I wrote a blog post on Genea-Musings today titled "Book Review: Crash Course in Family History by Paul Larsen" - click on the title to read it. My blog carries a copyright notice, and this was my original work.When I checked in on Genealogy Wise tonight, I saw that John Rampton had copied about 80% of it, sans my introduction and the images, on his blog - at http://www.genealogywise.com/profiles/blogs/paul-larsen-recently-publishedCopying 12 paragraphs from my blog post to his own blog is much more than fair use...it is copyright infringement IMHO (but I'm not pretending to be an attorney).John didn't even attribute the 12 paragraphs to me - he passed it off as his own work. It wasn't.Blogging etiquette includes attributing work to its creator, copying two paragraphs or less, and referring the reader to the original work. The blogger can make his/her own comments about the original work - praise, criticism, sarcasm, etc., as his/her own contribution to the geneablogosphere.I commented on John's post that my wish is that he either remove the post completely or adhere to fair use guidelines.
Thank you, John, for removing most of your post and directing readers to my Genea-Musings blog post. I will comment there and provide al ink for people who can't be bothered cutting and pasting...
Sorry about that Randy... I thought that I attributed it to you. I have changed it to reflect your work! Thanks for letting me know where I stepped out of bounds!
Thanks for speaking up, Randy. I think that 'cut-n-paste' makes plagarism a little too easy any more. I don't think that people realize that anything written, even on the internet, is legally copyrighted to the author, whether there is a copyright notice posted or not. Another thing people don't realize is that cartoons are copyrighted, as are obituaries. There's so much to learn, I just hope people are open to following the rules.
Comments