Plagiarising blogs

Wired News reports that the several well connected blogs just lift material from lesser-known blogs and pass it off as their own without attribution. I think attribution is not just about good etiquette, its about honesty.

This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.

The most-read webloggers aren’t necessarily the ones with the most original ideas, say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs.

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs, the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers — and they often do so without attribution. [Amit Asaravala/Wired] I myself have noticed this happening and was considering blogging about it. It comes as little relief to know that this is part of a wider phenomenon.

So let me thank and appreciate all those bloggers who have carried material from The Acorn with due attribution.

I think the Creative Commons licensing framework (reproduced below) is a wonderful way to facilitate exchange of ideas, especially on the Internet. Let us keep to its spirit

Attribution 1.0 You are free:

to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work * to make derivative works * to make commercial use of the work

Under the following conditions: Attribution. You must give the original author credit.

For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. * Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the author.

Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above.

Update: Om Malik provides a link to the HP Lab’s study

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