To The Copypasta Brigade
Fresh when it gets here from
Julie Barrett
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
You know who you are. You come from the left, the right, from the middle. You have a point to make, and you don't care how you make it. The important thing is that you make it. You find an article or blog post that expresses your opinion perfectly. So what do you do? You copy the entire thing and paste it to a forum thread or comment thread to a news article or blog post. What's wrong with that? It's your opinion.
No, it isn't.
You've copied someone else's work wholesale and pasted it elsewhere without attribution. You may think it doesn't harm anyone, but think again. This is who you've harmed: - The author of the work. If you've copied that from a commercial web site, chances are pretty good the author was paid something to write that piece. Or, they may be getting paid per click or through ad revenue on the page. You are directly depriving them of income now. You may be depriving them of income in the future because by stealing their content you're depriving the site of traffic.
- The site where you posted the work. Perhaps you've noticed that a lot of sites are going dark over pending anti-piracy legislation. As the legislation stands, the entire web site can be taken down because of your stupidity. You probably don't care as you got your point across.
- You. If someone like me with decent Google-fu skills can find your deception in just a few seconds, it won't take the average person but under a minute to find you out. You've lost credibility. You can be branded as a plagiarist at worst. At best you'll lose credibility on whatever site you posted the screed as your own. Of course, you may not care. I can't help you there. But don't be surprised if people report your post(s) as plagiarized. Sure, if you get kicked off you'll just get a new ID and post again. I hope you'll get bored and go away. But if you want to post that stuff, I won't engage you. I'll just report and move on.
On the very off chance that I've shamed you into reforming your copypasta ways, here are a few tips that will help: - Always refer back to the source. Credit them. The URL is in your address bar. Copypasta that. Mention the author's name. If you shorten the URL (or the site you're pasting the link to does it for you), mention the web site's name.
- Consider posting just a paragraph at most. The link you provide will allow the curious to go read for themselves. There's also something called "Fair Use." You're less likely to get called out (or in trouble) for posting an excerpt and a link. You're also driving traffic back to the originator, which goes back to the very first bullet point on this page.
- Use your own words. Along with the link and short excerpt, provide your own commentary. If you think the article speaks for you, without further comment, then say that. At least people know you're trying to do the right thing, which will help your credibility.
If you are part of the copypasta brigade, please consider using these basic courtesies. Your fellow forumites and commenters will thank you. So will the sites you frequent.
Filed under: copypasta
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