I can't believe it!
I was looking at referral links on my blog and I saw one from Digg. I did not recognize it so I checked it out as I wanted to see who submitted my blog to Digg. Boy was I in for a surprise!
Someone scrapped one of my blog entries, changed one link, and the story hit the front page of Digg!
Original blog entry
Digg Link
Duggmirror of story
The wordpress blog that stole my material has since been removed for TOS violations.
The funny thing is that I found out about someone stealing my content earlier this morning when a different blog was talking about the now banned blog and one of the commenters left my URL as the original source.
I can understand drawing inspiration but out right copying like this? Does this mean I'm a real blogger if others are now stealing from me?
Of course the worst part is that they got the Digg Effect for my story! 'Course they also got banned from WordPress...
UPDATE
I contacted Digg and asked them to either change the link to point to my blog entry or remove the Digg entirely. Well, looks like they removed the Digg! Duggmirror still works though so you can view it there so you know I didn't make this up!
UPDATE 2
Not only was this plagiarised post on the front page of Digg but it was also submitted to Netscape, De.lic.us and StumbleUpon! I can't even begin to imagine how much traffic I have lost because of this. I publish under a Creative Commons license and I allow for using my content in other places but I reserve some rights and expect to be contacted prior to any copying!
UPDATE 3
The duggmirror link is now going to a 404 page. I thought Digg and duggmirror were not afilliated?
UPDATE 4
Here is a Google Cache of the RSS feed where you can see the post.
UPDATE 5
It's begining to look like this guy probuzz was not just plagiarising me but he was also fooling around with wikipedia!
UPDATE 6
I contacted Netscape and they removed the Netscape link to the story. They also banned his account on Netscape.
After doing some Digg searching I believe I have found his Digg user account: joam471. I have notified Digg Support of this so the account may not be there for long. In his profile he listed this as his website. If you go there he has a post telling his readers that he is moving to a new blog platform and it points to his (now) removed blog at WordPress. If you look at his About Me page you will see some more blogs he runs. He also has a Technorati profile. Here is their StumbleUpon profile.
