Internet plagiarism

There's just something about plagiarism of material on the Internet that makes me cringe. Perhaps the fact that I have no actual gift for writing or art keeps me safe from such underhanded activities but when you see rampant theft (be it in the form of stolen images or duplicated text) you just have to wonder what ever happened to credibility.

Let's take the following episode which I was recently a witness to.

http://www.animeforum.com/showthread.php?t=23595&page=1&pp=25

http://www.animeforum.com/showthread.php?p=632172&posted=1

One of the images was copied from Spinny, an independent webcomic author and IRC regular.

Spinny's work can be seen here

Yet other examples were taken from other artists. It's one thing to post something you like and give credit where it's due, such as a gaming review website. But to troll a forum using other people's art to garner the adulation of others is just downright disrespectful.


In the end there isn't much that can be done, other than having forum moderators police content, but the only long term solution here is that people just grow up and learn to speak honestly about what is there's and what isn't.