Stealth

I knew I’d find an answer to this taciturn phase of mine, through you guys. I thought one of my regular readers would give me that one flash, i needed to get my fingers flying into a known frenzy, on my Lenovo. But this flash has come from a not-so-regular visitor. Or who knows? May be this blogger came on and off and left without saying anything, but took back a great deal from me or my fellow blogger-friend’s spaces. Beware, we have a plagiarist on the prowl!

 

On the prowl, lifting pieces from blogs and making it her/his own. What’s amazing about these people are how foolish they are. Don’t they know we install applications and codes that tell us exactly who, and when a slimy idiot cut-copy-pastes your content on to their blog seamlessly? Well, for the less informed like the pleasantone, who is pretty docile, and  looks at these kind of thefts, in sheer amusement, just happened to browse this little idiot’s blog, to find her two year old post reproduced word to word. Imagine her horror, or just plain helplessness.

This little thief thinks, she/he is a smart one. Not true. This person is beyond idiocy. After stealing she/he should have just shut up. Instead, his/her highness comes to my blog and leaves a casual comment. Has the nerve to tell me- ‘ummm there you go- write on jobless vacume’. ‘Vacume’ itself told me a few things about the person, but I decided not to be judgmental. Until, the pleasantone related this rather unpleasant episode to me.

I don’t find it amusing at all. I think its disgusting. You rob a bank or someone’s words, they are one and the same. Stealth can never be cool. My point is, why do it at all?  When i started blogging, I hardly knew what or how to write.  I just had a desire to write, and  over the years have managed to write almost decently. I am no Nobel material, but hell, I write my own stuff. God, bad, ugly, trash- its mine. I don’t go about browsing people’s blogs ad lifting phrases, paras, sentences, let alone, full fledged posts. I am no Kaavya Vishwanathan of How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, fame. I’d rather remain unheard of and unpopular, than become famous the Kaavya Way.

I remember, when I wrote my first post, it was such an exhilarating experience. Actually, it was pretty below average, back then. But hell, who cared? It was mine. I was over the moon. Tell me, does one feel the same way when one lifts stuff from someone else and makes it their own?

Scribbler had once written about copyrights – are they a crime or not a crime. I still think stealing an idea, stealing someone’s tune, stealing someone’s words , are all one and the same. I don’t see why anyone should benefit out of someone else’s very personal expression. I think, it all boils down to respect. Respect for one another. Which is a dead deed.

Be it our own Pritam Chakravarty’s lifted tunes or Kaavya Vishwanathan, I realized plagiarism is a rampant disease, especially in the blogsphere. One Google search  and millions of results were thrown before me on plagiarists, plagiarism and all things related.

Its scary and more than that, very depressing.

(oh btw, your stories are coming up , soonish :-) )