This kind of stuff makes me sad. Sad, that I have to write about this. It isn't something that should need to be done. But, alas, it happens.

What am I talking about? Blogger plagiarism. I haven't read about a real case of this in a long time. But, last night, something came across my twitter client. Our very own Daniel Moroz posted something called "Blogger Ethics", and of course I had to read it. It is a hard article to quote and get the point across, but I'm going to try:

You know what I really don’t like? When someone passes other peoples’ work of as their own – and also tries to sell it. It’s just generally wrong behavior. When a blogger does it, it gives every online writer who takes their work seriously and puts real time and effort into it a bad name. When an Orioles’ blogger does it, it hits closer to home. When an Orioles’ blogger does it, and one of my readers brings it to my attention and notes that he got to the offending site through a link on my blog, I really get upset. The blog I’m referring to is OriolesProspects.com. Started by Jordan fairly recently, it has scouting reports of various O’s prospects and occasional posts weighing in on minor league matters. Though some of the writing looked familiar to me – and I saw a few people make similar claims – I largely ignored it. But when it became the case that I was even passively condoning plagiarism (as the reader called it), I could not in good conciseness ignore it any further. I really, really don’t like doing this, but I think it’s important.

[...]

The internet surely allows everyone the freedom to express themselves and have their own voice, and I think that Jordan can be a contributor in the Orioles community. That is made much harder when you start things off in the way he did. You lose credibility and respect. My inclination is to give him a break for his age, but the influence he was trying to draw for himself negates that. If one wants to play in this league, so to speak, one needs to be able to handle the responsibilities that go along with. Pitchers in the majors don’t just lob them in there for rookie batters, after all.

I contacted Jordan about the issue and he at first claimed that he wasn’t doing it. He claimed to have attended many games himself, took notes, etc, etc. When I mentioned three scouting reports as particular offenders – the first three I looked at, by the way – he immediately said he’d take them down (which wasn’t done). At that point there was much hand-wringing about feeling bad about possibly having done something wrong (unintentionally, or so he said) and not wanting to offend the Orioles blogging community. I told him that he needed to take that stuff down, but that it could be a growing experience for him if he wrote a post admitting his mistake and correcting his behavior. I was told this would be done, and it finally was today (after a couple of days of knowing he had plagiarized material on his site – and continuing to post other things but not taking the offending stuff down). I realize it’s very hard to admit when you’re wrong, but in a case like this it’s pretty clear to me that honesty is expected and not a bonus.

Wow. It's a lot to take in, I know. But, later, Daniel shows us the exact players that had plagiarism in their scouting report, and it's pretty convincing that it was stolen.

Why does this affect me? One, because I'm a blogger and this is the business I'm in. It matters. The second, is because I was planning on giving Oriole Prospects some hype. I was going to do a little critique of a prospect guide he put out and review it on BDD, a big time site. Obviously, this isn't happening anymore. Nothing could make me want to do it.

The real point here, is this: Blogging is about the sharing of ideas, difference of opinions, and everyone learning something. It may not seem like it all of the time, but it is. Plain and simple. If someone is stealing someone's work, and using it as their own, what's the point? What does anyone gain from it? Nothing, that's what.

This is the kind of thing that leads people to not respect bloggers. Everyone assumes there are no ethics or code in place, but there is. You don't take others work and pass it off as your own. You just don't. There is no excuse for it, and never will be.

I admit, this is harsh to piggyback on someone else's criticism and add my own. But it deserves it, and I'm more than willing to look like the bad guy here. It doesn't bother me.

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