With all the talk of plagarisim, FTC guidelines and transparency what about bloggers taking responsibilities for themselves? It seems common practice among those review bloggers who pump out reviews to just copy and paste content press releases. They pass them along as legitimate well thought out reviews and or giveaways, and no one says a word. It’s gotten to the point to where bloggers just assume content is copy and pasted so they reBLOG.
What is reBlog? reBLOG is a program that re-posts “relevant” content from any rss feed, blog post or just a preview of the post. reBLOG claims its program is useful but bloggers couldn’t disagree more. I guess if you’re in the market for stealing relevant content and trying to get Google to come to your site think again. Google works in many ways, one of which ways is looking down upon sites with duplicate content. That means if you’re taking content from places that already have it posted you may as well just be stealing another persons words. If it takes bloggers so long to do these wonderful “well thought-out” reviews and giveaways then why is there so much copy and pasting going on?
Need a real example?
Here is a re-blogged post this blogger claims it’s okay since it was mostly press material. That’s wonderful and all but some of it wasn’t. It was clearly re-blogged using the Firefox extension. So is re-blogging an okay practice? Is it the same as re-tweeting a Twitter post?
Honestly I believe its about personal responsibility. I know others were doing this same giveaway. In fact I will be doing this giveaway but you won’t see a copy and paste of a press release to run the giveaway. That’s just my philosophy.
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
I think many bloggers use the press releases or go to the media page as instructed to post info about a giveaway. That is fine – you will find that to be the norm when multiples of bloggers are doing the same type of post and were sent to the same place to get their info, photos, etc.
What is not okay is taking any other part of another bloggers post. This reBlogging thing – how is that even okay or allowed? It is completely different from retweeting. Bloggers spend a lot of time composing their posts – even their own style, and to have someone use it as their own? It’s copying from another blogger – plain and simple. Again, I’m not talking about the posts that a group are doing. It’s wrong…period.
I’ve never heard of reblogging before. Hmmm.
My opinion is any review should be YOUR OWN WORDS.
Sometimes I’m given a press release concerning a sale from a site that I’ll copy parts off but never in a review!
My friend Christine told me a long time ago that we should take pride in our blogs and the content in which we create. I couldn’t agree more, so I’ve adopted that practice into every one of my blog posts, and still remember that conversation years later.
lets be honets here and call it what it is. Stealing and overall lazy blogger behavior. I think I saw someone else mention blogs like these are seen right through, no one actually visits them for content. Just for their giveaways. What gets even worse are some of these bloggers are picked for special events and reviews. How is this? How is that bloggers who clearly don’t do their own hard work get rewarded and the little guys who work hard and do the right thing creating wonderful REAL content about real life never get looked at twice.
It’s a shame….for that I am sorry.
copying anything is just laziness. You can rehash a press release {or a product description} in you own words, why would you copy it?
I don’t get it when people do that…
More than just a little hoaky there… even reprinting a press release and nothing else shouts a red flag to me.. coping and pasting someone’s writing.. yeah. not gonna fly.
However i have been totally inspired by another blogger.. and wanted to write something in a very similar vein.. guess what?? I ASKED them.. and instead of them feeling like I was stealing the felt the other way around.. impressed I would ask, and remember imitation is the ..what is that quote??
Anyway… yeah there are some gray areas but this doesn’t seem like one of them?
OH! BTW if you copy. Give the person who originally wrote it credit
Its just a name and a backlink! LOL!
I visit you and HARDLY enter contests LOL. I’m here for you bitch, not your shit haha! I *wish* I could get picked for events I’d get to see you, Lizzy, & Amanda (maybe even Bookie) again!
Here is my “educational” bit to this….if you are going to use a press release…use the information that is RELEVANT to your post. Where the “copied” material is properly cited, linked back at the very least to the website, to the PR company, something to show you used this information with the intent to ENHANCE your blog post….not to make it your blog post.
Sad….I learned about “citing” in high school….yeah….anyone recall MLA, oh and in college they call it APA. Just goes to show you that very few people can have an original thought, that they solely rely on the use of others HARD WORK. The other thing is if you are going to post an ENTIRE press release….say so….cite it…super easy peasy, but don’t get all bent when someone else does the same thing…you can’t copy what was already once copied. Two wrongs never make a right.
Heres my take on it. Use the item and review it.
Most likely, you will learn from the instructions and experience of using it to create a review. If not look around at what people said, if you have to. Thing is, if you do it right, you will come up with some of the same stuff as anyone else BUT looking through your perspective and self. this is where the copy and paste cannot apply, or rehashing of press releases. To me, this seems to be to be one of the main reasons the FTC is involved.
I think this what i mentioned above can apply to “important things to do” with regard to reviewing.
I really like Carissa’s thought on asking. You like what someone has written contact them, say hey I wnat to write about it too. Most people will be flattered. Even give a link or two. Personally I don’t want someone elses content on my site.
There’s also the bloggers who think everyone copies them, to me that’s also a joke. Unless your post has been reBLOGGED get over it. We all get the same stuff, at least my reviews are original.
Call want you want to call it reBLOG shouldn’t be used, we all know this.
I’d never heard of reBLOGing. It seems like plagiarism, plain and simple. How does one find out if their content has been reBLOGged? If you want to use a portion of someone’s content, cite it if it’s small and link back (like a reference to an idea or something) and if it’s larger, like actual content, ASK first.
I’ve never heard of this before…interesting…when I do a review I actually review it. I write up my thoughts. I’ll use info like stats, etc but never just copy and paste it. What would be the point? I think if a company gives me their product to review then the least I owe them is an honest review. Oh–and I owe it to my readers, too
Interesting post…I’ve loved everyone’s responses!
I copy and paste bits but definitely try to make it my own. i would not feel right copying and pasting an entire post. I posted one today that was 50/50 which is really high for what I normally do. I usually provide a bith of- the information the sponsor provided but primarily most of my own thoughts.
The opinion expressed should definitely be your own
I will copy and paste bits from a press release about the maker/author/site but never in my actual review. I generally do an information part and then a review part. That said, I always quote it as the words from the website, etc.
Oops, not copy and paste necessarily… but I will use some information from the press release.
I am definitely bookmarking this page and sharing it with my friends.