Is anybody else exhausted by all the drama up in here lately? It was kinda amusing at first, in the way that, say, Toddlers and Tiaras is. You know, the trainwreck factor. But it feels like it never ends and it puts a serious downer on blogging. Because I just. Don't. Get. It. Aren't we all here to have fun and share our love of books? I know that's why I started my blog. Receiving ARCs never even entered my mind. I just wanted to keep a record of the books I'd be reading anyway.
Maybe that's the problem. When a blog becomes more about page views, relationships with publishers and getting free stuff, then there's pressure to perform above and beyond. Trouble is, if you don't have the originality or talent to do that, what do you do? Well, apparently, some plagiarise. Which is not OK on so many levels. It astounds me that some people would defend it as an "accident" or a "mistake", as thought it's harmless. It's not harmless. Taking somebody's ideas and passing them off as your own is fraudulent.
I've had posts plagiarised in the past. I confronted the blogger in question, and she admitted that she had taken my ideas but said she didn't realise she was doing anything wrong. She did seem truly sorry so I only asked that she give me credit if she were to use my ideas in future. In hindsight I wish I'd been a bit more forceful. Because it seems absurd that she didn't know that it was wrong to steal somebody's posts. Plus I think I received credit on maybe one post. The previous posts that she had plagiarised remained up, with no indication that they had not only been my ideas, but much had been my content. She changed the titles of the posts so they sounded different to mine, but the content remained. I tried not to let it bother me and continued to do my own thing, but I have to admit I did feel angry whenever I would see someone commenting on a post of hers that had started as one of mine saying how awesome or original it was. These days I mostly try to ignore that blog.
But what really gets me about plagiarism is, what's the point? Why bother having your own blog if you don't have anything original that you want to say? If you have to steal somebody else's ideas or content to create posts, then what are you getting out of it? Is it page views? Free books? Again, I just don't get it.
I love my blog because it's a platform to express my own views and feelings about books and bookish things. It's been an amazing way to connect with other like-minded, awesome people. That's what I'm here for. How about you?
