

When a newspaper “rips off” your blog, then taunts you about it…  - franze
http://iandennismiller.com/blog/2011/03/total-bummer-longislandpress-com-plagiarism-and-coverup/

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patio11
This is a career ender -- instantaneously -- if you do it to another print
publication. Somebody at the Washington Post lifted a few paragraphs of one
article from a newspaper you've never heard of in Arizona. Bam, lost her job
the same day it was brought to the ombudsman's attention.

However, if you just run a website, you are _not_ a journalist and the
unwritten rules do not apply. (This is one of the cultural reasons why
newspapers cannot conceive of getting out of the dead tree distribution
business, even if it is killing them -- that is the source of their power and
privilege, after all.)

~~~
eli
The conclusion I draw from these two examples is that the Washington Post is a
much more ethical company than the Long Island Press. I really, honestly
believe that if a Post reporter was caught lifting paragraphs from a blog the
repercussions would have been the same. Likewise if an LIP reporter lifted
paragraphs from another print publication.

~~~
rmc
I suspect they are more ethical because there are more consequences.

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impendia
You say that you don't really want anyone to get fired over this. It's a noble
attitude, and I admire it.

I am a college professor, and even though I observe at the end of each term
that some of my students have failed to learn anything, I don't really want
anyone to fail.

However, ...

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edanm
Reminds of of this case, which happened to famous CS blogger Scott Aaronson:

Australian actresses are plagiarizing my quantum mechanics lecture to sell
printers: <http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=277>

tl;dr of the article: Someone created an Australian commercial for a printer.
Two models are talking physics/CS to each other, and the tagline is "A more
intelligent model". The models' script is copied from one of Scott Aaronson's
lectures.

I think he ended up contacting them, and getting them to donate $5,000 to a CS
foundation (instead of sewing them for copyright violations).

~~~
cjtenny
Sounds like even without legal action, the case was /sewn/ shut!

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jarin
It strikes me as kind of strange that some newspapers have absolutely no
problem citing tweets as sources of information, but are too proud to admit
they got a fact from a blogger.

~~~
mahmud
Tweets imply immediacy, crowd witness, etc. While blogs imply longer writing,
research & fact-checking. Quoting a tweet is like quoting a dude in a crowd,
but a bloger is someone doing the same thing as you. No one ever got caught in
a public riot and wrote an essay about it on the spot, but they tweet about
it.

~~~
lurker17
There is no more research or fact-checking implied by a blog than by a series
of tweets. There is only longer writing.

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imgabe
I applaud you for pushing the English language forward with new words like
"kindof".

(I'm actually not being sarcastic. "Kind of" as a concept is one we use so
frequently it might as well have its own word)

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teilo
Yes, it is not a news-flash that the bulk of modern "journalists" are, for the
most part, low paid college grads who lack the ethical standards of journalism
in which their forebears prided themselves.

But there are still plenty of serious journalists out there. Thankfully, in
the Internet age, we can be choosy where we get our news.

~~~
ppereira
Regarding the ethical standards of earlier generations of journalists and
copying, see INS v AP, 248 U.S. 215 (1918) where INS rewrote large numbers of
news articles they acquired from AP through bribery and other means, without
attribution.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_News_Service_v._A...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_News_Service_v._Associated_Press)

This is the origin of the "hot news" idea of short-term copyright, balancing
the effort of the original writer with the public's need to know the news.

The linked scenario, however, is quite different.

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velane19
\- E-mailing de masse -

Tout comme vous je reçois chaque jour une bonne centaine d’E-mails
publicitaires. Cela ne me dérange pas trop outre mesure, et je ne fais pas
partie de ceux qui hurlent immédiatement au spam loin de la. Les éliminer me
prend tout au plus une minute car sur G-mail il y a un petit " carré " qui
marche très bien, mais parmi eux, il y en a certains qui m’intéressent quand
même , car ils proposent des produits ou des trucs et des bidules et autres
machins qui pourraient parfaitement figurer dans mon catalogue web ( c'est à
dire ma corbeille )..... <http://webboutiquevelane19.blogspot.com/>

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jshort
I see this sort of plagiarism occur all of the time, for all sources of media
and from different mediums. Very often without any sort of citation used for
the original source. I don't think providing a link is adequate at all times
either, as that one article that goes viral in a sense could be the one that
makes your blog gain that needed popularity for success. If everyone views
your work on another site your blog doesn't get all of those valuable hits.
All in all I don't know how this problem could be policed.

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kmfrk
For future references, here is a great resource for future plagiarism woes:
<http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/stopping-internet-plagiarism/>.

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ruethewhirled
Ahh it all make sense now. Lots of these news articles come from slashdot

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DaveChild
Plagiarism? Really? They didn't copy the text of the article, did they? They
wrote their own, based on the original source. That's hardly unusual. I'm not
even sure it's unethical. At most it warrants an attribution, but this witch-
hunt is way over the top.

~~~
ErrantX
Copying text (or close paraphrasing) == Copyright Problem

Using someone's ideas/text/research without attribution is plagiarism.

They are two different considerations, commonly confused. You can violate
copyright without plagiarising, and you can plagiarise without breaking
copyright.

It's an ethical consideration, certainly, unfortunately it is so persuasive
nowadays that no one does anything much but shrug and say "yep, aren't they
rude"

~~~
pzxc
You meant "pervasive", not "persuasive", didn't you?

~~~
ErrantX
Heh, yep :)

It's 5pm so not really concentrating ;)

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kosmonaut
For your own health and well-being, let it go and move on with your life. Your
energy could be best spent elsewhere.

~~~
burgerbrain
Your energy could be best spent doing something other than telling others how
to spend their energy.

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bradleyland
Kudos to Ian for his detective work, but it is not entirely inconceivable that
someone else wouldn't have done _exactly_ the same thing and -- surprise,
surprise -- reach _exactly_ the same conclusion. This seems like a bit of an
overreaction.

~~~
nollidge
The server logs he mentions at the end of the article are rather convincing
(if circumstantial) evidence.

~~~
jarin
It may not be admissible in a court of law, but it's key evidence in the court
of opinion!

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velane19
Bonjours, ce n'est pas un journal chinois pourtant car ils sont les maitres en
plagias et autre contrefaçons. Comme quoi les mauvaises habitudes se prennent
très vite. En france, on n'entant pas encore de pareilles plagias mais je
pense que cela ne devrai pas tarder hélas !!!

velane19

<http://webboutiquevelane19.blogspot.com/>

