In an interesting turn of events yesterday, visitors to Linda Ikeji's blog lindaikeji.blogspot.com suddenly discovered that their beloved entertainment/gossip hotspot was offline. It turned out that Google had taken the complaints of plagiarism quite serious and had deleted Linda Ikeji's blog.
The action has since sparked lots of controversies as many of her fans took to the various social media pages to lament and blame ‘witches’ and ‘haters’ for the tragedy. Others, still, believed it was just and deserved and there were others who believed this was but a temporary setback for Linda Ikeji, as she is expected to relaunch with something bigger, better and perhaps more ethical in the content jurisdiction.
Clearing the air on the misconception, Google’s Manager for Communications and Public Affairs, Anglo-Phone West Africa, Taiwo Kolade-Ogunlade, in a chat with Punch newspaper, explained why the blog was taken down.
It reads:
“To respect the rights of copyright holders, Google clearly spells out how users of its products and services can get permission to use someone else’s intellectual property such as text, songs, images and footages. Google is no respecter of anybody when it comes to the issues of copyright infringement.
“Google as an organization takes issues of copyright seriously and belongs to a group of digital companies that respect copyrights."
“Copyright is a big deal and this is why you can’t just go and pick up another person’s intellectual property or content and lay claim to its ownership. That is why we have copyright guidance. I don’t know if Linda picked up any content and I don’t know what content is the bone of contention, neither have I looked into the complaints personally.”
“But it is not a case of witch-hunting and has nothing to do with Linda Ikeji’s personality or anyone else because there is a process, and irrespective of who you are in the world, that process would apply to you.
“It has become imperative for online entrepreneurs to respect the rights of copyright holders noting that the Internet community should be built on mutual trust and general respect.
“Let’s respect other people’s rights and intellectual property. Making money off other people’s content without permission is wrong. Although the Internet is inanimate, it is the content on it that gives it life. These are the issues.
“Whenever owners of online contents come after you accusing you of using their content, it is because they have families to feed and businesses to sustain.
“People should also understand that copyrights does not only apply to text, but also extends to literary works, images and photographs, music files and MP3s, movies, movie trailers and videos as well as software.”
Over the weekend, Linda Ikeji was accused by a number of people of constantly plagiarizing and lifting articles from websites without giving credit to original sources.
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