The internet age has led to a generation with no concept of the word “plagiarize”. The frontier of blogging with its cutting-and-pasting and block quoting has led to more than one blogger (even yours truly) straying over the line of copyright and “Fair Use” law. Generally speaking, a three-to-four paragraph excerpt is about all you can excerpt.
However, there are those who think an RSS news feed is spigot from which content flows, free to be bottled, labeled, and sold by anyone at the tap. I’m singling out WeedTimes.com merely because I found it through trackbacks on my Prop 19 posts, not that it is the sole or most egregious offender. I’m not upset that my written work is being plagiarized so much as someone that is not me is making ad revenue from it.
I left them this comment:
Hey, I love people getting my writing out to more readers.
I love it even more when I’m cited for it. ”Midnight Toker” didn’t write this article, I did.
Considering you’re making ad revenue from The Attitude Seed Bank and Google Ad Words, this amounts to stealing from me and from NORML. Good thing for you we concentrate on litigating against prohibitionists and not web sites that flagrantly plagiarize.
However, considering that your entire site’s content seems to be posts lifted directly from NORML blogs, maybe we should. At least you could donate your ad revenue to NORML, since we’re the ones actually bringing it in.
Hey “Bud,”
Plagiarism is plagiarism. Either become a better writer with proper paraphrasing or original content, or give credit where credit is due. Russ writes long, well-thought-out posts, and this takes lots of mental effort and time.
Your paltry attempts to justify your stealing (and that is exactly what it is) is just bullshit. Get a proper education, or–if you already have one–stop being a lazy fuck and use it.
Russ is being far more lenient than he has to be. He could certainly pitch a bitch.
C’mon guy, he’s even saying you can keep whatever money you generate from lifting NORML articles.
You could at least give credit where credit’s due, instead of trying to let your readers think the words are yours.
Would a byline be so bad?
@Bud Green: “There’s no such thing as bad press: NORML should be dancing in the streets anytime one of its press releases gets picked up and distributed to a wider readership. That’s free publicity, my friends, not something to sneeze at or snipe about.”
While that may be true, there is NO press when you don’t mention that the article was originally an article from NORML. If you don’t mention the post’s original source how can that equal “free publicity”?
Like I said, I don’t even care that much about the ad revenue as it is probably only covering the cost of web hosting. I just want NORML and my name on it.
The lawsuit against NORML, at least to my understanding, was over a link to the article in question. Something I had no idea whatsoever was even illegal. The internet is one big confusing gray area legally. From my understanding it seems that the gripe is not so much with the uncredited reproduction of content. It’s the fact that they are using that content to generate ad revenue. Revenue that, presumably, is not going to NORML or the Yes on Prop 19 efforts. It really isn’t too hard to re-write and re-word something to make it original and avoid this whole issue. It’s even easier write “Written originally by Russ Belville, NORML Outreach Coordinator” with a link to the Stash Blog. This really seems less a case of improper citation or an overly long excerpt and more like just blatant plagiarism. No effort was made to even suggest that the poster was not the original author. It sure seems like that is intentional. Especially considering Russ’s post pointing out that he was the original author has been deleted and there is still no credit given to him or NORML.
But, in the end, you’re right. I feel it’s fair game to call these folks out on that and ask for a donation since Russ “donated” his writing to their blog; but I would really hate to see it go any further than that. In the end it is a pro-pot site promoting prop 19. Considering the resistance we’re getting to prop 19 from elements within the cannabis community, that’s something that’s far more important than a gripe over plagiarism in my opinion. If weedtimes.com won’t step up and give credit where it’s due and pass on the profit to help get prop 19 passed, then I hope NORML will be the more mature party and let it slide. Which I’m sure they will. Both NORML and weedtimes are fighting for prop 19. That’s where our energy needs to be. Too much in-fighting is not worth our time, money and energy.
Before more stoners start casting stones at their fellow pot bloggers, let’s all take a deep breath. Let’s also remember that NORML just got bitch-slapped in Las Vegas for lifting content from one of the local rags, er, newspapers. That was a bogus lawsuit, which NORML settled for a pittance instead of arguing the case on its merits. Is it possible we’re feeling a tad defensive today? A little pissed that other blogs don’t get the same harsh treatment? Perfectly understandable. I feel your pain.
But…
WeedTimes.com is merely one of countless pot-themed websites out there, many of which excerpt content from mainstream news sources. I run another one at CalPotNews.com. Cannabis is an important subject, and its presence on the Internet is growing by the day. Beyond the pot bloggers, there are mainstream news sources that ask you, even beg you, to share their stuff on Facebook and Twitter. Everybody’s fighting for web hits, but finding the fresh content to do that is problematic.
So now we come back to the concept of fairness and the narrower legal concept of “fair use.” I’ll frame the issue using one of the key points from the guidelines suggested by the Copyright Office: “The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work.” Should all hell break loose and someone manages to prove that your web post violates their notion of fair use, they still have to prove that your web post somehow harms their news product and/or reduces its value. And they’re going to have one hell of a time doing that, in my opinion. That’s why copyright lawsuits in the blogosphere are so rare, except in Nevada, apparently.
Excerpt vs. whole post: The three- or four-graph conventional wisdom isn’t necessarily enough to keep you out of trouble. It does, however, necessarily rob the reader of the context of the original article. While news outlets would simply love you to act as “teasers” for their content, pushing traffic to their site, bloggers have a responsibility to their readers to provide complete, understandable content. I’m here to serve my readers, and I can do so without doing a disservice to readers of the original post.
Gimme your ad revenues: So there are some link trolls out there. Deal with it. Newspapers should too. We’re not fighting for mouse clicks, we’re building brands and audience. There’s a synergy at work here, not competition. I’ve made a couple hundred bucks in nine months. So you want to sue me?
There’s no such thing as bad press: NORML should be dancing in the streets anytime one of its press releases gets picked up and distributed to a wider readership. That’s free publicity, my friends, not something to sneeze at or snipe about.
BTW, I was just kidding, I don’t want you to sue me. But if you do, I’m not gonna settle without a fight. There’s nothing fair about being dinged for violating “fair use” guidelines that provide no guidance at all.
Every article this MidNite Toker has written first came from NORML plus ALL the graphics he/she uses. After clicking on his/hwr name and looking at a few of these, only one even has
Medical Cannabis Dispensaries Are Coming to The Nation’s Capitol
[Editor's note: This post is excerpted from this week's forthcoming NORML weekly media advisory. To have NORML's media advisories delivered straight to your in-box, sign up for NORML's free e-zine here.]
someone needs to call WeedTimes’ advertisers and let them know they can cut out the middle man and get on the Stash direct ;)
They even stole the state of California graphic from you guys. Plus it says that there are no comments. Must be like the DFAF site where they edit out any posts they find inconvenient.
I went over to that site and it looks like the Norml site without the green banners. Yeah, I think Norml deserves at least a cut on the add revenues. It’s pretty flagrant. At least Russ should be given credit for his work before they take the money.