If you notice, I have two new badges in the top right-hand corner of my page. The copyright one is familiar to most of you. Perhaps the one below is not yet. Enough is enough. I have now joined the Bloggers Against Plagiarism drive. It is the need of the hour. Just what the doctor ordered.

Let me confess. I am a compulsive blog-hopper. In real life you will not see me hop skip or jump. Oh no siree, never, the little (old) lady that I am. On the other hand, in real life, I do run rather than walk at a sedate pace that becomes my age, making me get all out of breath and have the Lord & Master roll his eyes and switch to his ‘when will she ever learn‘ expression. Be that as it may (Digression my bane!!), all I wanted to convey was that when it comes to virtual life, I hop, skip and jump and how!

So there I was one day, indulging in my favorite past time of virtual hop skip and jump from blog page to blog page, putting to shame the friskiest of lambs in spring time. Just as the frisky lamb would pause on chancing upon some fresh green grass worth nibbling to proceed and nibble to its hearts content, moi would pause at some interesting blog and proceed to nibble, errrr….. I mean read. While so pleasantly engaged, one fine day a couple of weeks back, I got quite an unpleasant shock. In one of the blog pages, I found laid out in all its glory for all it was worth, the exact sentences that I had racked my brains, to come up with.

Hmmmm… I took a second look and also a third, as if I needed a second or third look to recognize my own work. I went back to my page opened the particular blog in question and checked. Oh yeah, it was the same. It is not as it I couldn’t recognize the sentences I insisted my dancing gray cells to come up with. But then I am a stickler for details such as these. I then checked the antecedents of the blogger in question. Seemed to be a genuine and respected blogger. Many of my respected blogger friends were there applauding the efforts put into that fine blog. But the fact remained that the blogger had copied parts from my post without permission, without acknowledging or linking back to my page.

It is alright for the Spiritually Advanced to say, do your work and leave the rest to the Unknown. What nonsense!! I did not sit up, think and type out my thoughts so that some Photostatting Machine or Collector Copier (Those who read a 100 or so blogs on the topic and instead of writing what their own view is, lift sentences and paragraphs off from the blogs they have read and present it as their own. This particular blog was of a Collector Copier) can come along and take the credit! I have read my internet laws. I know that anything I post at my site is mine and no one can copy it without permission or without linking back to this page. But what did I do about it?? I merely fretted and fumed for a few days and gave up not knowing what to do.

A few months back I had had another experience. My post was copied almost word for word with just a twist here and there by a ‘friend’ and posted with a disclaimer to boot. Of course it was under the guise of good clean ‘fun’!! What is ‘clean’ fun about copying someone’s post without acknowledging the source is beyond me. I am sorry to say I did not find it the least bit funny. As most of my friends are aware, I do take keen interest in presenting my posts, even the ‘tags’ (which I don’t care much about but is an intrinsic part of blog-world), in my own style. I spend time and effort over what I do, like most all of you, grabbing and making use of the free time in between busy schedules. Catch me being amused to find someone has come along, opted for the easy way out, copied my post and given it his/her signature without so much as by your leave!

I have not yet reached that state of spiritual advancement where I can say with total conviction, what is mine is yours. Certainly not. What is mine is mine!! And I am damned if you think you can get away with copying from it partly or fully. When I do reach that higher level of spirituality, I promise to make an announcement and all the Photostatting Machines and the Collector Copiers of the blog-world can make a beeline for my page and grab what you can from my page. Till then, no chance baby! Right now, I am possessive about my work and I certainly don’t intend sharing.

Look what I found on one of my blog hopping jaunts. This and this. Bloggers uniting against plagiarism and helping each other fight against it. Yeah, this is more like it. I was silent earlier. Now I am not going to make the same mistake. So you out there who think you can copy what I have written and take all the credit for your bally self, think again!! I will not go down without fighting the next time. I am with Bloggers Against Plagiarism.

*   *   *   *   *

Today is my friend’s birthday.  Hi there, Penguin from Antarctica! A Very Happy Birthday to You!! Smile… Always!

~ your friend.