A couple of years ago I updated a Wikipedia article about Boca Raton to include a little historical information about IBM Boca Raton Main site (here’s my contribution to the Wikipedia article, which ends with just before the BlueGreen comment).
Out of sheer boredom, I was looking for more information on the rail spur that IBM had run alongside what used to be its manufacturing plant, wondering if it had ever been used. And as it happens, I found that the Wikipedia article on Boca Raton had been cut-and-pasted word-for-word on several websites, like this one, this one, and this one. The Wikipedia article was even lifted verbatim and put on Answers.com.
I have mixed feelings about this. It drove home the point how widespread plagerism is on the Inernet, but on the other hand, it is kind of an ego boost to see my writings out there beyond the walls of The Corsair Journal.
September 17th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Did the sites you referenced claim the info as their own? They got it from Wikipedia, right? If you make a contribution to Wiki, is it copyrighted? I don’t know how those things work, but have often seen chunks of Wiki info used in other places, but quoted from Wiki. Just curious.
September 19th, 2009 at 12:22 am
Well, I didn’t really look hard enough to tell if the sites claimed the material as their own–I was just so jazzed to see my work proliferated through the Great Wide Web. Wikipedia is far from copyrighted–it’s all public-domain and fair-use. It’s part of their charter. This ought to help clear up your question better than I can.