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I don't have the time or money to try anything else except a DMCA takedown.  If they aren't willing to honor it, and they weren't, then it's just a pain in the butt.

There are some DMCA takedown services that are willing to try "alternative channels" to attempt to get your content taken down, but it is much more expensive.

I don't think it has anything to do with the country, really, I think it is simply that their service provider is a jerk and wants to make it as hard as possible on me.  I don't pay him any monthly money, that guy who stole my stuff does.

About 3 months ago, someone copied almost all of my content (format and all) changing only the site name and links.  Of course, I was horrified and immediately tried a DMCA but the guy is hosted in Czech Rep so it turn into a pain in the butt.

Long story short, the stolen content is still up.  I figured eventually I would see a hit for the duplicate content but so far, absolutely nothing.  Same rankings, same everything; best thing is, his site doesn't appear to even be on Google.

My question is, does stolen content still matter anymore?  I thought it used to be a huge problem, and I read posts and such of blog owners who have fretted over the consequences to their beloved site.  It seems like Google figured out that since that content was on my site for the past year, I must be the original owner.  They might have even blacklisted the other site; can't find them by typing in their domain anymore.