Last Wednesday, many Internet sites such as Wikipedia went dark in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). The acts are an attempt by congress to stop intellectual property theft by people who pirate movies, music and other intellectual property for personal gain. The entertainment industry loses millions of dollars a year to the theft of their intellectual property. Today both houses of congress scrapped the acts and will be looking for a method to protect intellectual property without censorship.One of the things that astonished me about blogging (and there have been many eye opening events) is the blatant theft of intellectual property among bloggers. I had not even been online two weeks when one of my posts was copied and stolen by another “blogger”. She copied my entire blog including all pictures and text, pasted it onto her site and posted it under her name. I of course confronted her, and her response was “everything comes from somewhere”. She didn’t feel like she had done anything wrong because that is the whole basis of her blog. She doesn’t write, she just looks around online for someone else’s work, cuts, pastes and posts next to her ads and waits for the money to roll in. I don’t call this blogging.
This type of intellectual property theft is rampant in the blogging world. How hard is it to drop a link to your source into a post? In my brief post on Wednesday about Kandi saying on Kandi Koated Nights that she was done blogging at Bravo because she feels censored in what she could say, I pointed out that one of my readers had heard the comment on KKN (identifying the source). I asked that reader to provide me with a link to the video, which she did via email. I then listened to the show and confirmed what was said, and told y’all where in the 90+ minutes of video you could here the information for yourself. Since that post two things have happened. Click through the jump to find out what happened.
The first thing that happened is that RHOAWetpaint “writer” Samantha Leffler ONCE AGAIN ran with the story without sourcing me. This is common behavior for HER; however, the other authors at that site are great people who not only source my work, but even email with questions before publishing their articles. This set off a chain of articles, first Sister to Sister Magazine on 01-19 13:31 by Sonya Eskridge, then Gather.com January 19, 2012 04:55 PM EST (who did attempt to credit but since WetPaint did not credit, she credits Wet Paint) next RealityTea Written By Maria 20 Jan 2012 runs the story.
The second thing that happened was that episode of KKN was set to private and pulled from the site she uses to host her video archives sometime today. I found that odd, and it made me feel a bit bad that I ever posted it to start with. At least for a while. I felt bad that she felt the need to take it down. Kandi obviously has a great time doing her online show, and to contribute to her feeling as though she needed to remove it entirely didn’t make me feel great. But as I thought about it, it is a show that she makes for the public. She promotes the show on twitter and encourages her fans to tune in. She knows what she says on there, and she actually talks about things from the show a lot. Also, we all know that Bravo blogs are edited both for clarity and grammar (Sheree) but for content (everyone). So it was no great shock that the blogs were edited. Nor was it a great shock that Kandi only went to Miami because no one else wanted to film with Nene. I’ve posted about that several times here and most of us didn’t need to hear it from her mouth to get that.
That said, for the past couple days, other sites are sensationalizing the video to be this big call out on Nene. Those of us who heard the video before it was taken down know it was not. Kandi just said what we all already knew that she and Nene are not BFFs and don’t speak outside of filming, so there is no breach of the friend code when she goes back to the other girls and makes fun of Nene’s comments about being rich. Hell, my soon to be (I’m getting there y’all) ex imaginary gay boyfriend, Andy Cohen makes fun of it every chance he gets.
So Kandi, if I caused you any problems, I’m sorry. I honestly didn’t think it was a big deal at all.
I missed this post when you posted it, AND the one that you specifically mention, but I saw your scoop EVERYWHERE!-the funny thing is that I didn't think that it was that big of a deal, but yes, worth mentioning.One-should you feel bad for repeating what Kandi said? Heck NO! Who had to suffer-through a 90 minute podcast? (just kidding), but that was definitely YOUR find, and I would be ticked-off about that too.I haven't been blogging much lately, but I have been more active on Twitter. Believe it or not, some people seem to think that if they read it in their timeline, they don't have to give credit!I know that using people's Twitter screen names is sometimes considered rude, but if the person who's info. someone uses is a blogger, I think that they should be credited.That's my new pet-peeve for content-thieves. I've been trying to think of a way to say that in 140 or less
I'm not so sure how-far one should go in crediting their sources, but personally, I like to document exactly how I learned about something before I pass it on, since that is a question that people usually have anyways. ("Where did you hear that?")For example, if I saw your item about what you heard Kandi say, on Reality Tea, (and they said that they got it from you), I would say that.-"Saw on Reality Tea that Tammara heard Kandi say why she stopped blogging on Bravo.com."Its just so obvious how some bloggers cannot stand to give credit- one little trick is when they say that "someone" emailed the info. to them. When I see that I always assume that the blogger has some reason why they don't want to mention the REAL source of the info. ha ha.
Lol @ my auto spell corrector! Blog is not in my Kindle Fire's dictionary but it is now!BOLOGNA should be blog BOOB should be blogForgot to add: keep up the good work Tamara, I enjoy your blog!
After watching the Real Housewives series, Eventually, I'll log on to Bravo to read the Housewives blogs. Why is the African American show the only show (from my Real Housewives top picks) the only show that doesn't keep up with their weekly blogs? It looks tacky, ghetto, lazy and it's a slap in the face to those of us who support the show. I don't care that Bravo proofs the blogs, they need to do their job! They're no more busier than any of the other Housewives who take the time out of their busy schedules to address shows. (I too am AfricanAmerican and it embarrasses me each time I log on to Bravo and see no current bologna entries) Lazy and contrary are the first thoughts that come to mind. As for Kandi being upset over the censorship…please! The show has brought her back to the forefront (out of the background,I know she has been writing songs) in the public's eyes, the least she could do is boob and so should everyone else.
Not sure what is going on with blogger and comments, weird. When I first started commenting, I could do it direct from the post. If did it from comment link took me to comment page. Now I am in post but still took me to comment page. Don't really care as long as I can comment, lol. Better yet as long as I can read your posts.Sad to see people are still stealing your work. I saw how the video went private and assumed it was due to the reaction of your reader maybe after having the video posted out of context and trying to make Kandi look like she was two faced.Is there someway you can type your blog with a water mark on the page. Thinking "Stolen from Tamara Tattles" might do the trick. Seriously it is stupid for bloggers to steal work. I know the blogger you are talking about. Used to read her blog, then stopped when there was never any real news. I prefer original info or a repeat of the info with added info or a new slant or commentary. Doesn't take long to figure out which bloggers do that and which ones don't.Hang in there, your blog is great, very creative, entertaining and when needed thought provoking. Can't ask for more.
well embedded comments still don't work but I like this better than what we have been doing. What do y'all think?
testing new comment feature.
I went to SFTA and yes, she posted an article too. Apparently she watched the video SOMEWHERE and saved the embed code before she wrote the article. The video was already down before her article went up today. It happens. Like I said, the original source was KKN. It's not always cut and dry who to credit especially because lots of places never credit their sources. I tend to credit whoever sent me to the source,in this case one of my readers. It's always the polite thing to do. I doubt all these people suddenly had reason to go through the archives of KKN weeks after the fact. /shrugs
To be fair, the SOURCE was really Kandi herself and her KKN video. Also, Reality Tea is very good about sourcing. IF SFTA ran the story (I don't know I haven't seen it) I am surprised she didn't source me. She had a great story today about Sheree and Lawerence that I RTed at twitter and left alone. I really had nothing to say about it she had not already said. I try not to run with stories that are exclusively someone elses. The KKN video was sitting there for MONTHS and no one picked it up until I did./shrugsIt doesn't hurt anyone to say, "I read at tamaratattles and this is what I think about it and here are a few quotes."Most of the time we don't have that many readers in common anyway. It's fine to share the same story, just credit where you were when that idea came on in your head to write about it. It's not hard. And you will only lose readers if all of your ideas come from another place.
I was surprised by Reality Tea. They already know all of this. I know they already know this because I read all of this stuff there months ago. Why are they treating this like a breaking story?
I see your BFF at Straight from the A also ran with your story today with no credit…Watch how easy it is to typetamaratattlesAnd voila, credit it done. I don't get why it is so hard to credit you.
I don't get all the drama either. I was shocked that story got stolen. It's not like it was big news at all. But Samantha Leffler is notorious for reblogging my blogs without sourcing it.
I don't get it either. The fact that nobody can stand Nene Leakes is old news, as is the fact that Bravo is notorious for censoring the comments under its blogs. That it turns out that they edit the blogs as well comes as no surprise. As far as I'm concerned, Tamara, you were simply reaffirming what everybody already either suspected or knew.Does anybody even CARE who Leakes is feuding with anymore?
What the hell is all the hoopla about???