Photo plagiarism by mainstream media outlets is now commonplace but when the Indian Postal Service also joins the club, I’m not sure whether Anil should be outraged or flattered (he is the latter).

First newspapers and now TV channels. Zing TV of the Zee Network plagiarizes from India’s fashion blog, High Heel Confidential [hat tip: Naina Kataria].

Tsk tsk…now that’s fugly.

Photos getting flicked from Flickr is passe. Hirak Gautam is worth a case study

Apart from the similarity of the text, it is sad that the readers of SpiceRoute will be misled by Hirak’s article on at least two counts: (a) they’d think Kallu’s nihari can be had on a “muggy afternoon”, whereas it’s never actually served before 5pm or so; (b) they would expect prices to be the same as what existed in 2007, when I originally wrote my post.

Hat tip [Twilightfairy]

[Y]esterday, I came across an interesting link which changed my lookout on these Zoozoos completely. I stumbled upon a series of graphics on popular stock imagery website stockxpert by user Huebi (real name: Alexander Hübert from Wuppertal, Germany) which were made available in 2007.

A blogger, Priyank may have accidentally stumbled upon the ‘inspiration’ for the lovable and popular Zoozoos. The question, he rightly asks, inspiration or imitation?

We know that photo plagiarism is not a serious crime,atleast some think so.TOI, known to set newer bench marks, now adds another feather in its crown.Ideeblog flaunts the power of their product Tineye that helped Rapchik discover the Jennifer to Kareena transition.Photoshop zindabad,some guys would be saying.

The photographs are exactly the same and I don’t see any reason for doubts (I cannot think of the same angle, the same pose and everything else resembling my photograph and yet the photograph being taken by some one else in real time at the exact time – these are exactly the photos I clicked!!).

Shamit Bagchi catches DNA India (Bangalore edition) in the act of plagiarizing his photographs. I suggest he or any other blogger with similar complaints contact Twilight Fairy who successfully managed to get Times of India to pay for using her photographs.

Anu Malik’s only misfortune seems to be that he lives in an era where MTV, Channel V and VH1 are accessible in India, and the awareness and following of Western music has grown in leaps and bounds. So any tune that he copies is readily identified, earning him ridicule.

Gaurav looks at the long tradition of plagiarism in Bollywood. Don’t be hatin’ Anu Malik alone, you would be surprised who else has been guilty in the recent past.

There has been a spate of incidents recently when the Indian mainstream media has thought it convenient to plagiarize from the blogging community. The content stolen has not only been blog posts but also photos which they publish without due acknowledgement.

Few bloggers are considering establishing an organization/ community to fight against such theft and give bloggers a stronger voice in protecting their content. Express your opinion in the comments below and let us know if you would like to join such an organization. This would not be a DesiPundit venture but we would strongly support it.

Instances of newspapers stealing photographs from blogs are becoming increasingly common.  At DesiPundit, we have linked to a few of such instances in the past.

Sudipta feels all bloggers should take a stand against the issue of plagiarism by the media.  Sounds like a great idea to me!

On October 2, you need to post something about plagiarism by all the media. Write your reaction, stand by fellow bloggers, and tell everyone that they need to be vigilant.

Also, express your opinion here on an idea to prevent such incidents in the future. Your post or photo could be next.

HEI DUDE, DO NOT ORDER, JUST REQUEST…. Are you trying to scare us..? whats your freakin contact number..? Call me at listed number, we will talk… This is Shiva, Shiva Kumar Coordinator from Anashwara Groups… Makesure you read our terms and conditions before sending these kind of crap mails.. I could forward it to Anashwara’s law department and prosecute you at the max of federal law section 323 for sending threaten mails to a reputed organisation

Inji Pennu shares an hard-to-believe email exchange with Kerals.com regarding content theft. Instead of apologizing and removing the content, Kerals.com threatened, cyber-stalked, and abused the blogger [hat tip: Thanu]. Although the matter seems to be resolved (or not), the email exchange gets more and more weird from the first contact.