Plagarism--What it is and what it isn't
I read a post this morning of an understandably angry Steemer who publishes in the category of food.
I was inspired to look up the definiton of plagiarize and plagiarsm. It seemed to me, based on my brief experience on STEEMIT to-date, that we--people, bots and programmers alike-- might not all be on the same page as to the meaning of these words.
I know I once fell victim to a different understanding of plagiarism.. The Steemcleaner accused me of stealing. I was mortified. I was not passing off the work of someone else as my own. In fact I went as far as to thank the person and link to his Steemit profile, or so I thought.
I learned the hard way that giving credit before inserting an image or video would result in all the text before the image not being visible in the published post! Yipes! Live and learn. Now I know more about the technical side of postig on STEEMIT. Hooray. In fact, I just discovered the "Editor" yesterday or the day before. You know how it goes with STEEMIT all the days start blending together.
Anyway, according to an article that I just read on the topic of plagiarism, retrieved June 23, 2017 from Plagiarism.org http://www.plagiarism.org/article/what-is-plagiarism , here is an explanation of the verbBelow what you find between the term "[QUOTE]"and the term "[END QUOTE]" is copied directly from the source which has just been cited above. I have added italics and bold-face below.
[QUOTE]
According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, to "plagiarize" means:
- to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
- to use (another's production) without crediting the source
- to commit literary theft
- to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source
In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.
[...]
All of the following are considered plagiarism:
- turning in someone else's work as your own
- copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
- failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
- giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
- changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
- copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on "fair use" rules)
Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, however, by citing sources. Simply acknowledging that certain material has been borrowed and providing your audience with the information necessary to find that source is usually enough to prevent plagiarism. See our section on citation for more information on how to cite sources properly.
[END QUOTE]
The quoted material was retrieved June 23, 2017 from http://www.plagiarism.org/article/what-is-plagiarism
I would say, that
*If someone on Steemit wrote a post and you wanted to share the information, then just reSteem it.
*If you want to respond to the post, then link to it and only take out the needed sentences for your response and put a > next to it so it becomes a blockquote.
*If you are taking content from a news article and posting it without any other commentary, that's plagarism.
*If you point to the news article and then provide content giving your voice to the article, that is okay.
*If you post a link to a YouTube video that isn't yours and you don't give credit to the person who created it, that's plagiarism.
When it comes to youtube videos. Since the link is the video wouldn't that be the same as linking to it as a source? It seems redundant to post a link to it for a source when all one needs to do is click the youtube icon on the video to be able to watch it on youtube.
Put a comment under the video that the material contained is created by that person and not you.
I have videos that I create. I don't need to reference myself.
I have videos that I share, I reference the creator and provide my own summary of the video.
See the difference?
It still seem redundant but if its how we need to do it so be it.
You and @deanlogic have good points. I agree with you @rawinhabitat about redundancy, however it may not always be obvious to the audience that the blog author and the owner/creator of the contained images, videos or other artifacts are two different people. ANd magine if a membe of the audience is a bot operatd by an algorithim with even less "common knowledge"and "common sense". lol
To plagarize a video would be to pass it off as your own as if you were the author/creator and this is hardly the case when posting a YouTube video from a YouTube source that is obiously not your account, not your name, not you.
To plagarize a YouTube video WITHOUT redundantly crediting the source might leave some ambiguity in the mind of someone in the audience.
[But then, isn't YouTube like Facebook? Once uploaded it belongs to YouTube and well, You Tube videos all have the YouTube link in the lower right hand corner. The source coudn't be more obvious, could it. Heck and whose to say who the original creator is. I guess at most once can do is state that he/she is not the creator and state where he/she retrieved it from and when Duh, right? I digress.]
If someone intended to pass off a YouTube video as their own creation then they would need to upload a copy of it without the YouTube ID and without any data that would identify the creator. [YouTube publishers do not want their videos shared beyond YouTube they can adjust their settings on YouTube for that. Oops, I digress yet again. :)]
Honestly, it's much ado about nothing. Who wants to get shut down because of an uncommon intepretation of intent, when any misunderstanding can be avoided through a standard disclaimer/credit/note at the bottom of every post.
I think it boils down to intent. Was fraud or dishonest representation intended or not? And to stay on the safe side, the lame side, the redundant side, we can assume what is obvious to us is not obvioius to everyone in the actual audience.
I am good with the English definition and with formulating a Note at the bottom of future.
STEEMIT posts.
The better safe then sorry approach is best. Just source everything to be safe. ;)
On another note I could take a more philosophical approach:
Maybe I'll start putting at the top of each post "I have nothing to do with anything that's here as far as it's being created. I rearrange things. None of the stuff here that I'm using is mine. Nothing is mine. I'm just a user of things. In the end it all goes back to the source and where it came."
Hope you both have a great day! @deanlogic @prima-nia
I love it! @rawinhabitant
"[...] In the end it all comes from and goes back to the source and where it came."
I thnk putting such a note or disclaimer is coming soon to my posts. I'll be putting it at the bottom of each post just becuase at the top it might disappar in the published post or it might be the only thing that shows in the preview.
Have an excellent rest of the day! Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the matter. Thank you for your good wishes, too.