I post blogs almost daily, whether for this, my personal blog or for work. I often find material from online news articles or youtube or even other bloggers. I always give credit to the source, often even providing links and appreciate the ability this form of communication gives to highlighting the work of others.
Recently, I’ve had the experience of finding someone (or actually two someones as it has happened twice now) actually cribbing directly from one of my posts and putting it up as their own. They even included the sources I had researched, so it was clear it was not a generic piece, and of course being able to trace their link back via WordPress allowed me to discover what they had done in the first place.
Somewhat new to blog posting, I find this practice outrageous! I consider it “stealing” unless credit is given. I’m not opposed to linking, or even sharing the info, just credit the source. I’d love to hear if anyone can tell me the accepted practices in this blog world or show me links to anything that would help explain what’s the standard.
The following post doesn’t have the status of legal advice, but captures what I consider good practice:
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/copyright-law-12-dos-and-donts/
Most blogging seems to be done in the spirit of a Creative Commons license (http://creativecommons.org/), but readers shouldn’t assume that if it’s not explicit.
Putting the copyright symbol (or one of the Creative Commons licenses) in the blog footer might help — but won’t, of course, foil all abuses.
Thanks for raising the issue!
Thanks Nancy, very helpful information!
Here is how to add copyright symbol in HTML
copyright symbol
-sara