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Plagiarism

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Re: Plagiarism

#11

Post by zeedotme »

petercooper wrote: post #3

The old adage is you can't copyright facts and there was certainly no requirement for TNW to do any "original research" to share these findings. However, when you copy/use facts, you wade into hot water if you also copy the structure and the way those facts were originally expressed. The original TNW article shown here seems to step over that line with a barely masked copy of the original paragraphs. What bothers me…

I'd honestly much rather be brutally honest than go down the artificial PR route.

Re: Plagiarism

#13

Post by scott_s »

Yes, you were plagiarized. TheNextWeb was in the wrong, and they made it worse by their reaction.

But I also feel that the main insights of your posts were not your own. They were that of the NY Times reporter Michael M. Grynbaum. That is, I feel the main insight of your post were two things: the doubling of tips, and the attribution of this to the buttons on the credit-card machine. Your contribution was to look up a few other stats to get the $144 million figure.

Re: Plagiarism

#14

Post by mvkel »

zeedotme wrote: post #9

Update: see this comment on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3972875 Zee from TNW here. Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here. I honestly have absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which…

"and we decided to just copy/paste"

You answered your own question.

Also, your reaction to the original author via your public tweets was incredibly unprofessional. If you want to respond with such toxic language, you should so do via a private email. You're the face, the vision, the voice of TNW and I now associate your rude remarks with TNW as a whole.

Re: Plagiarism

#15

Post by blantonl »

petercooper wrote: post #3

The old adage is you can't copyright facts and there was certainly no requirement for TNW to do any "original research" to share these findings. However, when you copy/use facts, you wade into hot water if you also copy the structure and the way those facts were originally expressed. The original TNW article shown here seems to step over that line with a barely masked copy of the original paragraphs. What bothers me…

The legal precedence is in the Feist Publications vs. Rural Telephone Service supreme court case

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural

Re: Plagiarism

#16

Post by timjahn »

zeedotme wrote: post #9

Update: see this comment on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3972875 Zee from TNW here. Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here. I honestly have absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which…

Why do employees (and apparently CEOs) of online tech publications always seem to have so much trouble with basic English grammar/spelling?

"I honestly absolutely no idea what we should have done differently"

"We work immensely had to product original content"

Re: Plagiarism

#17

Post by sobering »

zeedotme wrote: post #9

Update: see this comment on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3972875 Zee from TNW here. Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here. I honestly have absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which…

Your Twitter response was completely stupid. As people above mentioned, there was no effort put into spelling (although it is Twitter, so I'll give some slack). But blasting the dude with like six hilariously "ridiculous" Tweets just made yourself look worse.

Re: Plagiarism

#18

Post by Avenger42 »

zeedotme wrote: post #9

Update: see this comment on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3972875 Zee from TNW here. Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here. I honestly have absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which…

My answer is, instead of copying his text word-for-word, you post the link and that's it. (See: Gruber.)

In this case, it's not like there was a ton of content in the first place, but by copying all of it (including the picture) you essentially gave the reader no reason to go back to the original source.

Re: Plagiarism

#19

Post by _dark_matter_ »

zeedotme wrote: post #9

Update: see this comment on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3972875 Zee from TNW here. Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here. I honestly have absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which…

I'm not trying to be rude here, but as the CEO of an online magazine, why can't you write with correct grammar?

"I honestly absolutely no idea…" "work immensely had to product"

Re: Plagiarism

#20

Post by citricsquid »

zeedotme wrote: post #9

Update: see this comment on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3972875 Zee from TNW here. Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here. I honestly have absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which…

The issue is you did not credit him initially. Are you saying that he was credited in the initial publication of the article and his screenshots that show this is not the case are fabricated?
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