About.com and Blog Plagiarism

Carl Vancil, an About.com PC Support guide, has copied a story on Windows Validation from this website word by word without giving any credit. They haven’t replied to any of my emails as well.

Original Story on Digital Inspiration
Copied Content on About.com

Never expected this kind of a thing from a reputed website like About.com ? I don’t mind people linking to my blog or copying text from here but a link would be nice.

Michelle Meyers is pointing to a good comment on a Slashdot story on Blog Plagiarism

For a blogger to get copied without recognition, I can understand the anger. A newspaper stole their information! So what. The newspaper is dead. All a blogger has to do is mention who is quoted them (verbatim in some cases) and use it to build their following.

Mike Stall has a golden rule for bloggers and other online media:

If you copy somebody else’s blog entry verbatim, credit the original author and link back to the original post.

Guido Fawkes even conducted a Press Plagiarist of the Year contest. Stories that qualified for the award had to “be pinched from an original blog source, either verbatim or in essence, and no credit/payment given to the original source.”