Cut and Paste is not “inspired by”
Three times in the last few weeks, I’ve seen the topic some up - Plagiarism.
The first time it was Chris Brogan who was the victim. I won’t go into who or what, but let’s be clear, you can’t cut and paste someone else’s work and copyright it. - Even if it is to just give it away.
The second time, I saw a Facebook update from a relative who student teaches at the Graduate school she is attending. The status update was something like “If you are going to plagiarize, it’s best not to copy the same spelling errors as the original author.”
The third time the victim was Darren Rowse you may be more familiar with him as @problogger. In this case, not only was the post taken, but they took part of the original post and made it look like a comment (from Darren) to the copied one. - Sheesh. I also noticed that they happened to take more than one post. I just looked at the archive for December and saw titles that were familiar. Familiar because I had read them on Darren’s blog.
Let’s be clear. Plagiarism is an integrity violation. You can’t run from that. If you are inspired by a post, link to it, expand on it and add value to the conversation. Cut and Paste is theft, it may not feel like it in the brave new, everything should be free internet world, but it is still theft.
A couple of resources to help bloggers identify if their material is being used in other places.
Copygater - really like this one.
What do you think? Is plagiarism becoming more of a problem or just more readily recognized?
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Integrity violation? Your roots are showing Chuck.
You mean like Demonstrated Unreliability?