Earlier on today I was doing a spot of online shopping for some sewing machine needles and I happened to notice that this particular online store was selling a hard-to-find product (which I’ll call item X) which I also sell in my own shop. So in the name of research I went to check out what price they were retailing item X at - because it’s always good to keep abreast of what’s going on in the market place. Can you imagine my surprise as I read through their product description for item X to find that it was the same description (word for word) as my own description for item X and to top it off they had pinched my product photo too, Nice!
Of course this shop wasn’t breaking any law, **UPDATE** was breaking the law, see AnaB’s helpful comment (comment no.1) explaining how this guy was actually breaking the law - thanks for sharing that with us Ana 
and in copying, the owner sure did have some bad manners. I contacted the owner directly on the phone and asked him politely, but assertively to write up his own product description for item X. This might sound like pettiness on my part, but I enjoy writing my product descriptions and I try to personalize them by making them fun for me and for my customers, not for some other shop owner to do a lazy ass cut & paste job!
Tomorrow I am going to look at ways to protect yourself from (and hopefully deter) copy cats from pinching your work.
Powered by Qumana
Lisa is a generally content (who said generally - don't get her started!) 30 something living in London, who amongst other things sells everything you might need to make unique and lovely handmade handbags at home from her online store 
Actually… they are breaking the law. Copy, as well as images (photography) ARE indeed copyright property of their authors unless otherwise transferred. No need to actually file the paperwork, though that is always better. Whatever you write is your intellectual property, every time. The actual issue is what it takes to actually fight it, potentially in a court of law, but that does not make it right.
What a cheek! I hope you gave him a chinese burn.
Anna Chadwick’s last blog post..What the ….?
That sucks! I was over at another blog and came across this:
http://startupprincess.com/wordpress/grant-a-wish-what-would-you-do-if-another-retailer-was-copying-your-product-descriptions/
Hope all works out!
Carla’s last blog post..Sweet Surrender
Ah, that’s just lazy… and rude. So, did the owner at least remove your stuff?
Kelvin Kao’s last blog post..Chinese Shadow Puppets
Hi Liza, what a cheek! A similar thing happened to me. See my post here:
http://smockerydolls.blogspot.com/2008/01/bizarre-copyright-violation.html
Kay Susan’s last blog post..TIF Jan08 - Just a little bit more…………….
Wow, Lisa. That’s crazy. I’m so glad you caught them early on. It would have stunk to see your copy ripped off on a large scale level.
I’m glad you found it Lisa. Who ever said Copying is the best form of flattery was wrong. It’s rude and really shows someone’s character. I have come across a couple of “copy” issues lately that have me fried. One is that recently I discovered a blogger that has taken the exact same name as another well known and loved blogger only they added the word “bags” to there name. Ugh, The other was something of mine that was copied. I’m really trying not to give it any energy but I think this is a great topic to discuss. Maybe by talking about it people will think twice before cutting and pasting someone else’s creativity. Thanks again for all your work on this great site you have created. Whew, guess I needed to vent. Lol!
SugarShop (Dena Berg)’s last blog post..Cherry Rockstar