Becky over at Becky’s Book Review has an interesting discussion going on about something that has happened to her recently:
What are the rights and wrongs of copying? Are there certain things it’s okay to take, to copy? Are there certain things that are off limits? How can you tell the difference? Suppose you’re a new blogger and you’re clueless. What are the rules here?
It seems that someone has been stealing her posts for the past couple of days and I’m talking about the ENTIRE post. Seriously? If you’re going to take the time to have a blog, why not write your own posts? Copying from someone else’s is not only lazy but unethical in my opinion. A lot of us in the blogosphere take a lot of pride in our sites and we love it when people quote or link to us. When we link to each other, we’re helping each other out by opening another line of traffic. However, if someone can read the article someplace else, why would they go to original site? If you like a particular post, link to it and send people there.
I also have to say that I like what Becky says about the various instances where copying seems to be expected – i.e. memes, challenges, quoting a line or two (but no more), linkage, and general promotion of authors and events. She makes a lot of good points in her article, so if you have the time, go over and check it out. If you do check it out, I’ll be interested in hearing what you think.
I do have one question though – how would you classify blogs? Are they personal journals and thus not considered in the same realm of published articles or magazines or would it depend on the content of the blog? I have seen some that are just there as a personal journal or to give family updates (I have one for my son); but what about those blogs that take the time to read, review, promote or offer some other kind of service free of charge? I’m talking about all of us book or movie blog reviewers or have blogs set up for a specific purpose. Are we still considered an online journal or are we more of a self published ezine? What are your thoughts?
I don’t know that it matters whether it’s a journal or ezine – you have copyright when you create your content. Here are two good articles on the topic.
If I write it and my signature is on it, I own it.
Wow – that is so unbelievable that someone would steal a whole post and pass it off as theirs. Infuriating!
Those are my feelings too Katiebabs!
I saw this on a spanish blog, a guy cloned the original blog and was demmanding the rights
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Sarah