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."
“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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