…please read this.
Picture the scene, you’ve spent the last two years growing and shaping a blog that shares your passion with hundreds of thousands of people around the world. You started with nothing and poured long days and late nights into developing a brilliant blog that becomes your livelihood.
One day, some non-entity wakes up and decides they need a catchy name for their business. They come across your well-established blog, like the name and think “I want a bit of that!”. Instead of putting in even 1% of the effort you have, they decide to ride your coat-tails and appropriate your branding for their website, blog and other social media outlets.
As if that wasn’t bad enough… they begin the proceedings to trademark this name they have no right to using. Which means that if they are successful, you won’t be allowed to continue using your blog name. You lose your internet identity. For good.
This is exactly what’s happening to Amber at Shoeperwoman – a blog I’ve lusted over for many years.
Please head over to Shoeperwoman and have a read of the story, it’s both eye-opening and sad. Bloggers generally don’t have the means to protect their identities through the formal channels… we don’t start our endeavours with our business heads on but by God we should fight for what is ours.
Please RT, link to and help spread the word about Amber’s story. You can follow Shoeperwoman on twitter, here.
I think this happens more than we know! Think there is a rather high profile instance of the same situation in the UK, with that poor blogger giving up and starting afreash abroad. Can’t believe people do things like that! Love your blog by the way x
I’m still shocked that someone would do this. Laura Blake has displayed very poor understanding of the blogging community and ever poorer morals, and I don’t see her blog and shop recovering well from this. In my experience, people are reluctant to give time or money to someone who would do something so shady.
That’s HORRIBLE. It’s as if some people genuinely have no scruples. =[
This is wonderful, Charlotte, thank you so much for your support, it really means such a lot to me. If anyone is interested, Laura Blake has actually now demanded that I remove my post, and is threatening to contact the police if I don’t. I won’t be removing anything, obviously, and have posted again over at my site!
That is so frustrating. Its fricking bollocks. These days you can get done for intellectual property theft, yet things like this will be just brushed off.
No class.
I think this person does know about the blogging community, but doesn’t really care.
Amber, please let me know if I can / should repost your entry in its entirety over at my blog. I don’t really have a passion for shoes, other than “it’s highly preferable to going barefoot”. But the unmitigated gall of this person…yeah. Yeah. No.
This sort of thing makes me crazy. As a law student I want to just tell people to get a lawyer (which is still the best advice I can give) but at the same time I know that this is not possible for most bloggers. I recommended mediation to Amber in a comment to her most recent post, as this does not need to involve solicitors, and can be a lot cheaper. I think it’s high time the Law Society or the government put together some proper legal advice for bloggers. Oh, and the Citizen’s Advice Bureau is also a good place to start ( had to plug that, I do work there after all!).
On the other hand, I would be quite happy to just give these people a massive whack round the chops, crash their website and be done with it (that will probably be interpreted as harassment and I will be threatened with police action – BRING IT ON).
Sorry Charlotte, didn’t mean to rant all over your blog!
OK I feel better now:
1. The fake site doesn’t rank on Google. All searches for it come back with info on the fact that it is stolen.
2. The fake site only has negative comments on it (albeit intelligent, gramatically correct ones – Yay for the Beauty community having the sense not to just post vitriol), so hopefully she will decide its not worth the effort and give up. Also that she won’t make any money.
That is unbelievable! What a cow!
This Laura is threatening to go to the police, however she’s the one that STOLE the name, HARASSED Amber to take down the post and THREATENED to take charges, which surely makes her the ‘criminal’ in all this?
Hate to sound childish, but she started it.