Monday, January 21, 2008

Did The Toronto Sun Rip Off Toronto Blogger?

The head honcho at a popular Toronto blog entitled The Torontoist is accusing the Toronto Sun of plagiarism. Here's the original bit from The Torontoist:

Posterchild––street artist extraordinaire and our new curator for Vandalist––has taken it on himself to fill the empty hooks of the TTC's subways, streetcars, and buses with new and improved information flyers. For the past week, he's posted details of one flyer a day to his blog: Monday was a subway and streetcar colouring book; Tuesday was tips on how to flirt on the subway (pictured above); Wednesday was a guided graffiti tour along the 510 Spadina streetcar route; Thursday was a cryptogram, maze, connect-the-dots game, and riddles; and today's, Friday, was a claim that the whole system is now free.

From the T.O Sun:

For each week day, Posterchild made up flyers for commuters and hung them on hooks on subway cars and the 510 Spadina streetcar.

Each day had a different theme:

Monday was a subway and streetcar colouring book; Tuesday was tips on how to flirt on the subway; Wednesday was a guided graffiti tour along the 510 Spadina streetcar route; Thursday was a cryptogram, maze, connect-the-dots game, and riddles; and Friday's was a claim that the whole system is now free.

A very intense discussion ensues in the Torontoist comments as to what constitutes plagiary, who at The Sun is ultimately responsible, and etc.

Interesting in that what it seems was done in this case (a quick cut & paste) is done on the blogs regularly, including here. Although personally I always try to link to the original source if I intend to crib lines (so readers can see what I took from where).

2 comments:

Ti-Guy said...

Of course a lot of them are arguing that this isn't really plagiarism. The copied and pasted works in entirety that they hand in to their profs...now that's plagiarism.

I have to start paying more attention on the subway; I haven't seen any of those flyers. They look like fun.

Dr.Dawg said...

"Plagiary." Holy crap, it is a word, too. I learn something new every day. Thanks, BCL.