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Chocolate Pancakes Recipe+The link for one of the stolen themes was wrong… here’s the “main site for the original theme](http://www.i-marco.nl/weblog/archive/2006/03/06/lush_for_wordpress created for Typo. The previous link was for the person who ported it to wordpress, but at this time the site is not coming up as it was.+
I was talking to a friend on the phone today about plagiarism. I wrote about “content thievery](http://nataliejost.com/content-thieves a few weeks ago, hoping to throw a hint out there to those thieves I know. I’ve seen plagiarism running “RAMPANT(Dennis Bullock)](http://www.google.com/search?q=%22dennis+bullock%22&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official online and I’ve even had teammates in college courses hand in their portion of a paper having copied 90% of it from internet sources, word for word. I’ve been frustrated about this, particularly because of the blantant theft of designs, articles, etc. without any regard for the original designer or author. When ever so gently confronting these people, I’ve been brushed off, lied to, and dismissed, and I’m tired of coddling them. I’m livid when a person claims no fault in a complete copy/paste violation.
“An honest conscience cannot borrow upon another’s labors and extend him no credit.”Now you might say, “Well, Natalie, is that really your business?” and YES it is my business, especially when I’ve been associated with you amidst your theft. When 90% of your blog content is stolen from other authors, and you introduce a new theme every other week, tooting your horn about the work you did in putting it together when I know you just stripped the credit line from the footer of “another designer’s(Lush Theme was copied and credit stripped)](http://www.i-marco.nl/weblog/archive/2006/03/06/lush_for_wordpress “hard work(Kyle has put too much work into this one for it to be ripped off too)](http://warpspire.com/hemingway, you’re no one I want to be associated with!
So for you who think you’re still in the right… take a look at something for me. Read this short “article on plagiarism](http://www.triviumpursuit.com/articles/plagiarism.htm. my friend sent me. Imagine for one moment that you might be wrong. Humble yourself for a second to try to see what you’re doing to these people you’ve stolen from.
“The world may see plagiarism as a small thing of no consequence. But we should see plagiarism for what it truly is “” thievery in the sight of God.”
Okay, I know some of you are following this and I have to say one thing… normally I’m not all vigilante about stuff, but since this guy was associated with me professionally and personally, and I know him… I could tell right away when an article of his was not his style, his tone, etc. So all I did was grab a key sentence and google it. Sure enough I’d find the original author. So now I’ve disassociated and I’ve left this public note just so other professionals out there know I’m not in his league.
As a side note, he has just recently (since this note posted Saturday) deleted all of the posts in question (interestingly that leaves a fairly skim blog). For this I’m glad. I’m glad that he’s finally seen the error and corrected it, even if it took this embarrassment to bring him to doing the right thing. I’m also glad for the original authors who can now reclaim ownership of their work.
All that said, this is to everyone: fine, go ahead and plagiarize if that’s your way. I’ll live and let live until you become connected to me somehow. Don’t let on that you know me and we’re cool. Like the kid at school that cheats on tests, I’ll be doing my thing over here and let you make your own mistakes, but don’t go telling people we’re pals because then they’ll think I’m a big cheat like you. GOT IT?
Plagiarism is rampant everywhere. I have a friend who is a high school teacher. When one of his students turns in a paper that looks suspiciously above his/her capabilities my friend will take a random phrase and pop it in google. Invariably the text will always come up in its entirety. He says he gets a couple of these for every composition assignment.
It drives me crazy I run accross it everywhere. In design, in content, in school assignments. I think we, as people who design and create content, must be diligent in pointing out these liars, cheaters and stealers when we run across them. It goes against my integrity to let something like this go unchallenged.
Thanks, Jeff. It’s good to hear that. I got the same response from a couple of the authors I notified. It was a second-to-last resort, but I emailed two authors about their stolen content and they were thankful. I know I would be, and I hope other bloggers will keep me posted if they find someone copying (stealing) from me.
You’re right about diligence, and I think prudence on both sides plays a part too… being wise and using discretion. This has been going on for months behind the scenes with subtle hints and polite suggestions to credit sources. Every effort should be made to take care of the infraction privately first, and then take it where it has to go when no other option is left.
We should all be making sure that we as a community are helping each other out. After all, when one thief succeeds, others will follow.
FYI: here’s a very good article that was copied. Jonathan Kranz is an author of quite a few marketing articles I’ve read, so I felt particularly obligated to help him out.
Great Post!
Mr. Simmons, publisher of Homeschooling Parent Magazine, sent me an issue that has a brief article entitled: “Plagarism: A Fancy Word for Cheating”. The article lists ways to detect it, and prevention ideas.
Maribel :)
A while ago I commented here stating that no one has “˜plagiarized’ my “˜Lush’ theme for Typo. Someone has ported it while retaining all credits. And mind you, porting Lush from Typo to WordPress is NOT a trivial job. Jeriko, who performed the port, has done an amazing job in porting it to WP AND supporting all questions WP users came up with. He brought Lush to a much bigger audience by creating the port, for which I’m grateful because I never found the time to port it myself.
So I hope this comment WILL be accepted unlike the previous one I posted because I think it’s important to have this issue rectified.
Marco, thank you for your comment. Your comment though actually has little to do with the issue at hand. The issue was not the porting of the theme, which I realize is 100% okay, and I apologize for not being more clear about that. The issue was that someone took that theme, stripped all credit and connections to you or the porter and proceeded to tell people about his “new design” he’d just completed, letting everyone believe it was his work. I’m sure THAT was not what you intended.
As for your other comment, I don’t remember ever seeing one and I’m not in the habit of removing comments. I’ve only done so with one person and that was for a very specific reason having to do with a personal attack against me. I’m sorry your comment didn’t get through for whatever reason because I could have cleared this up a long time ago.
Hi Natalie,
Ah I see. I guess the site / template you were referring to has changed already which made the whole thing confusing ;)
You’re right, people aren’t supposed to strip the credits from free themes. That’s a really lame thing to do. However, if it concerns a popular theme such as Lush, the person will make himself look like a fool anyway because most people will recognize the theme anyway.
I had people steal my entire personal site design several times. That’s where I get really angry. With the theme thing I just have a good laugh really.
LOL yeah he changes it every couple of weeks so it’s not as if he has a lot of credibility, but it still stinks when people take ownership of others’ work. Lush is a beautiful template and you’re great for making it free to the public!