A couple of weeks back, I found out that someone had plagiarized something I had written and posted it on her blog. It was copied word for word, except for a few lines that she had deleted and some of her own that were added in their place.
More than surprised or shocked, I was disgusted because the blogger was someone who has been a regular visitor to my blog, leaving comments etc. It was not some random stranger hiding somewhere hoping never to get caught. How does one do that? How does one have the audacity to rob from you and then show up at your doorstep all bright-eyed and bushy tailed? I noticed that this person is also following some of my friends.
Anyway, I sent her email asking her to remove it from her blog at once. I heard from her 2 days later, and this was the apology I received:
"Done! I can explain why I did it but I'm sure you don't want to know :-). I am sorry. I really am."
A smiley! She apologizes with a smiley! In two sentences, she summed up her character and integrity (or lack thereof). I did not even bother to reply.
The funny thing is that she did not even understand what she was plagiarizing! It was a piece I had put up on my poetry blog, sometime in June 2007. It's about a brief encounter between two strangers who can never be together. About intense feelings that dissipate as soon as they take root, but the memories of which linger on forever. Now this female posted it on her blog as a tribute to her relationship with her husband! I actually had a bit of laugh there when I realized what she had done.
I actually wasn't planning to write about this because it seemed too petty. Yesterday however, I noticed a similar thing on someone else's blog. I think since this is an issue that concerns most of us, I should say something. I'm not going to publish her name and url here, because I believe people should be given one chance. She was probably naive and stupid and hopefully, she will not do it again. But many questions arise with incidents such as this and I really wonder what we can do to prevent them.
We can boldly display all the copyright warnings we like, but that never stopped anybody from doing what they want to do. I'm wondering if it's a good idea to keep stuff online for too long. I'm actually thinking of deleting my posts a couple of days after publishing them online. I know that people can still copy, after all it takes only a few seconds to do it. But at least, the chances of more people doing it are reduced. Of course, this won't help much with things like Google Reader around, which sends what you've written to somebody's inbox FOREVER!
So, what then? Any suggestions? Apart from not blogging at all, because that is something I have seriously considered. Maybe every time I have the urge to write something really good (or what I think is really good) I should just save it to my hard drive, take some printouts, send to agents and publishers, and then sit back and wait for the rejections to pour in!
More than surprised or shocked, I was disgusted because the blogger was someone who has been a regular visitor to my blog, leaving comments etc. It was not some random stranger hiding somewhere hoping never to get caught. How does one do that? How does one have the audacity to rob from you and then show up at your doorstep all bright-eyed and bushy tailed? I noticed that this person is also following some of my friends.
Anyway, I sent her email asking her to remove it from her blog at once. I heard from her 2 days later, and this was the apology I received:
"Done! I can explain why I did it but I'm sure you don't want to know :-). I am sorry. I really am."
A smiley! She apologizes with a smiley! In two sentences, she summed up her character and integrity (or lack thereof). I did not even bother to reply.
The funny thing is that she did not even understand what she was plagiarizing! It was a piece I had put up on my poetry blog, sometime in June 2007. It's about a brief encounter between two strangers who can never be together. About intense feelings that dissipate as soon as they take root, but the memories of which linger on forever. Now this female posted it on her blog as a tribute to her relationship with her husband! I actually had a bit of laugh there when I realized what she had done.
I actually wasn't planning to write about this because it seemed too petty. Yesterday however, I noticed a similar thing on someone else's blog. I think since this is an issue that concerns most of us, I should say something. I'm not going to publish her name and url here, because I believe people should be given one chance. She was probably naive and stupid and hopefully, she will not do it again. But many questions arise with incidents such as this and I really wonder what we can do to prevent them.
We can boldly display all the copyright warnings we like, but that never stopped anybody from doing what they want to do. I'm wondering if it's a good idea to keep stuff online for too long. I'm actually thinking of deleting my posts a couple of days after publishing them online. I know that people can still copy, after all it takes only a few seconds to do it. But at least, the chances of more people doing it are reduced. Of course, this won't help much with things like Google Reader around, which sends what you've written to somebody's inbox FOREVER!
So, what then? Any suggestions? Apart from not blogging at all, because that is something I have seriously considered. Maybe every time I have the urge to write something really good (or what I think is really good) I should just save it to my hard drive, take some printouts, send to agents and publishers, and then sit back and wait for the rejections to pour in!
3 comments:
Do not take down your posts...once it's written, with dates, it's yours. If you take down your posts, then you have no proof that you'd published online.
Sometime ago, a journalist copied a blogger 'wholesale' [as we'd say]...boy, that sure made the news.
People are barefaced, they think that once it's on the Internet, it's an open licence to steal.
Read up more on the international copyright laws to protect yourself.
Thank you GG, that is some good advice.
Btw, "wholesale" is a word we say a lot here too :-)
How about not bothering too much with it?
Let me explain, I hate plagiarism. And more so, I hate that people pretend to be so naive or ignorant about it. But if we left that aside for a moment, I pity and feel sorry for those who need to copy, especially from such emotional blog posts. It shows their poverty of expression.
Imagine, they cant even express their own emotions in their own words! Id normally point it to them and demand credit... but probably not ask them to delete. And certainly not delete my own!!
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