Thursday, July 22, 2010

Dunham's Cocoanut Dollhouse Plagiarism...

I don't know whether to be flattered, creeped out, or incensed by this (although I'm leaning towards the latter) but there is currently an eBay listing for an 1890s Dunham's Cocoanut Dollhouse that has lifted the description I wrote last month for my Dunham's blog post almost word for word. You'd think for the price the seller is asking ($875) he could afford a decent copy writer...

4 comments:

  1. How lame!
    It seems to be the way things are done now. Initially, I never worried about people copying my posts or postcards, but then I found that people actually take the scans and sell them (!) or take the scans and modify them and sell them. Then there are others who lift entire posts with pictures and text and present them as their own. But why? I don't get it.

    That's when I started watermarking some of the cards.

    This eBay plagiarism is rude, and you should be mad. At the same time, you should also accept that you are the expert and people will want to copy you.

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  2. It does seem quite lazy on the part of the eBay seller. Happened to me once, with a Pat Nixon paper doll set I posted on my blog. The entire description was lifted, and my personal commentary!

    That's awful, Christine, that someone would copy and sell your scanned postcards. Some shameless people out there.

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  3. I think flattered, creeped out and incensed are all appropriate responses. Apart from the plagiarism issues it's a reminder too that our blogs are totally public and we NEVER know who's reading them (or stealing from them come to that).

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  4. I'd be incensed by copying without any acknowledgement - that's plagiarism. Copying with acknowledgement would be flattering. Sadly, I don't think ebay has any rules about copying text from other websites (just about not copying from other auctions).
    How about contacting the seller to ask for a commission for writing the description? Or call it royalties, maybe ...

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