Recently, I’ve caught local news media quoting me at length without attribution. I’m not offended or upset by it and I haven’t complained about it. Actually, I think it’s funny.
What I think is happening is that they’re Googling for things, The Glittering Eye comes up, and they’re lifting paragraphs straight from my blog into their copy. Coming up with material day after day after day ain’t easy. I’ve been writing 2,000 words or more per day, seven days a week, 365 days a year for some time. That puts me up there with Dumas and way ahead of Hemingway, both of whom produced something every day as part of their daily routines. David Brooks, Nicholas Kristof, and George Will only need to produce 800 words a week.
I know I don’t do it right by social media standards. If I were to do it right, I would need to publish something on an hourly basis 24 hours a day. That would be too limiting.
Pretty obviously, plagiarism ain’t what it used to be. It does make you look differently at the media conglomerates’ pursuit of intellectual property violators. It’s as I’ve been saying for some time patent, copyright, etc. law isn’t there to protect the little guy from the big guy. It’s to give Goliath an edge over that upstart David.
