Plagiarism & Blog-hackers
By Roopa SreedharGiri & I went to Mauritius in April 2007. It was a very beautiful Island.
After many months, we were traveling to Pandavapura, in Mandya District and took the by-pass road after Mandya for the first time. The scenic beauty of this place took my breath away. I was transported back to the Sugarcane fields of Mauritius once again. Our Mauritian taxi Driver Bijay had 100s of acres of land & had informed us that he cultivated 18 types of sugar. Really?
The Indian Sugar Cane fields were no less mesmerizing than their international family. We saw ahead of us a few small hillocks that seemed to stand on a thick green carpet. Having not read many blogs about this place, we parked our car at the base of the hill and inquired about this place. The next month I wrote the following invite & created our first trek to Kunti Betta.
" About the Place: Kunti Betta is a hillock near Pandavapura in Mandya District. The place is rich in history & heritage. Pandavapura features during the Mahabharata period. It is said the Pandavas ended their exile of 14 years in Pandavapura. Here is where Bheema slayed Bhakasura, the demon. A top Kunti betta, one can see the utensil shaped rocks which were apparently used by Pandavas for cooking. Sugarcane is grown in abundance in the fields around this place, giving it a feel of Mauritius . The multitude of canals passing by the fields gives the location an exotic look. On a sunny day, one can take a dip in any of the well maintained canals.
The Chunchanghatte falls, Melukote and the newly excavated temple of Venugopalaswamy on the Cauvery river basin are very close by. The backwaters of KRS is at a distance of 20 km from here.
One can take a dip in the nearby canal and visit the nearby spot where centuries old Temple is being excavated. - Roopa Sreedhar"
And then I saw a spate of websites copying the original text & populating their pages without mentioning the author's name. More time I spent on their sites, it was enough to point that these sites were museum of stolen text from other websites. Original content from many of my blogs appeared on these sites. They had also stolen from the best travel blogs on the internet of many avid travelers and travel bloggers. I could identify many original blogs of known trekkers.
It is one thing to refer to blogs sites and travel book and plan a travel, and another to create a site based on others travels. But copying from someone's book and publishing the same book again is nothing short of Plagiarism.
Some people I know are very good photographers. How would it feel if their original photographs were taken without permission to create a museum photography site?
Online thieves like this kill creativity.
Cheers to all original bloggers and blogger community!
Roopa Sreedhar
To all blog-hackers: If you don't have the talent to compile & write, go find another hobby. We are not offering our services as Ghost Writers to you blog thieves.
