following actions immediately:

• Provide compensation for use of my copyright protected material of $50.00 USD for each article paid via PayPal.
• Remove the plagiarized material immediately.

I expect a response within 5 days to this issue. Thank you for your immediate action on this matter.

In addition, I will be sending this report to Google via mail/fax per Google regulations to report the copyright violations. See http://www.google.com/blogger_dmca.html.

In addition, I have reported the Genealogy-Expert blog as a splog using this link since the blog owner has hidden or eliminated the "flag this blog" option on the blog.