Now that I got you here, April Fools! NO I did NOT get DMCA’d and my blog is NOT closing.
All content on my blog is of my own creation and unique with the exception of two wedding posts from my future sister-in-law, a DIY from my sister, a review from my niece and giveaways that I work along other bloggers to promote. Credit is given when due and with permission of those bloggers.
However I do want to bring up the issue of DMCA. I have within the past couple of months had to issue DMCA through my host and Google because my Minion Pinata was copied verbatim, pictures and all on websites claiming it as their owns.
I do periodically check to see if my content is being copied. I have no problem with any deals I find and post and another blogger posts them with my picture but I do have a HUGE problem when it comes to my Pinatas. I spend time creating them and stopping at every step to take pictures and explain what I did. If you ever have written a tutorial you know how hard it is!
What made me furious is these two websites used this quote, “I was seriously trying to talk my son out of a Despicable Me Theme birthday party because I could not think of any ideas for decorations except a million minions!!!”. Let me explain they did not use my post to criticize or recreate they stole the entire content. You can find the entire Minion Pinata Tutorial in its entirety on my blog.
Let me be clear, yes there is a lot of grey area when it comes to copyright, however I am all for people taking my content criticizing it, pulling it to pieces and if someone cannot follow my instructions and recreate the same item, I do want to know, I want to know how to be a better tutorial writer. I promise if you take my content and say why you cannot recreate or what its missing I will not DMCA you, that is not what it was intended for. A DMCA is intended to be issued when someone is taking your content and claiming it as their own.
As a Christian I am expected to go to the source first to work things out and I did just that. When those websites refused to remove the content only then did I go to my host, their host, and Google and filed the necessary paper work along with all communications between myself and the two companies. Those posts were removed from Google search and dealt with by their hosts to be taken down.
So please if you DMCA a blogger, vlogger or anyone else please I urge you to read what a DMCA is for and everything about copyright issues. Also if you want to know if Tweets can be copyrighted – not very likely and hard to prove.
Also know the terms of agreement for the social media you participate in. Don’t get yourself stuck in a hard place.
Thanks for reading and I hope you have a wonderful April Fools day.