Looks like we have two contenders in this story: some little brat from California stealing my content without so much as a link back (even hot linked my images!), and my own persuasive email. Wonder who wins? - It started when I was doing some link building for my month-old website (up to some impressive stats, which I am posting a thread on in the Google section later today) when I noticed that someone was actually beating me for a specific term for MY content! I was outraged! Fuel was flowing through my veins as I quickly did a WHOIS search on his domain to find a means of contacting this idiot, since he didn't have contact information on his scraper blog. Lo and behold, I found out his address, phone number, name, and more importantly, his email address. Time to get to work. This is the second time I've ever dealt with this, so I looked up a quick example email at: http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/stock-letters/ Then I sent this email (note I replaced confidential information with hashes): And guess what I woke up to this morning? An email! Let's take a look: Didn't think it would cause a ruckus? WHAT is this 14-year old kid thinking? He just stole my work that took me two hours to create, and another hour to build links to! He took three hours of my life! The idiot! Good news: I checked and the content is down. It is still ranking in Google for one specific term he used as the title (the only thing he changed in the article), but that will soon change. Tip: Be mean, say the word attorney at least twice, and spell out what a DMCA is for the younger generation that thinks stealing MP3s for their iPods is the same as stealing web copy from people who know how to use their keyboard!
Sounds like you just got lucky with an honest 14 year old, unlike most who would resort to "EAT SHIT ASSHOLE"