The Wild Wild West: Blogging Gone Bad

pla•gia•rism -[pley-juh-riz-uh m, -jee-uh-riz-] –noun - the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work.

Three years ago, I received an email for articles for a risk management trade magazine, a profession to which I am proud to belong. I deleted it. It got me thinking, though – why not send in an article and see what would happen.

So I wrote a humorous little piece on how invisible risk managers seem to be in the business world and how no one (not even my wife) had a clue what I do all day when I skip off to work. The article took me about two hours to write and another four hours to hit the send button, along with a note explaining that funny little articles would be good for the publication, since their lighter subjects included things like waiver of subrogation, environmental liability, and the pressures on the derivative markets.

So I sent another, and another, etc. and they printed them all. I started to send pieces to other publications, and they printed them as well. Then I decided that if I wrote 25 articles of about 2,500 words, I would have a book.

Hide! Here Comes the Insurance Guy, a text that uses humor and simple language to explain business insurance and risk management to the masses was accepted for publication by a print on demand publisher, iUniverse, in June 2006.

So I have this book, and it’s all over the Internet, but it’s hidden in plain sight. So, to help raise my visibility, I do some press releases and get some local and national media attention, and I start The Insurance Guy Blog.

So there I am, blogging along with 500 million of my closest friends, when I came upon Blogcritics, a highly respected “sinister cabal of superior writers”, and I applied to be a writer – and they said come on in.

So I write whenever and whatever suits my fancy – culture, business, sports, things like that. I also have taken an interest in health care, especially in the areas of fraudulent and adulterated pharmaceuticals and the federal, state, and local governments’ complicity in allowing tainted drugs into your pharmacy and mine.

My four part series How Good Are Your Drugs? on Blogcritics takes the reader through this step by step.

Then I wrote Making Hay While the Sun Shines - How the Power of Influence Influences Power, an article that was vetted and then published on July 3, 2007. The article explains that, although Senator Evan Bayh (D-Ind) does not profit from relationships in his role as senator, his wife Susan Bayh is sure mopping up sitting on boards of some of the largest health care insurers and pharmaceutical companies in the world.

In fact, it has been reported that almost two thirds of the senator’s wealth come from holdings and investments in the health care or pharmaceutical industries. And, from time to time, there is a fuzzy line between Senator Bayh’s public responsibilities and Mrs. Bayh’s financial interests.

Ten days after this article, the following article was published on The Fort Wayne Blog by Greg McClain: "Evan Bayh and his connection to the health care industry should be questioned by his peers and by the uninsured American public.”

I was excited to see that someone else had picked up on this very important story, and as I scrolled down, I realized that although the words (read “key words” ) had been changed up and rearranged, Mr. McClain had taken my story and claimed it as his own.

The links to both stories are provided so you can judge for yourself. As an example, though, I am printing the last paragraph of each article. Here's mine:

There is always the argument of the spirit of the law versus the letter of the law.

In the case of elected officials, the answer is clear: Follow the spirit of the law until you get caught. Then follow the letter of the law.

But there will always be the argument of the spirit of the law versus the actual letter of the law. Which do you follow as an elected official? In the case of elected officials, the answer is clear: Whatever fits you best, until of course, you get caught.

The point here is clear: while there are fewer constraints on bloggers than on print and electronic media, we will never become a legitimate source of news and information if there are bloggers who will lift copyrighted and published materials without giving credit to the author.

For the record, I did write to Mr. McClain to ask him to give a credit to me on this, but this request was ignored.

It has been said that character is doing the right thing when no one is looking. The rules don’t change because the media is new. If you steal something and hold it up as your own and don’t think anyone will notice, don’t act surprised when you get caught.

Don’t worry, plagiarism is an accepted and honored tradition for the Democrats and minorities. The next thing you know is McClain will have streets and freeways named after him, High Schools, a National Holiday, and a whole month dedicated to his history. Its called lack of character and the dumbing down of the United States and we better get used to it.

If this Greg McCain guy is a recent graduate of just about any school in this country, it's quite possible that he actually believes that substituting a few words of his own for a few of your words, and making a slight modification of your sentence syntax here and there, entitles him to claim that your thoughts are his thoughts. He might even bristle at your charge that he's a plagiarist.

Scary, huh?

Greg McClain, not, as I wrote, Greg McCain...

I want to be sure he receives due credit for his poor behavior...

At first I thought I must be getting desperate for reading material to read this book.
But I ordered it anyway. My eyes used to glaze over whenever a subject like this one came up, but I now see this as a challenge. Sort of my decision, a long time ago, to learn to fly.

Is this a "face your fears" thing?

7 posted on 10/11/2007 2:15:23 PM PDT by Publius6961 (MSM: Israelis are killed by rockets; Lebanese are killed by Israelis.)

You know, if the person in question just got out of school recently (and it doesn't particularly matter where), it just might be that he is thinking of the copyright as it supposedly applies to music -- if you change every seventh word, you're safe, and so what you wrote is now his. He might even take umbrage at the idea that he is a thief.

For the life of me, I don't know why someone hasn't said this already. It's so obvious.

...sorry 'bout that, snarks.

Cheers!

8 posted on 10/11/2007 3:57:29 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)

Every seventh word? News to me, g_w. But I suspect it would be news to McClain as well...

As for that subject/verb disagreement in my original post, let's just let that slide, shall we? (heh)

Regards!

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