The abundant information available on the web is a blessing
of our technological revolution that helped us transform into a better
knowledge society. Today, at the tip of your finger you've access to the entire
world’s information that once would be with men in the ivory tower.
I write this in relation with my article, ‘In Pursuit of
Solitude’, published here http://www.farazsalat.com/2012/12/in-pursuit-of-solitude_9.html,
which was copied by a student from JBIMS. The student submitted the article in
a competition called ‘Campus Journos’,
which was organized by Philips India.
Interestingly, this student is my school friend; we were in
the same school until 2005. And since then I've not met him personally. I
accepted his friendship request on Facebook in late 2012, and like hundreds of
friends I've on Facebook, I’d chat with him about whatever-I-feel-comfortable.
However, he never mentioned that he was in JBIMS, I only knew that he was
trying his luck to get through a Business School.
I write on this blog to express myself, my views and to
connect with the larger world, those who second my thoughts and those who have
a variation. I don’t mind if anyone takes an article from this blog, share it
with someone, and give me the credit or mention the link. But I do condemn if
you copy and submit it in competitions or make claims that the article belongs
to you. The article in question was solely written by me and prior permission
from me was required to copy it.
To ascertain as to how many visits I get on my website on a
real time basis, I've installed a few blog applications. One fine evening when
I was reviewing my blog, I came across a link from where a person jumped on my
website. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the link. And I discovered that my
article is published by Campus Journos. Well, Campus Journos may say they had
no knowledge about the article’s plagiarism; however, an act of ignorance is
not a sufficient defense. If a man approaches me to sell his products, I’ll
first question whether he has the receipt of the purchase. What if he has
robbed the product? The law will not excuse me.
I immediately contacted Campus Journos with a notice
expressing the infringement of my rights on the article. Yes, the article had
his first name and his college. Two points here: there are many people with the
same name, I know of 4 people with that name. And that point in time, I didn’t
know of any person with that name who studies in JBIMS.
Having sent an email to them, I also exercised my right to
express. I resorted to Facebook and Twitter to express my disturbance. Until
now, I had no clue that this act was done by a person who I know largely
through social media.
Now, having read my comments, this old friend of mine immediately messages me on Facebook, says that he is sorry for his act and requested to remove the comments, updates and tweets. He was apologetic. The fact that he realized he was wrong and apologized, pacified me.
Now, having read my comments, this old friend of mine immediately messages me on Facebook, says that he is sorry for his act and requested to remove the comments, updates and tweets. He was apologetic. The fact that he realized he was wrong and apologized, pacified me.
Campus Journos contacts me in the mean time; they confirmed
that the post is removed. That is it. They didn't bother to apologize. The fact
that they didn't do their internal check to confirm whether the content they
are publishing is original or not is a justifiable reason for my complaining
about them in social media. I still
stand with one of my tweets where I said that they are giving a bad name to
Philips India. They realized that the article was not original when I brought
to their notice. Why didn't they acknowledge their mistake? Should not they
have bothered to apologize to me for not doing a check, and publishing my
content without my permission?
This student sends a message, and asks me to remove the
tweets. I didn't remove them immediately. I don’t have to remove them. I’m
entitled for my views, especially when they are truthful. Truth itself is a
defense for defamation. Following morning, I removed them only because he
requested, and to avoid any repercussion that he may have to bear. There were
six tweets that I removed upon his request. These tweets were published before
he informed me about his act, and removed only after he apologized. The faculty
of intelligence is the most important tool of mankind. It’s our intellect that
should help us succeed, and those who resort to copy the inventions or
creations of others to take wrongful credit are unarguably intellectually
defunct. I stand with all my tweets, even now when I know that the person who I
called intellectually defunct studied with me in my school. However, if he has
got through JBIMS (which is not a cake walk) solely through his ability
(absolute ability and not through reservation or specific quota) then he may be intelligent, undoubtedly, but also silly.
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