Plagiarism, apologies and not a little irony
- January 23rd, 2009
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A few days ago I received an email telling me that I was showing the posts of another blog and not crediting them back to the author. Now, though I can find my way around and know a little bit about some of the intricacies of web pages I am certainly no wizard when it comes to the finer technical points of the Internet and how things work. When setting up the other site, and after asking around for some advice a friend set up a few feeds from sources I enjoyed. All seemed fine to me, but it now seems that this little gadget was actually adding the feed as posts to my blog and showing me as the author. There was a link back to the original post, but with my authorship being credited to the actual posting itself. All very confusing, and something that I really should have spotted.
Once I was aware of the issue I took the site down in its entirely, mainly because I couldn’t find a way of altering how these feeds were being posted and couldn’t stop it working! The absence of the person who had helped set it up left me with little room for manoeuvre, and I certainly didn’t want to upset the individual concerned any more than I already had. So the other site has now gone. What I find sad is that this whole incident, accidental though it was, has been played out on a public forum when the issue could have been dealt with quietly and privately – just as it was when someone was found (by someone else) to be taking some articles and photographs of mine from a site where they were being used with permission and were re-posting them to their own site – this time, not using some clever little widget gadget but personally and deliberately. It does seem sad when folk jump to sinister conclusions, especially when a quiet word would have had the same effect, but such modern is life I suppose.
I am embarrassed by the whole thing, utterly apologetic, with my reputation in tatters and sitting here now feeling very guilty about the whole sorry episode.
Photo: Rainbow
Having spent the last year or so criss-crossing the south of England moving house before finally settling down again, it was a rare treat to be able to look forward to a trip to London, and especially the prospect of seeing the first gig from Tindersticks in this country since they performed at the Barbican in 2006.
