Camera reviews and plagiarism?

September 29th, 2009 | by admin |

I know it is classed as plagiarism but is it ok to copy and paste camera reviews for your own website? I have seen pretty much the same reviews on various websites and was wondering if there is anything wrong with this?

You answered your own question – plagiarism is virtually never OK.

It’s definitely not okay to simply cut and paste other peoples’ work uncredited (and in some cases, even if it’s credited). Even if it turns out to be legal, it’s incredibly impolite to rip off other peoples’ work unless the author has clearly indicated they don’t mind that (for instance, by putting the work under a Creative Commons licence that doesn’t require attribution).

Also, you shouldn’t be publishing "reviews" of cameras you haven’t used – if you *have* used them sure, quoting a brief excerpt of someone else’s review to illustrate your own is probably okay, but if you’ve used it enough to review it you should have enough material to write your own!

  1. 4 Responses to “Camera reviews and plagiarism?”

  2. By yammer77 on Sep 29, 2009 | Reply

    I would think so.
    You could write your own mini reviews and then say for more thorough reviews visit dpreview.com, etc.
    References :

  3. By endangeredsaviour on Sep 29, 2009 | Reply

    In most cases, you can excerpt an article as long as you provide credit and a link to the full article on the original website it came from.

    This is classified under some legal Fair Use law which says you can excerpt any literary or artwork in a publication for the purpose of critiquing or reviewing it. This also goes for the republishing of corporate or sports logos.

    I would try to interpret the Fair Use doctrine, linked here:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

    Good luck!
    References :

  4. By Mike K on Sep 29, 2009 | Reply

    You answered your own question – plagiarism is virtually never OK.

    It’s definitely not okay to simply cut and paste other peoples’ work uncredited (and in some cases, even if it’s credited). Even if it turns out to be legal, it’s incredibly impolite to rip off other peoples’ work unless the author has clearly indicated they don’t mind that (for instance, by putting the work under a Creative Commons licence that doesn’t require attribution).

    Also, you shouldn’t be publishing "reviews" of cameras you haven’t used – if you *have* used them sure, quoting a brief excerpt of someone else’s review to illustrate your own is probably okay, but if you’ve used it enough to review it you should have enough material to write your own!
    References :

  5. By COLIN T on Sep 29, 2009 | Reply

    If you go to the biggest camera review site of all – ‘Steves Digicams’ – you will find a note explicitly forbidding reproduction of any of the content.
    References :

Post a Comment