Plagiarism: where do you draw the line?
@SpikeTheLobster (6403)
June 19, 2011 5:35am CST
Scarface2010 was asking about scraping blogs on another thread here at MyLot, but his question prompted me to ask you all what you'd think in this situation. Bear in mind it's completely hypothetical.
Imagine two people scrape your blog.
If you don't know what that means, it's when they use an automatic program to grab the first 20-30 words of your post, put it on their site and link to yours. They generally fill their page with ads and affiliate offers, basically using an excerpt of your content to get hits (and revenue) on their ads. It's plagiarism and illegal under the copyright laws.
So, back to the situation: two people have scraped your blog. One is a cheap site, obviously just going for clicks. The other is a blog aggregator run by someone famous (Godin, Kawasaki or someone similar).
Do you contact them both and demand removal or do you leave the second one for the extra traffic?
(My answer is that I contact them both - I'm annoying like that!)
4 people like this
6 responses
@celticeagle (166718)
• Boise, Idaho
19 Jun 11
I would wonder why they scraped my blog to begin with. I would do both also. I would want some answers. I guess I am alittle upset because I recently had some foreigner (I guess) do a internet scam on me. I knew it was and I reported it everywhere I could find to do so. Injustice is something I don't take kindly to.
1 person likes this
@celticeagle (166718)
• Boise, Idaho
19 Jun 11
I think that the best thing to do. Zero tolerance. One chance is more than they should get really.
1 person likes this
@classicalgeek (185)
• United States
7 Jul 11
In the U.S., there is what is called the "Fair Use" doctrine, which means you can quote a short excerpt for illustrative purposes. Twenty or thirty words out of one of my blog posts definitely counts as a short excerpt, and my own (mostly medical) blog itself contains abstracts of medical research. (Those abstracts are freely available on a governmental web site, as well--I am "curating" content specific to a particular topic, and then commenting on it.) Those kinds of uses are legal in the United States.
So it depends on the content, and the context. With a link back to your blog, it is not plagiarism, legally. With a short excerpt of your post, it is not copyright infringement, either. The reason I know this is because I have an intellectual property attorney on retainer and she has quadruple-checked this issue for me personally (that's why I pay her).
1 person likes this
@KrauseHome (36448)
• United States
20 Jun 11
Personally I feel that when someone wants to copy and use some of your work, or even a link that could end up being copied and used as their own, this is wrong. People should not be copying off of others work just to claim some money for their own. I have seen this from time to time with some of my stuff, even here in myLot and it can be quite annoying for sure. Hopefully something got done about this.
1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (160615)
• United States
19 Jun 11
First off, thanks for telling us what you would do. Many people pose questions but never share what they personally think or would do. I think I would be the type who would contact both, I am that way about a lot of other things. I do not think my blog would ever be scraped. Not enough interest.
1 person likes this
@SpikeTheLobster (6403)
•
19 Jun 11
You'd be surprised. I had a recent post scraped and it was the oddest choice: there was almost no useful content in it - it was more of a general "Hmm, think about this" thing. I reckon their bot just picked up on a keyword somewhere.
@hardworkinggurl (37063)
• United States
19 Jun 11
As flattering as it may sound, I don't believe I would be pleased. Though I realize that taking excerpts and posting my link allows them to perhaps lawfully do so, I personally would be upset if neither asked.
As you I would not care who the blogger/person is and would contact them, in fact I would annoy them so much, they would want to get rid of any traces of me. 
My reasoning would be firstly I would never scrap a blog as regardless if one had permission or not I feel we get into a sticky area of liability.
My reasoning would be firstly I would never scrap a blog as regardless if one had permission or not I feel we get into a sticky area of liability. 1 person likes this
@PointlessQuestions (15397)
• United States
20 Jun 11
I've never heard of scraping. That is a new term to me. I have heard of being an affiliate where you blog on stuff and you link to a successful we site. I'm not too knowledgeable on all that stuff. Guess I will need to study about this.
1 person likes this
