Interestingly it’s the most basic blogposts I write that are the most successful. Like my article about retweeting on twitter that is on top of my statistics for two months now. Today I got a message on facebook from a Brazilian telling me he had translated this very article to Portuguese and published it on his blog. He asked me if this was okay.
I had a look at his blogpost and noticed that although he mentioned the original blogpost he hadn’t linked it or mentioned my name. He also used my graphics without mentioning the source. I asked him politely to change these things and am now hoping for a positive reaction EDIT: and he promptly reacted and changed this (see comment – thanks, Daniel!).
I’ve also asked him to notify me before publishing if he wants to translate something from me again.
How would you have dealt with this?
Would you see this as copyright violation already
or do you think it is okay the way we handled it?
I’m used to see my press releases being published in translations (I wouldn’t be able to write in Japanese, Russian or Dutch) so I don’t mind if someone wants to translate a blogpost of mine. But I prefer to be asked in advance. 
Btw. if you would like to have an article of yours translated I’ll gladly help.
I can offer the following translations:
English or French or Italian >>> German
German or Italian >>> English or French
English >>> French
French >>> English
Annette, I agree with it and change my post. You can see now and verify if its ok.
http://roggiablog.blogspot.com/2009/05/retweeting-rt-no-twitter.html
Thanx
Thank you for your prompt reaction, Daniel!
This is one of those situations where a link is necessary. Without it it would lose credibility. Good to see that Daniel responded promptly and fixed a link.
I personally have had articles from newspapers plagiarised and editors / publishers haven’t protected my copyright. In the end I’ve learned to just keep an eye out on what happens to the material I write.
You can easily avoid problems like the ones you faced by releasing your content under a creative commons license http://creativecommons.org/license/
Create a license and display it on your sidebar or on a dedicated page of your blog. It make things easier especially when you deal with a large/global audience.
Hope you’ll find this helpful
Andrea
@Jon: I don’t have a problem with my article being translated if I’m asked in advance. I just wonder how often it actually happens to have your blogposts translated to another language…?
@Andrea: Yes, you are indeed helpful, as always! Thanks a lot!