The Internets are Plagiarists

So, yesterday, I spent the day working at the gun show in Springfield. I was volunteering for the Sangamon County Rifle Association, and we had all kinds of information to get out. We were also passing out free copies of the Illinois pro-gun newspaper, Gun News. You can imagine my surprise when I leafed through the newest issue (I told people it was the special collector's edition, suitable for framing; the headline was "BLAGO ARRESTED!") I got to a piece that seemed oddly familiar. I knew I'd seen it somewhere before, but it said it was from the Appleseed forums, and I didn't think that was right. Before I'd finished the first column, it was clear to me--this was Marko's piece. Attributed to someone else. Again. That's right, Marko Kloos has discovered again that it's easier for someone to repost his work under a different name than it is for him to create the work in the first place.

This time, it was his "Sacred Cows" series (Synopsis: Whatever gun you like, here's why it sucks. Whatever caliber you prefer, here's why it blows.) Somebody who calls himself "MCKNBRD" thought it was funny, so he reposted it on the Appleseed forums -- without Marko's name, of course. Then Gun News, I assume, picked it up from there and published it with attribution to MCKNBRD. Of course, if it's in Gun News, it could be in a lot of other publications, too, with the same attribution.

What makes it all even worse is that Marko had these pieces sold to a small but popular national publication. I don't know what they were paying him, but I bet it paid better than being plagiarized by the internets. I've heard that doesn't generate much revenue. It sounds like this means, in the future, that Marko's just not going to blog anything that might get sold later. I can't blame him; he has to think about his own family, and the internets have shown that they can't be trusted. Way to go, internets. Thanks a lot.