The previous post was just a warm-up of sorts since I didn’t want the very first piece of my writing for the day to be started on an angry note. Nothing can match the joy of writing and seeing your thoughts, observations and experiences getting transformed into words. Sometimes, the writing turns out to be as good as you thought it would be and, sometimes, it wouldn’t turn out to be as good as you thought it would. But that is not the point of this post.
How would you feel when from one such writings of yours, a piece which you wrote with so much passion, you see many lines lifted and used directly in somebody else’s writing? And not just that, it has even won a prize too in some competition! How can people indulge in such plagiarism? When you ask the person about it, the reply you get goes something like, ‘Yes I copied some lines from your post, because those were nice’. What a lame explanation! A writing competition is meant for judging your own writing, how you write, how you express yourself and more importantly, your OWN thoughts/expressions/whatever. Not for judging something which you copied from somebody else’s writing and passed off as your own!
More than seeing my lines being used, what irritated me even more were the lame explanations that were given.
Very bad ! Those people are just sick minded ! Thats a psycho mentality by which they are getting pleasure.
Can anything be done using creative common license? did u research on that?
It goes like this “Thirudanai parthu thirundavittal thiruttai ozhikka mudiyathu…” U cant abolish Plagiarism unless they are cured by themself.
On a positive note, This says u r one step ahead in ur blogging. Congrats ! 🙂
Hi Aparna,
That’s so sad isnt it.. The other day I read a quote which goes something like “Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”… Even that kind of put me off!
Stealing someone’s thoughts and words and making it one’s own seems like the cheapest kind of trick. And imagine the audacity- to send it in for a competion? I dont know whether this is weird or plain awful!
I was in a similar state of mind when one of my blog was ( the entire blog….no mercy) lifted.
Sick people…..
Forget it…
In tamil there is a proverb ‘??????? ???? ???? ?????? ?????’ that means only when your stuff speaks of quality, people would attempt to plagiarise….
So be happy that you write quality stuff…..
????????? ????? ???? ????????? …..so keep writing…
i can understand ur anger, but could u also let us know which post was lifted? i am not sure if its true but i once heard of an argument for plagiarism: it goes like this…the person who copied an idea expalined that he had done so because the original idea was never brought to light and by copying it he had shared the idea to as larger community and was therefore spreading the message to a wider audience. Well, i dont support plagiarism, but i dont have an answer to this argument either.
i am not in for copying, but certainly there is something to note
the person agreed that they did copy and appreciated you that its nice ! .. LOL i cant believe they did that – honest person i think …
Second, as Albert Einstein says, creativity is all about hiding your sources.
its just my opinion that you can get inspired to write something based on what you read, but 2 things are important, give credit to the source or rephrase it completely that you just cannot prove the point !
First is easier and second one is tougher actually …
There is nothing called your OWN thought. A thought comes out of getting an inspiration or seeing something. So practically its based on something else…its just the syntax of the expression differs or should probably ! [its like i write about alaipayuthey and you too write abt one, and we both feel the same thing and apparently write down in a very similar manner -though we havent 🙂 yet]
Last, dont get personal for people copying your lines, its just that you know you had the first shot and they know they didnt ! we all know that too 🙂
good luck and keep writing !
Hmmm……I am just curious. How many times have you seen people breaking into queues? How many times have people (or for that matter you) pay a little “baksheesh” to get things done? We live in a third-world country and we often face situations where integrity & common sense (like rules of fairness) are compromised left & right.
You should probably get in touch with some of the judges in the competition to get the result annulled – that is a responsibility incumbent on you and you owe it not just to you but also to the other competitors. The ills of society are not solved untill people speak up and that always starts with YOU.
That’s shitty. But, I agree with Prasad. You should inform the organisers of the competition that they are judging a lifted piece. People can and will have similar ideas and express them differently, or maybe even the same way. But, if that person has accepted to have copied stuff from you and still not give you credit for that, my God, I would be pissed off!
@All,
I have already informed the organizers about this & they are taking some action.
Sowmya,
It’s the post that I wrote for Madras Day that I wrote a couple of years back.
That argument doesn’t justify plagiarism either! If somebody really wants to bring the idea to a larger audience, they can do it after giving credit to the original author.
Sreekrishnan,
Please write about Alaipayuthey 🙂 I would love to read that 😉