Comments on: Is blog plagiarism now just customary?

Question: Is blog plagiarism now just customary?

tula — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 14:14:10 -0800

Can or should I bother to bust a blogspot blogger for blatant plagiarism?

I found a old blog entry where some dope posted an entire David Sedaris story as her own, changing so few words--the title of the story (the youth in asia) is the same for chrissake! Can anything be done? Stealing creative works rankles me. I'm unfamiliar with blogspot, and blogging in general. Is there such a thing as a cross-site pile-on? Or is this kind of thing so common that I should just get over myself and go take a walk?

By: meerkatty

meerkatty — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 14:22:12 -0800

Yeah, that's not cool. Quickest way to get someone's attention would be to email the permissions dept at Time Warner (who owns Little, Brown & Co, who publishes Sedaris).

If she is reprinting the story and crediting Sedaris, although this is against copyright law, I'd let it slide. But actually taking credit for it? I'd want someone to call it out if I was the author.

By: tula

tula — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 14:39:09 -0800

No credit is given to Sedaris, and she's added some personal info to mask the story as her own. The blogger is just 23, but she says she's a professional writer (of sitcoms, but still...) in the UK, so I really wanna smack this down so she gets the message.

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 14:52:13 -0800

Link it here, we can have at her and then send her this link.

By: jayder

jayder — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 15:08:31 -0800

I don't know, it seems kind of pointless and mean to try to get her in trouble. Plus, it may be a misunderstanding on your part. Are you sure she's passing it off as her own work?

By: fshgrl

fshgrl — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 15:08:33 -0800

David Sedaris is pretty famous so I imagine karma will take care of this one for you. Especially if she really is a professional writer.

By: LarryC

LarryC — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 15:16:04 -0800

...or maybe someone on MetaFilter is so bored they will track down the blog and post the address here.

http://humananimals.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_humananimals_archive.html

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 15:25:10 -0800

At the very least you should post something in the comments so that people reading it are aware. Blogspot has got to have an abuse desk of some form, which would be good to get in contact with.

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 15:30:04 -0800

Hahaha, the comments on that blog entry are hilarious. At the top there are a couple of genuine responses, then a whole buttload of comment-spam hawking completely irrelevant sites, and then the callouts (presumably from this thread) begin.

By: MegoSteve

MegoSteve — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 15:50:14 -0800

Oh, come on. I can understand being annoyed by the plagiarism, and maybe outraged if she won an award for it, or got a lot of traffic for it, or somehow was recognized by a lot of people for excellence in writing, but it's a two year old post on an obscure blog that probably gets a hundred hits a day TOPS, most of which come from its dozen or two contributors.

The most it deserves is a callout on the blog itself.

By: drstein

drstein — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 15:55:01 -0800

It appears that the blog callout has happened. There are several comments on the entry now.

Let's see if she does the right thing!

By: tula

tula — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 16:07:10 -0800

jarder, she's lifted entire paragraphs, and that's what's mean. I don't have a link to text of the original Sedaris story, but I you can listen him read it from the TAL site, show 154, March 10th, 2000. It's published in Me Talk Pretty One Day, and like hers, called "The Youth in Asia".

On preview, thanks for the assistance. Go AskMeFi justice squad!

By: katieinshoes

katieinshoes — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 17:11:52 -0800

On the archive page, there's a (strangely animated) "Guidelines" list in the sidebar. It not only specifically forbids plagiarism but also requires contributors to openly correct their mistakes. Underneath that part are email links for the blog's two admins. Has anyone alerted them yet?

By: tula

tula — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 18:11:59 -0800

Done, thanks katieinshoes, that's what I was looking for.

By: tula

tula — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 03:22:25 -0800

Update: the plagiarized story is removed, the 'writer' has been banned, and a letter of apology is posted. Ah, sweet justice!

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 03:55:57 -0800

Wow, the hand of justice was swift and righteous in this case.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 06:30:14 -0800

A happy ending! Now can someone show them "a better blog template that will show the contributor's name after each entry"?

By: tula

tula — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 09:12:17 -0800

Yeah, no kidding.

By: arcticwoman

arcticwoman — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 09:51:42 -0800

Nice to see a happy ending, but other than calling in the MeFi Justice Squad, what should a person do next time?

By: tula

tula — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 08:30:02 -0800

articwoman, just do what we did. Write and email to the admins, as kateinshoes suggested. In this case it went to the admins humananimal, not blogspot, and was backed up by a handful of comments. Easy.