ED#20 : Conversations With A Plagiarizer

Ever since the BIOS Optimization Guide became popular, I have been in a perpetual fight. Not to keep the site afloat or to use it to make my million dollars. But for my rights as the author.

For years, the BIOS Optimization Guide has been plagiarized by many individuals and sites from different countries and in different languages. Even today, the BOG is still being plagiarized. On the average, we investigate anywhere from three to five cases of possible plagiarism a month! Many thanks to all of you who kept us informed!

You will be surprised at the individuals and websites that plagiarized the BIOS Optimization Guide. Although the majority are new sites trying to churn out articles the easy way (by copying or modifying other sites' works), some are actually rather respectable sites. And believe it or not, some big multinational companies have also plagiarized the BOG! It really goes to show that just about anyone is capable of plagiarism.

When we find someone who plagiarized our guide, we usually request that they immediately remove it and write us an explanation. We try to offer an easy way out for these individuals and sites, even though I strongly abhor plagiarism. Most sites quickly own up and remove their plagiarized guides without much fuss. Of course, there are always those parting shots that go more or less like this - "Your guide sucks anyway! We will write our own which will be a gazillion times better than yours!". Heh, okay....

However, we do get some oddballs. Some insist they wrote the entire BIOS Optimization Guide, word for word. There was even one guy who went around declaring himself to be the real author of the BIOS Optimization Guide. He actually gave several sites the "right" to publish the guide!

Plagiarism Today

This month has been a pretty busy month for us, as far as plagiarizers go. I caught another site (yet to be launched) who ripped off the BIOS Optimization Guide for their FAQs. They even called it a priority project. I'm touched.

But when asked to remove the plagiarized material, they simply edited it down. They then asked me to check their watered-down guides and edit out the remaining plagiarized parts. No apologies, no explanation. Like it was my job to edit their plagiarized materials for them!

I also had an incredible conversation of sorts with this guy who ripped the entire BIOS Optimization Guide, apparently for quite a long time now. There was even a reference in a forum where someone actually said that his guide was more thorough than the BOG (even though they were exactly the same!).

Come, let's see the conversation I had with Jacob, the webmaster of Grillxxxxxx.dk.

Conversation With A Plagiarizer