Plagiarism- It's What We Bloggers Truly Hate

Plagiat. Plagiarism. Infringement. Copy paste tanpa restu/keizinan tuan asal. Copy paste resepi, gambar bulat-bulat atau buang watermark dan letak dengan watermark sendiri, kononnya dia yang buat.

Semuanya perkataan yang tidak best. Oh tidak.

When this happens to us, we will ask ourselves "Why me?"

Of course, why you?

When I did my master's degree a few years back, I know that plagiarism was very wrong. Still is and always will be, in fact. However, at that time even though I dutifully put in the original source for every citations or quotes I took from, it still didn't dawn to me the magnitude of how important that step was. Now, having a humble and meagre blog of my own, I can see why every author, every blogger, every writer, gets mad or at least mutters in frustration when they found out their work have been 'molested' by other people.

How can we stop plagiarism? We can't. Not in the near future, anyway. Not when our people are still unethical where blogging is concerned, anyhow. I think most of us tend to forget other people's rights or 'hak', as we call it. We might get obstinate when we try to say, or do something that we consider as 'ours', let's say, voice our opinion. But we forget, what we say or do may hurt others, whether or not that was our intention. They forget. Our photos and recipes are our rights. How we say it or how we write it expresses our feelings, show our emotions, tells others who we are. We are the ones who spent back-breaking hours trying to find the right angle to get a good shot of the food we cooked. We are the ones who spent countless days writing, editing, uploading our posts into our blogs. It's just not right for other people to easily claim that photo or recipe as theirs. Please, show some respect people and at least put a credit or something.

I digress.

As I said, plagiarism is not a good thing, whether it's a form of hard copy or soft copy. Whether it's in the internet or outside of it. Be it from a book, a novel, a journal, a magazine, or even from trusty ol' Mr. Google. Copying and altering a content/photo/information, with or without any intention of getting anything out of it (ie. hobby, money, acknowlegement or praises from other people), without prior consent/acknowledgement from the owners, or the least a backlink to the original source, is a violation to the law, if not 'biadap' or 'kurang ajar' as we say it in Bahasa Melayu.

One way to check whether posts from our blogs have been violated in the aspects mentioned above is by using Copyscape.com. It's not effective in preventing plagiarism, but at least you'll be aware if your posts have been duplicated/copied by unethical folks. Another thing, it's wise to equip ourselves with some understandings of the Malaysia Cyber Laws.


P/S: This post is just a reminder, especially to yours truly. May we always remind ourselves and others of the right way, lest we'll be judged for our ignorant errors di akhirat nanti.

P/S 2: Entri ini 'ter'terbit hasil daripada post kak Along Roz@http://homekreation-recipes.blogspot.com. Post yang bertajuk "Kes Ciplak Yg Paling Teruk...!" and entri lama kak Nor@secubitgaramnor67.blogspot.com bertajuk "Tolong lah Hentikan".

P/S 3: To answer your question, yes, saya pun terkena gak macam ni. Tapi tak boleh nak buat apa, cuma boleh tarik nafas dalam-dalam dan buat dunno je. Huhuhu...