In a recent Facebook post, the Publisher of Todaysnewsafrica.com, Simon Ateba complained about online publishers who plagiarize his website’s contents without due credit or permission.
According to Ateba, there is nothing wrong in quoting an article, a publication or an author, but “when you republish an entire article and give yourself a by-line as if you wrote it, that’s shameful. “
We share Ateba’s concern about this prevalent issue in the online publishing sector in Nigeria. It is indeed wrong and an infringement on copyright.
At mediacareerng.org, we have, oftentimes, had our contents plagiarized, an act which is unethical and contravenes global standard practice of journalism. We are also aware of complaints by many other publishers on this issue.
We urge websites that are guilty of the ‘copy and paste’ practice, to desist and do the right thing.
One of the marks of a good website is its ability to generate original and premium content, which cost money. To have such content copied and reproduced is theft of intellectual property of the content owners.
The original content owners are being denied the revenue and traffic that should have accrue to them from their reports when they are reused indiscriminately by unauthorized platforms.
It’s not enough to state that contents are culled from another source, the owners should have the option of deciding if they want to grant permission for it to be republished or even ask for payment for the use of its materials.
Websites that do not have the capacity to generate a good percentage of its content, have no business pretending to be online publishers.
Journalism is a profession guided by code of ethics and every practitioner should be guided by it.
The Code of ethics for Nigerian journalists has the following provisions
PLAGIARISM: A journalist should not copy, wholesale or in part, other people’s work without attribution and/or consent.
COPYRIGHT: Where a journalist reproduces a work, be it in print, broadcast, artwork or design, proper acknowledgement should be accorded the author. A journalist should abide by all rules of copyright, established by national and international laws and conventions.
Enough of copy and paste journalism. Those who cant generate content should stop profiting from the efforts and investment of others.
