The Ugly Face of Internet Plagiarism

First off I would just like to say that I had a wonderful warm birthday on Saturday. 10 degrees, sunny, with fluffy clouds! You know how much I missed those fluffy clouds! Also thanks to all my friends for the Happy B-day wishes!


There was something I read on the internet this weekend that really bugged me. My favorite LOST blogger Erika Olson mentioned on her Facebook that some guy had been taking her blog re-caps of the show word for word and posting them in his You Tube re-cap videos. Eventually another LOST blogger made a video of the side by side comparison of Erika's blog and this guys videos. Which you can view from a link in her latest post. I could not believe it. It's not like he was just using her theories, anyone can use a theory, people have tones of theories posted about the show all over the place. It's the fact that he took her exact writings word for word, also the same mannerisms, punctation, and word emphasis from her re-caps! Now some of you may not watch LOST, (I'm looking at you Jen! Shame on you!), but this to me goes beyond just a TV show. This is just plain wrong, simple as that. As a photographer I get extremely upset seeing my fellow photographers images taken and used on various websites without permission. If you like it that much and just have to post it at least have the common courtesy to ask the creator, or at least give a photo credit to the photographer.

What sucks about this blogging situation is that this guy has been featured and interviewed weekly on tvguide.com for his "LOST insights and expertise". Also he actually profits from hits to his LOST video re-cap page. Although Erika is a professional writer, she in no way profits from her LOST blog. She does it just for fun. It's something that she enjoys writing about on the side week to week and a lot of people, myself included, really enjoy her take on the show. We all wait with bated breath to see what her take was on the new weeks episode. She also gets us involved too by posting theories or questions we may have from the episode that week. It's a place for us all to be the nerds we are, discuss, theorize, realize, and just have some fun and laughs.

It has also been brought to peoples attention now that this guy has also been plagiarizing from other popular LOST bloggers as well. It's like he's cutting and pasting all these other blogs together and making a script out of them. The supporters of this guy just don't get it, they seem as immature as he is. Saying "you cant copyright a theory". It's not about that at all! It's about taking text and reciting it word for word as your own! At least Erika's many fans and supporters get it, as well as her lawyers! I hope she is able to get this situation settled soon.

One of the worst things about this situation are that people are now making personal attacks on her. It was other people who noticed these problems and brought it to the attention of the public. Other bloggers have been supportive by collecting all this information and comparing it which is likely how they found their own content being used in these videos.

The reason I came across Erika's fantastic blog was from doing research for my trip to Oahu next January. I was googling information about the LOST Tour that you are able to take while on the island and I came across her blog because she had gone on the tour herself last fall. She happened to bump into Terry O'Quinn on her tour! But that is another story. If we could only be as fortunate on our tour! *doubtful*. I made a comment that I was going to go on the tour in January 2010 and that it looked like she had a blast. Just a simple comment but low and behold I got an e-mail from her about an hour later, offering me tips and information about the tour and letting me know if I had any questions at all to feel free and e-mail her about it. We have since sent a few emails back and fourth about the tour and she has been amazingly helpful. It just goes to show what sort of character Erika is. She didn't have to talk with me at all. I didn't ask her any questions about tour, but she reached out and let me know if there was anything I wanted to know that she would gladly help.

All in all it doesn't matter if it's blog content about a TV show (an amazing tv show! Lol), a poem, a song or a photograph! Plagiarism is wrong, and illegal. Copyright law is in place for a reason! You can not take what is not yours! Give the creators the credit they deserve or surely you will get what you deserve in the end!

Good luck Erika!

-Julie