Columbus Ohio real estate

I have found plagiarized versions of my blogs and even my website.  They even had my name on their site, must have used CTRL+A and forgot to De-Griffith it.  Idiots.

An agent in my area copied one of the pages off of my web site.  My topic headings and all of my links, every single word.  I can't tell you how upsetting it was.  I had worked for hours not just compiling the information, but also thinking of the content to begin with.  It is a terrible feeling, shame on people.

---Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery . . unless you have a case in court and you and them have the money for a long trial

Normally the ones the steal do so, because they lack the imagination to create a vision for their own selves

That means they are broke most of the time!

MM,

Sad but very true.. Happens all the time and it will never go away.

It`s part of blogging, i guess...

This kid was not blogging... he was standing up in front of his world (his parents, his peer's, their  parent's) and giving a speech (much more stressful for me than blogging) and saying something meaningful. 

From the Columbus Dispatch article..  about why the brightest kid in the class would do it:  

"Donald McCabe, a professor of management and global business at Rutgers University, has studied cheating at the college and high-school level for nearly 20 years. He said students in Acosta's situation often feel rushed or overwhelmed and turn to plagiarism as an escape route.

"A lot of students don't understand where to draw the line," McCabe said."

I am not related to Donald McCabe. 

I was plagiarized by another local real estate agent on his blog on Realtor.com   He left a link in that created a trackback to my blog, the post which he had copied.  He was blogging here, 8 or so plagiarized posts, Realtor.com, a WordPress blog, a Real Living blog (one of his plagiarized posts there was a featured entry. I have not paid attention to if he is still posting matterial to a blog.

thanks for the comment

What a way to learn a lesson. Too bad he wasn't smart enough to know it was worng before he gave the speech!

This is very sad for a valedictorian of all things.  I rememeber my class valedictorian and saluditorian and the person behind them who spoke.  I don't remember a bit of what they said because I was just anxious to get the darn ceremony over with, get my diploma, and get the heck out of there and put that horrible chapter of my life behind me for good (go figure, I enjoyed my last reunion and am looking forward to the next one, 20 years changes you I guess.)

I remember the one girl thanking her mother for "strength" and something about her father...and I just sat there saying "Come on, get on with it, get on with it..."

LOL

[[SIGH]] On and on and on it goes! A plague of plagiarism!

Maureen, I still don't understand how it's done: there is a title for something else, but the short description is from my post. I just had that yesterday on my Google allerts.

Maureen, I wish there was a answer here. After reading this blog, I spoke with my son about this young man who copy the speech.

Monika... Even smart teenagers do dumb things impulsively huh? After four years of hard work.

He's in esteemed company, some who have plagiarized or others accused of plagiarism include: Stephen Ambrose, Doris Kearns Goodwin, H.G. Wells, Joe Biden, Colin Powell, Dan Brown  and William Shakespeare according to  FamousePlagiarists.com

Faina "there is a title for something else, but the short description is from my post. I just had that yesterday on my Google allerts." through RSS?  Some of that can be considered syndication and some are splogs with plagiarized material.

Karen I don't remember speeches from my high school or college graduations too bad there is no Youtube... now that would be fun to reconnect with old classmates if anyone had old videos, movies to share stuff like that via Youtube.  Thanks all for the comments.

Maureen,

With the invention of the internet, thanks Al, information is so free flowing the likelyhood that people would do it increases over the time that I went to school and I am sure that it may have happened then.  Teachers encourage the use of the web so what would one expect?  NO I AN NOT CONDONING THIS ACTION IT IS JUST AN OBSERVATION.

Thank you for this post and showing us what happens because of it.

Don R.

School districts can use the internet to find the plagiarism too... It's got to be much easier to do now but even more so to uncover because of the internet. 

I wonder how they did in the past. 

I remember in a class my first semester of college,a research paper in political science someone plagiarized.   I remember the professor ranting about it and saying it WAS not some freshman that failed to "op cit" or "ibid" that this was a paper that was totally copied...  thanks for the comment Don

I'm sure it was much more difficult to track  "back in the day" and I'd suspect it was more difficult to get away with it if the teacher had been around a while - one who had opportunity to read vast amounts of stuff...LOL...of course that's assuming the teacher was really dedicated to his subject and not just there in order to collect pension in a few years or to coach the football team...LOL

I took plagiarism very seriously - I never wanted to be in trouble, for one thing - and I certainly did not want to be humiliated.  I don't recall any time in my high school days that anyone I knew was caught plagiarizing.  (That's not to say nobody DID it, just that I never heard about anyone getting caught.)

I wonder when we learned about plagiarism in school and if the internet has moved that up for kids today... or maybe we really learned about it from watching shows like "Leave it to Beaver" with some hapless Eddie Haskell like character plagiarizing a report.... for school...

Interesting points, I am interested to hear this conversation in 10 years. The eight year olds in my neighborhood are very tech saavy, most have their own laptops and "communities" in webkins and other sites. So what does this have to do with plagiarism?

What is the intent?. The words "cheat codes" (for video games) Share, open source,   community, link. imbed...all promote sharing and finding a way to "not reinvent the wheel". Now I understand the difference between sharing and claiming as your own. Will there be a big diffence in the next generation? Will there "community" just "share".

I agree it is bad, stifles creativity in a lot of ways, but a lot of these kids think it enables creativity by adding on to someone elses work. Some of them are downright lazy.

I am probably off base, but I find this interesting.

I would not expect AR to policy all of the posts and comments to review for plagiarism. Copyright your writing and when you identify infringement notify the website owner. In most cases it is as simple as a email.

There are no short cuts to success those that do not have original thoughts or do not take the time to produce quality work will never succeed no matter how many story they plagiarize.

Take your pick:

"What goes around comes around."

or

"Cheaters never win, and winners never cheat."

Thanks Scott.  ... A lot of the discussions about "copyright" on ActiveRain are pretty black and white and moralistic. Many of us are older than dirt and don't want to learn about things like creative commons license...

We don't want to share.  Sharing.  Some would rather deface photos with an ugly watermark than have our photos appear on a splog, somewhere.  Sometimes the remedy is worse than the illness.   If your blog has a whole series of photos with an ugly watermark that screams:

"Mine! Mine! All Mine!!!" and people are seeing the watermark more than the photo... what have you gained?  

The internet has changed things.

What if the Cville Valedictorian had attributed the sentences in his speech to the original  valedictorian whose speech it was?  Reading it over ahead of time the principal might have made a recommendation that the 2008 valedictorian add more of his own "stuff" but sharing someone else's good stuff (and attributing it toi them ) is collaboration, which can be a good thing...

Maureen - I know this might sound strange:  But I would love it if someone took and ran with one of my posts.  The most sincere form of a compliment.

I understand all of the implications.  And yet, the truth is, if it is not worth copying.....

The Internet is a big and strange world.  However, if you really believe that it cannot be governed, do not kid yourself.  China, for one, has placed such harsh restrictions on the system that the government knows EVERY site you visit.

We do not want that over here.  And as with everything, there is a price.  Thieves are everywhere.

Douglas I guess I missed your comment... have you been flattered yet with someone stealing your content? There was a site that was stealing my content recently but it looks like someone shut it down. 

Quote:  But I would love it if someone took and ran with one of my posts. The most sincere form of a compliment.

Yep, especially if they were doing it to make money off of your work and not even give you credit for it...

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I never answered your question about remembering Valedictorians/speeches.

I remember who the Valedictorian and Saludatorian (sp?) from my high school graduation.  I do not remember anything that the Valedictorian said, but I can hear the saludatorian saying "From my mother, I learned..." and that's all.  I just wanted to be OUT of there.  I hated high school and couldn't wait to shake the dust off my feet and move on.

I remember turning in our caps and gowns.. afterward.... I remember the dress I wore under the gown.  I don't remember any speeches ...