Mumbai Mirror journalist Subhash K Jha copies an article from the blog Passion For Cinema without crediting the orginal article.
His article starts with the line:
Evidently, imitation is the best form of flattery.
Evidently! But PFC is taking him on. Let’s hope Mumbai Mirror prints a retraction or gives credit where credit is due.
Comments
5 comments. Leave your comment »
Gaurav
May 11th, 2007 at 10:02 am | #
I fail to see how Subhash K Jha’s article is plagiarism. He does mention that the article was based on Tarantino’s interview with Srinivas. I admit that he should have linked to the PFC post, but the article was primarily meant for print, where attribution by linking is not possible. Subhash K Jha is one of the better film journalists in India and I think the people at PFC are unnecessarily hyping this up. Enough now! Stop!
Patrix
May 11th, 2007 at 10:12 am | #
Gaurav,
probably not ‘copying’ in the obvious sense but failure to mention the source (’Passion for Cinema’) constitutes as plagiarism.
Adding one line that Srinivas is a blogger at Passion for Cinema would have sufficed, I think. The question also raised is if Subhash K Jha contacted PFC to use their content. Journalists usually do.
Shripriya
May 11th, 2007 at 11:56 am | #
Gaurav, I disagree. As Patrix mentions, he didn’t contact PFC or get Srinivas’ permission to use it. Someone of his stature should not make such a basic mistake.
And the Mumbai Mirror piece is getting picked up all over the net and propagating. If any of us had written the piece, I am sure we’d like to get due credit for it, right?
t!
May 11th, 2007 at 9:15 pm | #
passionforcinema.com is covered under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Non-Derivative license. This means that any newspaper is free to republish any content, as long as it follows the following criteria:
Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work);
Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
Mumbai Mirror has violated these recognized legal conditions by not giving credit to the source material (passionforcinema.com), and by using it in a commercial format.
Interesting that today the lead story on the Creative Commons weblog is the sucessful launch of Creative Commons licensing in India, meant to give Indian blogs, websites and computing organizations the same protections that exist here in the US.
The article may not be plagarism, but it is in violation of recognized American copywrite law – soon to be recognized in India, as well.
eh
May 12th, 2007 at 1:36 am | #
Why should Subhash K Jha get paid for work that someone else did?
I should not be surprised given that his writing is nothing short of official propaganda for various Bollywood personalities. But lifted interviews seems a new low.
This never would have made it past a competent editor.
In my opinion Mumbai Mirror owes the original author a check, and Jha owes him an apology.