Ok, I have several pet peeves about blogging. This one is most definitely tied for first place.
Plagiarism! The most plagiarism I see around blogs is of recipes and craft projects.
I don’t understand how people can post a recipe from a cookbook or ANOTHER BLOGGER, and not realize they’re breaking copyright laws. Yeah, you can give credit (and most offenders I’ve seen do,) but that doesn’t make it RIGHT. Especially when it’s another blogger… why can’t you just link to their post? Instead, you take the time to copy and paste the entire recipe to your own blog post.
And just because you change one or two, or five items… that STILL doesn’t make the recipe YOURS. If you created it from start to finish, then it is yours.
Look at it this way — you wouldn’t publish a cookbook filled with recipes from other cookbooks and websites. You would get sued, and by blogging it — you’re opening yourself up for that.
Eventually, by posting recipes from your cookbook collection… you’re going to have entire cookbooks posted on your blog. If you were a cookbook author, you wouldn’t want your entire cookbook published on someone’s blog for the whole world to see.
So from now on, if you blog about what you made for dinner… instead of posting a recipe that isn’t yours… just mention where you got it and what you changed and your thoughts. I’m sick of seeing blog after blog of recipes that are not the author’s original work. For those of us who blog what is truly ours to share with others… it makes our efforts seem futile.
Wouldn’t you find it more satisfying to create and post about something that is truly yours? Take the risk to try to do something on your own, and write about it! I love to read about the successes and failures of others in their attempts of making a creation that is 100% their own. We can learn from each other!
Leave a comment on this post to pledge that you will not steal creative works of someone else for your own blog.
Now… I’ve made this button for bloggers who agree with me to put in their sidebar. Those of us who write original posts, recipes and tutorials need to stick together and stand up for this!
Here’s the code to link it in your sidebar. You can change the height and width in the image code to fit your sidebar, just keep them the same value.:
<a href=”http://www.whatmegmakes.com/?p=643″ target=”new”><img src=”http://www.whatmegmakes.com/ifitaint.jpg” alt=”Bloggers Against Plagiarism” height=”180″ width=”180″></img></a>
NOTE — This post in NO WAY points the finger at ANY blogs or bloggers. THAT IS NOT MY INTENTION. My intention is to MAKE OTHERS AWARE of plagiarism so they can right their wrongs.
Terri Says: