It's hard to understand why someone would steal someone else's words, and then blatantly post them on their blog as though the words were their own. (That sentence was terrible grammatically. I did not plagiarize it. I wrote it that badly all on my own.)
Plagiarism is disgusting. It is a crime. It is a violation.
The stuff I write in my "real life", off this blog - stories and essays - things which are now circulating throughout the world to different magazines and publishers - That stuff is precious to me. I guard it with my life. It's MINE. I WROTE IT.
The Mighty Jimbo, one of the bloggers I love and read often, is being plagiarized in the most egregious way. The tale is very disturbing. There's another blogger out there who is lifting posts written by Jimbo, and lifting them wholesale onto his site. Even more disturbingly - Jimbo writes about his own life, personal stuff - about his feelings, about his perceptions of human relationships - and it is that very personal stuff that is being stolen right now by another. Jimbo doesn't write brief blurbs, like: "Great op-ed in the Washington Post! Check it out!" It's stuff about love, and women, and nature, and life.
Jimbo lists all of the stolen posts - side by side with his own posts.
Reading through them, I feel I am looking at ... the eye of evil or something. Word for word piracy.
I've written to the blogger in question, telling him or she or it to cease and desist.
Good luck, Jimbo.
Update: This issue has been resolved.
Posted by sheilaHi Sheila:
I looked at the original posts and the copied ones, and my first reaction was the (plagiarizing) guy is just a lamer kid. But as I looked more, I was reminded of Scott Peck's book "People of the Lie". Whoever said the devil's in the details was right - evil is basically laziness. Now I don't think this kid is going to make any Evil Top Ten Lists, but it's just a good example of how good people have the energy to do things right, while bad people are lazy, so they steal.
People of the Lie. Excellent reference.
I write about politics on my blog - and it's my opinions, yeah - but it's opinions that many people share. I don't look at those so much as little pieces of my identity. But stuff like my "Diary Friday" entries - or the stories I tell about my life - those are precious to me, and those are MINE. I would feel so - ikky - if someone tried to pass those off as their own - due to laziness and being unable to come up with a good idea on their own. Being unable to access their own experiences and tell it in a way that people would want to read.
Yuk.
Posted by: red at January 6, 2004 12:18 PMPlagiarizing kinda defeats the whole purpose of blogging doesn't it?
Val hit it on the head. The reason I love blogging so much is because it gives me a chance to express myself, even if it is just in my little tiny corner of the 'net. The key word there being "MYSELF". Why on Earth would you express SOMEONE ELSE? It's not just lazy, it's *weird*.
Posted by: Emily at January 6, 2004 12:57 PMVery weird. Also, how on earth could you think you wouldn't get caught? When information travels faster than the speed of light?
Posted by: red at January 6, 2004 01:01 PMthanks so much for the support red. it means a lot to me.
when i first found the site, i was upset because i thought he took my christmas poem, but i wasn't all that angry about that. but as i read his blog, i found he was taking my life experiences, word for word, my emotional outbursts, even stories i wrote about college and lost loves and claiming them as his own. frankly, i felt violated.
i don't want people harassing him, but i do want the site to come down. almost all his entries have been stolen from me, from jason royal, or from sarah brown.
it's really rather disgusting.
Posted by: the mighty jimbo at January 6, 2004 02:01 PMI didn't harass him, no worries! I just said, "Please stop plagiarizing." Pretty blunt. Have you heard back from this person at all?
Posted by: red at January 6, 2004 02:04 PMnot yet. i have heard from one of his friends who has said that "dave" does not have an in-home internet connection right now but he expects i will hear from him soon.
at this point it doesn't matter. legal representation has sent formal letters to his host citing his flagrant disregard to their own terms of use policy. at first i would have been happy with him deleting my entires, but now that i know that nearly the whole site is fabricated at the expense of myself and others i respect, i want the site removed.
i hold no ill will to "dave" if he contacts me. but there are consequences to this behavior. the first is that he has to deal with the public embarassment of his actions. the second is that he will have to deal with any legal ramifications.
i hope he learns a lesson. i hope he finds his own voice. the beauty of the blogging is that it gives all of us a chance to be heard in our own voices. i can't comprehend why he wouldn't want to use that voice.
Posted by: the mighty jimbo at January 6, 2004 02:14 PMMaybe he only has 21 words in his vocabulary or something like that. He wants to participate, but he ... has ... no ... words ... at his disposal.
It's hard for me to imagine anyone being so desperate as to steal my poor ramblings, but if for some reason they did it would no doubt be a very unpleasant feeling. Glad to hear it's being remediated.
Posted by: MikeR at January 6, 2004 03:14 PMfor reference, his site is now empty.
thanks sheila for all your support.
i owe you a drink next time i'm in nyc.
Posted by: the mighty jimbo at January 6, 2004 03:29 PMWow. That was fast. He got the message.
Posted by: red at January 6, 2004 03:34 PM