So yesterday, I found this great story at Brian Cuban’s blog, The Cuban Revolution titled Facebook At Odds With Obama On Holocaust Denial in which he gives a lot of good, solid information about Holocaust denier groups on Facebook. And as a facebook user myself, I can tell you that they exist. When I looked into the matter further, I found that the blog posted by Brian — presumably 2 days ago as that’s when the first comments appeared — plagerized quite a bit of information straight from JIDF (Jewish Internet Defense Force). Quoting — which bloggers do often — is usually ok, as long as you link to the original source — that’s why you see links in blog posts. But in this particular case, credit was not given to the original post posted at JIDF on October 18, 2008.
Sloppy journalism? Maybe. So I posted to Bob Cuban’s blog yesterday at a little before 5 pm ET:
“The JIDF has been all over this for quite a while.http://www.thejidf.org/2008/10/important-regarding-content-on-facebook.html
Welcome to the party.”
Of course, there was the wait for moderation. And I am still waiting. The post has not yet been approved. If it was an honest mistake, I’d expect to be approved. I just hate to see someone else taking credit for the hard work being done by the JIDF. I’ll keep ya posted.
Jason you failed to get your facts prior to posting. You are wrong on several issued. From the legal perspective, the information does not belong to a single source and it is defined as commentary for which citing the source is not a requirement. Therefore it is not plagiarism. BTW – who was the source of your information regarding Brian Cuban’s association with the Mark Cuban Companies?
http://www.briancuban.com/about
“I am a Dallas Attorney working for Mark Cuban Companies doing whatever that happens to entail at any given moment. I am also the Executive Director of the Mark Cuban Foundation currently administering The Fallen Patriot Fund.”
There are two separate issues and I am not changing the tune, Brian Cuban did not state that he was an attorney for Mark Cuban. I replied to your comment: “Brian Cuban is not Mark Cuban’s lawyer. It’s his brother…”. You damage your credibility by making a false statement. Obviously, you have a problem with understanding two separate concepts. In regards to the issue of plagiarism, you need to consult with an attorney about the actual definition of plagiarism, not a dictionary.
Ok – who is Jason?
by Jason_Humphreys May 6, 2009 4:22 PM PDT
1) Brian Cuban is not Mark Cuban’s lawyer. It’s his brother
2) Brian Cuban nor CNET did not give credit to the organization who originally shed light on these issues, the Jewish Internet Defense Force (3)
3) Interesting piece regarding Brian Cuban’s article:
Internet plagerism or sloppy journalism? You decide.
http://starcmc.wordpress.com/2009/05/06/internet-plagerism-or-sloppy-journalism-you-decide/
“Raheli S” you comments make no sense here. Why are you copying and pasting comments found on the cnet piece here? That’s whack.
Raheli – your comments make no sense – I am unapproving them unless you can explain what you’re talking about in plain English.
The CNET piece in question:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10233245-71.html?tag=mncol
Plagiarism is the intentional or unintentional use of another’s words or ideas without acknowledgment.
There are four common forms of plagiarism:
* The duplication of an author’s words without quotation marks and accurate references or footnotes.
* The duplication of author’s words or phrases with footnotes or accurate references, but without quotation marks.
* The use of an author’s ideas in paraphrase without accurate references or footnotes.
* Submitting a paper in which exact words are merely rearranged even though footnoted.
If you compare the JIDF’s original piece found here:
http://www.thejidf.org/2008/10/letter-to-facebook-regarding-illegal.html
to Brian Cuban’s piece, it appears to be plagiarized to me. However, I’m not a lawyer, nor am I making any legal claims whatsoever, just stating my opinion on the matter.
*One more thing, it would be interesting to get some more legal opinions on the matter as the JIDF might just have a case against Mr. Cuban.
Wow, this is some great information about “Brian Cuban” and the “JIDF” (“Jewish Internet Defense Force”) – thank you for posting.