Comments on: An Apology to Our Readers and Our Peers

By: David Bell

David Bell — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:59:12 +0000

Enjoy reading your articles, this kind of post just gives me more confidence in your content. Thanks for letting us know. BTW, enjoyed reading that post – pity he didn’t credit the original.

By: keith bohanna

keith bohanna — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 07:04:34 +0000

Refreshing post, thank you.

keith

By: Brian Carnell

Brian Carnell — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:42:34 +0000

I guess Leah and Brandon are looking at a different version in their feed than I am. The one that appeared on WWD and then was deleted is clearly just a rewrite of the MakingUseOf post with new screenshots. Would it be actionable plagiarism? Probably not. Was it unethical? Absolutely.

By: Aibek

Aibek — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:07:58 +0000

Good call guys

By: Rich Pearson

Rich Pearson — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:28:15 +0000

@shmooth Attributor does provide an originality checking service for publishers that rely on UGC submissions or multiple authors within their network.

The other side of the business enables publishers to analyze where their content appears across the Internet and monetize either directly through licensing or indirectly through obtaining links and the downstream boost in search engine ranking. As a last resort, you can also send takedowns, removing the page entirely and/or from the search engine indices.

By: Dan Sargent

Dan Sargent — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:26:28 +0000

“Leah & Brandon might be right, but the ethical lapse is a lack of attribution. If it’s inspiration, it should be sourced. if the author linked ethically, the problem would reveal itself or be resolved.”

Exactly! In a former life (pre-entrepreneur), I was a member of the Dept. of Liberal Arts & International Studies at the Colorado School of Mines (http://lais.mines.edu/) and David is right on track with the ethics, and legality, of the issue.

Leah and Brandon et. al. will want to brush up on these issues ASAP, if they want to continue being independent contractors… Violating professional standards hurts not only your own career, but the companies who syndicate your work as well (and THEY are happy to blacklist you among all their contacts — say goodbye to more than just a reference, in that case).

Kudos to WWD & GigaOm on making a clean admission, and a clean break from the writer.

And yes, the Net would be a much better place if such professionalism were the norm, rather than the exception…

By: Aardvark

Aardvark — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:01:50 +0000

If all bloggers were held to these standards we’d have . . . very few bloggers.

By: shmooth

shmooth — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:01:50 +0000

yep – lifted.

By: shmooth

shmooth — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:56:07 +0000

well, here’s to hoping the original pops up in my feed reader.

in the future, will feed readers have an Outlook-like ‘unsend’ button? and then you’d get a big, fat ‘DELETED’ message in your feed. sweet! :D

back to attribution and all that – what the heck happened with all that? wasn’t attributor and some other companies actually supposed to do something about this? dang.

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:02:19 +0000

Good call guys!

Great to see a response like this… nothing more frustrating then seeing your work ripped off

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:11:30 +0000

As a full time blogger, I have to second Tris’ comment. Well handled… sad that it happened, but well handled. The lesson for other writers that may be new to the scene: err on the side of caution, attribute appropriately and if you even question if you should or shouldn’t be doing something, that tells you that you probably shouldn’t be doing it. When in doubt, either go with your gut or go to your editor.

By: Tris Hussey

Tris Hussey — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:40:17 +0000

As one who makes his living blogging, and helping other bloggers be successful at writing, I applaud you doing this. It takes guts to stand up and admit fault.

Yes, attribution, props, even co-byline should all have been done.

It doesn’t pass in high school, it doesn’t pass here and now.

By: Damian

Damian — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:55:52 +0000

I agree with David, if he had come accross the article on MakeUseOf, and was inspired by it, s/he should have, and would have linked to it as the source or found via, but the fact s/he failed to do so clearly indicates it was an attempt at plagurism.

By: David Harper

David Harper — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:23:20 +0000

Leah & Brandon might be right, but the ethical lapse is a lack of attribution. If it’s inspiration, it should be sourced. if the author linked ethically, the problem would reveal itself or be resolved.

By: Jeffrey McManus

Jeffrey McManus — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:58:08 +0000

Professional writers understand that it doesn’t have to be a word-for-word copy to be plagiarism.

It’s very clear that the writer lifted the story idea and most of the legwork from the MakeUseOf site and did a light rewrite to make it appear to be original work. In a world in which all a publication really has is its credibility, showing him the door was a good call.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:51:46 +0000

Yeah I just took a look at the two posts. “Lifted” would be an unreasonably strong way to describe the post. Probably inspired, but definitely not plagiarized.