Unfounded Accusations in Blogging are Harmful
A few short days after I read the Blog-Op article about the fact that Mud Sticks-Content Theft Or Not, I witnessed an exchange on a forum I recently joined where one blog author accused another of image theft.
These types of accusations, true or false, damage both the reputations of the accuser and the accused. I read the exchange of the former and the one-sided accusations of the latter and I find that the accusations are unfounded in both cases. Neither of the accusers appeared to ask anything of the accused before making the accusations. They made assumptions that the accused parties were guilty before getting the facts.
Many blog authors use images from other sources. Some don't realize that the images in question are not to be used anywhere else. Usually, attribution of the source and/or linking to the source is all that is required to satisfy the holder of the copyright. The worst case scenario involves removing images at the copyright holder's request. Sometimes it's not that easy. Due to the increased number of legitimate image sharing sites, a blog author may obtain an image from a source that was not authorized to possess it. This is the point where open lines of communication should occur before accusations are made or legal action is taken.
I was accused of copyright infringement when I published a copy of a web comic in Lesbians!. The author's name and website were not visible in the image that I found via StumbleUpon. I made the mistake of not stating where I found it and the author/artist found it and thought I had taken it from his website. After a few email messages were exchanged, he understood and only asked that I link to his website, which I did willingly and without any thoughts of malice. He's been back to my blog many times because of the referrals coming from my blog.
Out of curiosity, I did a Google search for the title of my recent article, The Power of Positive Thinking. I was shocked to find other articles with titles almost exactly the same. Although I never saw those before I wrote my article, I can see how someone might think I was plagiarizing or infringing on their content copyrights. This is the case of the first accusation I mentioned above. When millions of active blog authors (yes, millions) are continuously writing new articles, it's only a matter of time before one author writes an article that is very similar to one that has already been written. Coincidence does not equal causality.
The effect of the accusations is that many readers will no longer trust the writings of either the accusers or the accused parties. It's better, much better, to collect your facts and keep the mud-slinging away from the public until all other recourses are exhausted.
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This is where I see disclaimers, in EVERY post, come in handy
I hear you. I even worry about some of the stuff people send me. I haven't a clue where most of it comes from, but jokes and goofy pictures travel at light-speed through cyberspace. I do see your point here though. It would be a shame to have to do a disclaimer in every post, but it might just save folks some headaches. Have a great day RT.
I usually do add a comment at the bottom of a post that either contains a joke or interesting photo that I don't know the source of, asking the "author" to contact me if they find their stuff so that I can cite them (links links links).
Comments/disclaimers at the bottom of posts where the source is not easily identified is probably a good practice. I can't see doing it for EVERY post, just those where you don't know where it came from. I think posting jokes from an inbox are not worth worrying about though.
It's usually easy to distinguish between a real content thief and somebody who misguidedly uses an odd copyright image or two.
I also agree that occasionally two bloggers will have exactly the same idea, but it's very, very odd if two writers use the exact same sequence of words or phrases. If that happens there's a high probability of content theft…
I agree. That would be incredibly rare.
Amen.
The accuser referred to in my post is still visiting and splitting hairs in the comments, but has yet to come up with anything new, and indeed, is actually back-tracking on a few issues.
It's a fact that there's nothing new in the blogging world, and more than once I've seen a post by another blogger that's remarkably similar to one of mine – but then, just as often I've posted something that has proven to be similar to something already posted by someone else, that I had never seen before.
Therefore, unless it's outright copying of actual text or original images you just have to get on with it. You cannot make accusations in a public arena like a blog without solid proof.