UPDATE!!! The post has been removed. HURRAH!!! The blog is public again, but Chef Renato has blocked me from commenting. Oh, well. I did try to thank him for deleting the post.
A million thanks to all of you for all your advice and words of encouragement. I am so fortunate to be a part of such a great group of bloggers! You’re the BEST!
Dear Chef Renato (or whatever the hell your real name is),
Imagine the shock and anger I felt this morning when I stumbled upon your blog,
Top Chef Season 4 [1], while doing research for my weekly Top Chef post and saw that you had plagiarized
my entire post about last week’s episode! [2] I’m not talking about using an excerpt or two, but the entire post, word for word, without attribution or any credit whatsoever. Even the little dots I use to format my paragraphs were there. (For future reference, I color them white so they don’t show up in my posts.) I couldn’t believe that someone would have the unmitigated gaul to do that! This is the INTERNET, loser! You put that post out there for the world to see, including me. Did you really think I woudn’t find out?
At first, I thought that I just missed your link back to my site, so I carefully checked the post again and guess what? There was no link back to my site. But you already knew that, didn’t you?
You stole from me!!!
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I left a comment for you to immediately remove the post from your blog and you deleted the comment.
I emailed you at the address listed on your Blogger profile, but as you know, it was an invalid email address.
Coward!
When I checked back on your site a few hours later, I saw your half-assed attempt to add a few phrases here and there and mix it up a little so that it wouldn’t be so obvious that you stole from me. However, your feeble attempt didn’t work. Those words are my intellectual property and I want them off of your site now!
If you had contacted me ahead of time and asked me nicely, I might have consented to let you use some of my words in your post, with a link back to my site. But now, all bets are off. I have bookmarked your blog and intend to cross check every post on it to make sure you haven’t done this to anyone else.
I work very, very hard to provide informative and entertaining content on my blog. I value my readers very much and cannot fathom why someone would come here and steal from me.
If you’re reading this right now, then take a look at my profile. I am an attorney and, even though this is not my area of expertise, I have many legal resources at my disposal. I will figure out a way to stop you from doing this again to me or anybody else.
Sincerely,
Susan @ Sticky,Gooey,Creamy,Chewy
Note to my regular readers: I apologize for my outburst. I am just soooo mad right now! If you have ever been victimized in this way, or are as outraged about this sort of thing as I am, then please help me take action. Be vigilant when surfing the net and report any violations you find.
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Also, If anyone has any advice on what action I should take, please let me know.
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Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming!