[Edit@1331hrs: The author in Case Study 3 has edited his entry in a bid to inject a dosage of originality back into his blog. I consider this as a sporting gesture and I appreciate that. I’d like to also acknowledge angel for her kind support!] Perform a quick search on Google with keywords “impak maksima” and “yi nan wang”, chances are you’ll see Narrowband.org listed on the first page of the search results. My point is, these are among the top keywords that helped bring traffic to Narrowband.org lately. To many bloggers out there, traffic also means revenue. You know what I’m talking about?

Now, just so you know, I write my own contents. I construct my own sentences, I carefully choose my words and I come up with my own examples to illustrate my points. If I borrow some content from somewhere else, I acknowledge my source. Conversely, when someone uses my idea, words and examples without permission, I can get a little upset. Also, the fact that the contents are arranged in the same order as how I’ve written them irks me to no end. And I get particularly upset too if they use my contents to earn some income. I call them plagiarizers.

Let’s do Case Studies. You may click on my original entries and compare for yourself. In the following snapshots, I’ve circled (in red) the sentences that I feel are very similar to, if not exactly the same with mine.

Case 1
Originally on Narrowband.org: Spirit of Love - The Taiwanese Hokkien Series (Published on May 12th, 2007)

Reproduced entry: (Published on May 16th, 2007)

Plagiarized Yi Nan Wang | Narrowband.org

The author is a young, female blogger. I stumbled upon her blog by chance. As you can see, there is not a single indication that says she copied from my site. It was a CnP work, at that. Sarcasm got the better of me when I decided to leave her a comment, “Nice post! :)”. Actually I wasn’t mad at all - I was just trying to pull her leg. She does not have advertisements on her blog, so there was no big deal. That comment was deleted not long after, and in one of her later posts she apologized to me publicly (that, by the way, is the most honorable gesture any blogger under such circumstances could do). I actually felt bad and wondered if I’d scared the wits out of that poor girl. I left a comment to assure her that it was all good and I hope she’d learnt a lesson.

Case 2
Originally on Narrowband.org: Geng: Malaysia’s First 3D Animated Feature Film (Published on May 23rd, 2007)

Reproduced entry: (Published on May 23rd, 2007 - same day)

Plagiarized Geng | Narrowband.org

Waitaminute. “…viewers are able to portray a muhibba sort of diversity among the group…”? Doesn’t make sense, does it? It should be the characters that portray, not the viewers :). And there is no such thing as the Faculty of Creative Media in my university. It should be ‘Creative Multimedia’. Goes to show why you should always watch, read, listen, support and buy original! :D

That blog is maintained by a team of contributors. I actually left a comment in one of the earlier entries in that blog (on a totally unrelated subject), and my guess is that one of the authors backtracked and landed on my site on the same day. That person then decided to write about Geng the Movie, which was my latest entry at that time. I surveyed the site and found no advertisements, so I told myself not to get too upset about it. The site probably receives much lower traffic than mine does. Besides, the author was kind enough to provide a link to my site anyway (although the author didn’t exactly mention that those words were cited). I shrugged it off and smiled to myself, thinking, “At least somebody read and liked my writing.”

Case 3
Originally on Narrowband.org: Impak Maksima, for the Malaysian Drift Enthusiasts (Published on 15th April, 2007)

And then came the break. A third plagiarized entry, and it’s a monetized blog. I feel like I’m contributing towards his blogging income - no matter how little.

Reproduced entry: (Published on May 31st, 2007)

Plagiarized Impak Maksima | Narrowband.org

I’m not linking him up so as not to contribute to his backlinks. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of people writing about the same things all over the internet, and I’m not bothered. But when someone copies my work, I get upset. You shouldn’t copy someone else’s work and treat it as your own - especially if you’re using it for purposes of generating income, regardless of whether a permission has been granted or not.

I read with great interest the entire article in The Star’s InTech about blog advertisements (Tuesday, May 29th). I wonder if blog advertising companies (in particular, the top two Malaysian companies mentioned in Tuesday’s article) have a mechanism that detects non-original entries and probably warn (if all fails, blacklist, then!) bloggers not to plagiarize. A plagiarizer should not pocket the income he/she does not deserve.

*CnP: Copy and Paste

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