Dear Non-writer friends,
Firstly, thank you for the
appreciation you show us for whatever we write on Facebook and here on our
blogs. There is nothing more motivating for a writer than the fact that their
thoughts resonate with others.
One of the ways of appreciation
is sharing our work which helps us reach out more. Thank you for that. But when
you simply copy paste what we have written from our timeline to your timeline
on Facebook rather than sharing the original post or crediting the writer,
nobody knows whether the post is written by you or
by us or some other famous writer. Simply copying it on your timeline cannot be
called as credit to us. It is blatant plagiarism. When it gets shared from your
timeline, we never know how far it has reached because there are no credits,
remember? Our sharing the work on a public forum / social media doesn't mean it
is available for free copying. That thing you just copied and pasted was
somebody's hardwork of hours, maybe days too. That is the reason we are so
possessive about our work.
And when you do something like this, it takes away one
of the most important things from us – the possibilities. From us – the ones
who are still trying to make a mark for ourselves in the world of writing. You
take away from us the possibility of a simple message like ‘I like what you
have written’ from a stranger which could be the only reason on a bad day for
us to continue writing when we are thinking of giving up. The possibility of
the post going viral, the possibility of the post getting us in contact with
the right people in the writing industry, the possibility of it landing our
next book deal. I know I am being preposterous here but heck, there are
possibilities !!
So when I have to fight it out on
social media to ask you to ‘share’ the original post or give us the rightful
‘credit’ for what I have written, it makes me question as to whether I should
share my next post or not, or am I being too arrogant in asking for the credit
for my own work?
I know I am not a big time famous
writer. I am just an ordinary blogger who is very passionate about writing and
the written word in general. Thank you.
P.S. – This post was inspired by
an ugly incident I faced recently on Facebook when a school friend simply
copied a piece I had written on Facebook to her timeline and when I asked for
credit, she and her friends turned nasty towards me.
I have used the word ‘we’ in the
post above because I am speaking on behalf of my writer / blogger friends. I
hope they would agree.
