I just finished a post, Google As Anti-Plagiarism Tool, about the pinnacle of plagiarism stupidity – stealing from Wikipedia – at e-Learning That Sucks and thought of something I’d like to write at least a few words about here. It’s actually impossible to steal from Wikipedia because it is the self-proclaimed free encyclopedia and everything under wikipedia.org is in the public domain.
The only thing worse than taking classics – or any other book in the public domain – and flipping them as poorly published e-Books is to copy and paste articles, a series or entire “books” from Wikipedia and sell them. Yes, it happens. A lot. Search for your favorite musical artist and “wikipedia” at Amazon.com and you’ll find examples. Unfortunately, many shoppers have purchased what they thought were legitimate books only to later find they’re just re-purposed Wikipedia articles. At least there seems to be somewhat of a new trend developing where they credit Wikipedia as the source upfront.
It’s just sleazy. I know this isn’t news to anyone. I know you didn’t just learn anything. I just needed to get that off my chest.
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