Ripoff is a rose by any other name
So, we’re had umpteen cases of newspapers picking up blog bits and pieces and using them without attribution, but don’t you find it annoying when blogs reprint the entire text of a piece without linking back or acknowledging the original source? You can be damn sure if they were reprinting a blog post, that a fuckoff flameware would start. But how about when newspaper articles are reprinted? Are newspapers supposed to somehow swallow it?
Case in point, the Soapbox Ireland blog. Why on earth does this blog exist? Who is reading it? Where is the honesty? Original. Reprinted post. It goes on and on and on. There’s a whole raft of newspapers that have had their articles stolen.
Reprinting the * entire text * of articles is wholly dishonest. It’s equivalent to sawing open the skulls of journos and scooping out their brain juice. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I’m kind of disappointed in planet Ireland blogging that this blog hasn’t been stamped on already? Is stealing the intellectual property of pieces okay when it’s the press? Even mere rags?
Flag the Blog on the top as Violation of the Terms of Service under Copyright! There is a button there and all!
DMCA complaints can only be lodged by copyright owners under the flag terms. I think it’s just a matter of time, Darran.
Thanks Alexia.
I have passed on the details. Good spot!
I don’t think it’s kosher for them to repost without attribution. There again, it appears to have no advertising and barely a blogroll so maybe it’s one of those post ironic payback things that someone threw up to give the meeja a taste of their own medicine until such time as they allowed people to comment on stories.