I hate to give the unpleasant subject of plagiarism space in my blog. I’ve been a victim of it. Its not new to me, its been happening since my initial blogging days. At first, I ignored it (not knowing how to handle it) and later I decided to write to the people behind those stealing my content/images (whenever there was an email address or comment option) and all the time I gave them the ‘benefit of doubt’. They never removed the content/images nor did they acknowledge the receipt of my email or comment in spite of repeated messaging. They continued to resort to lifting more content and images. Repeat Offenders!
What is appalling is their audacity and ‘take it for granted’ attitude in taking this issue lightly as though its their birth right to do what they are doing. One most recent example of plagiarism – a reputed site like food.sify.com lifted an image from one of my posts without seeking permission and posted it in their home page. All I am asking is an attribution to the source and a polite email seeking permission and nothing more.
Now, what do you say when huge media giants like Yahoo! India resort to violation of copyrights by lifting content from blogs without seeking permission or attribution and publishing it on its portal? Recently, Yahoo! India launched a Malayalam Language Portal and copied content from a Malayalam food blog, Kariveppilla of Suryagayatri without her consent and published it on Yahoo’s Malayalam Portal. Read all about the details of the violation of copyrights by Yahoo! India. Its unfortunate that Yahoo! has resorted to publish lifted content provided by its vendors and silently remove the content without owning responsibility nor apologizing to the blogger.
In light of the above situation, we bloggers have come together to protest against this content theft. Hopefully Yahoo! will have the integrity to respect the work of others as it expects others to respect its work and apologize.
What happened to basic courtesy, decency and respect for other people’s efforts and work? All it takes is a keyboard to type out a few words seeking permission. Is that too much to ask?
