I often stumbled across some blogs who specialize in handing more blockquotes than original content, which is fine for them and their blogging style because, for the most part, their posts point to valuable and related content.
What incenses me is their credit line:
Story provided by digg.
You can replace Digg with del.icio.us, Tumblr, Technorati, Stumble Upon or any of the other social bookmarking services.
I’d like to point out for the ignorant that social bookmarking services do not provide original content. They do not write articles (except on their blogs) nor generate content. They only provide placeholders for article links and conversations about those article links. If credit is to be given, why not credit the person who originally submitted the recommendation with a hat tip? Then give credit where credit is really deserved – to the original author of the original content.
Why give Digg and the others the credit for what they don’t deserve?
Please, for the sake of all bloggers and writers who work hard on what they have to write, link to the original article.
There are many reasons to do this.
- You direct readers directly to the article rather than a two or three click journey through a middle man. Your readers will thank you.
- “Hat tips”, acknowledgments to the person or site that tipped you off, is fine, but get your reader to the content you recommend, not the recommendation of the content.
- The direct link to the article can generate a trackback in the original article, which appears on their blog, connecting your blog with theirs.
- The original author is alerted to your coverage of her article and may visit your site to check it out.
- You might pick up a reader or subscriber through the trackback reference. At the least, you might get a thank you.
- From that visit, the original author might find something you wrote to be worthy of writing about.
- Your trackback is visible to her audience, and readers might visit you based upon what your trackback says (so make it say something better than “Story by”).
- A link is made to the original article, giving you credit points in the determination of Google’s Page Rank, which counts outgoing and incoming links, and lending a hand to the original author’s Page Rank as well as yours if the linked content matches your blog’s content.
- If you choose to use any of the web page preview gadgets on your blog’s links, the preview will be of the original page not Digg or your middle-man page.
- It’s the right thing to do. Give credit where credit is due.
You can arrange your link credit to be something like:
Article by Lorelle on WordPress with hat tip to Digg
But better than that would be a direct link to the article by title, along with another version of a hat tip:
How to Hat Tip Your Sources by Lorelle on WordPress, found via Digg
Make a blogger happy today by letting them know that you care about what she wrote on her blog, and help build your reputation as a blogger with integrity.
Understanding Attribution, Credit, and Citations: The Art of Blockquoting
The Blog Herald’s A Quick Guide to Referencing and Ethics and Blogging Attribution Where Due are must reads for the blogger who cites other bloggers, writers, columnists, blogs, websites, and public speakers.
If you create a reference or comment based upon what someone says or writes, you must include an attribute that implies, “I’m not the original source. This is the original source.” You increase your reader’s trust, and your reputation as a blogger they can trust, when you give credit where credit is due.
The amount you “quote”, commonly called blockquote on blogs, is restricted to that blog or site’s copyright policy and license. Assume that they do not allow copying of their entire content, but only permit Fair Use of their content for reference in accordance with international copyright laws. Check with their copyright policies to make sure. Always assume their content is copyrighted.
“The Basics of Fair Use” by Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today provides more information on Fair Use, and he also has an article on the “Fair Use Visualizer”, a tool from the US Copyright Office to help you estimate Fair Use:
Not only are the issues involved in fair use complicated and difficult to understand, but the answer is never satisfying. Since fair use can only be decided by a judge or jury and is handled on a case-by-case basis, there is no way to offer a definitive answer about what is or is not fair use. One can only determine the probability of the outcome based upon facts of the case.
However, the Copyright Website has a fair use visualizer that can help take some of the guesswork out of determining what is likely and unlikely to be considered fair use.
While the Fair Use Visualizer may help, the biggest problem with Fair Use is that each copyright holder has to set the boundaries for what is “fair”. A growing standard for Fair Use on the web is 400 words or 10%, but you must make it clear in your copyright what your policy is. If you are copying another’s content, play fair and use as little as possible to make your point, and include a credit link to the rest of the content.
Here are some other guides and resources for learning more about attributions and citations for bloggers.
- Ethics and Blogging: Inspiration not copying
- Copyright Risks in Embedding YouTube Clips
- Protecting Images: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
- How to Stop Plagiarism Cold
- How to Detect Plagiarism and Content Theft
- Transcraping: Multi-Lingual Content Theft
- Your Work, Someone Else’s Portfolio
- How the Copyright Office Hurts Bloggers
- Copyright Tool: Fair Use Visualizer
- Five Practical Reasons for Fighting Plagiarism
- Using Creative Commons to Stop Scraping
- Plagiarism in Your Ranks
- Using Creative Commons to Stop Scraping
- Abusing Fair Use
- Five Essential Wordpress Content Protection Plugins
- Why Use Copyright Notices?
- The Myth of Poor Man’s Copyright
- Punditry: Letting the Plagiarists Win
- What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content
- Finding Stolen Content and Copyright Infringements
- The Growing Trends in Content Theft
