I don't know what got into me again to be blogging at this hour...
One thing I enjoy about reading others' blog is the book reviews, which explains this, this and this. But one thing I detest in blog is plagiarism, which seriously, I haven't known any till now. Apparently, a website has taken a book review from a blogger. Now, at this point, it is interesting to note that the former has indicated the source of the review by providing a link to the latter - author's online name included. In this case, where is the plagiarism, you ask? Well, I guess you may think that due credit has already been given to the writer, but on second thought, the writer was not being informed beforehand. Doesn't that amount to some sort of plagiarism? There simply can't be "adequate acknowledgment" without permission from the writer. In a way, you are denying the real-life existence of the writer; he or she don't exist - is just a name, any name. Furthermore, the website-owner does give out vouchers for reviews published, or at least they used to.
I know, I may be making a mountain out of a molehill, but to me, this incident highlights an ambiguous point about the web and blogging. It's easy to assume and believe there is "adequate acknowledgement" if we provide a link to the source, like those you see above. I could have been guilty of it in the past, so I ought to be more cautious myself.
Come to think of it, the writer of the review does not know about this entry, and that I've actually talked about her reply to comment I've left at her blog, although not word for word. Now, would that be plagiarism too?
1 comment:
Hey i just saw this post of yours LOL. You know, I actually never thought of this topic until I experienced it myself a while ago. I kinda surprised myself by feeling a bit uneasy when I knew they just took my review and posted it on their blog. I guess there are a couple of things here that made the line grey-ish: first and foremost, the NLB site contains primarily (if not only) book reviews. Means it's really all they have. If they don't come up with their own content and instead just go around picking bits and pieces from people's blogs (without their permission), is that ethical? I'm thinking it is okay if the site is personal and free website. But it's NLB, which again, I treat as commercial entity, and the HBO blog is highly advertised on their main website.
Something is just smelly to me but it's hard to pinpoint what is. Maybe I'm just a bit harsh on NLB. I'm not that much of a fan right now =b
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