This week I have been prompted to consider what’s going on
the wider world of blogging and online content... what blogging is about and
why I write this blog.
To give some focus to the issue... “we need to talk about
Kevin” (a great book... seeing the film this week).
The Kevin we need to talk about, as online content providers
and medical tourism people is Kevin Rude, the Health Team Director at Medical
Treatments Management, whose “blogging” has sparked a debate on various discussion forums on Linked
In such as Medical
Tourism & Travel Developers.
Recently various forums and most of the medical tourism
groups on Linked In have been bombarded with Kevin’s blog posts. There have
been such gems as:
- New Blog Post The Power of Coconut Coconut Oil
Helps Women - The Coconut and what it can do for your health; it’s a...
- New Blog Post Kidney Stones Prevention Kidney
Stones Diet Urology
But there were some
that appeared to have some relevance to medical tourism:
- How US Health Care Reform Will Affect Employee Benefits
– Health Care – Strategy – Analysis | MTM Blog http://ow.ly/7mXQn
- New Blog Post How to Compare Different Health
Providers - The bottom line is to choose a provider, company or surgeon... http://ow.ly/1fwUIe
These blog posts attracted my interest and that of others in
the industry. I went to take a look at Kevin’s MTM Blog. Lots of interesting stuff..... but some of it
seemed familiar. In fact...very familiar....was I reading my own words in
places? So I did some exploring.
Kevin’s MTM Blog is packed with insight, opinion and analysis....
but none of it appears to be his own insight, opinion and analysis. The blog is
“written by” Kevin and other contributors such as “Omar” and “Karen”.
Look deeper and you will find that much of the blog content
originates from a host of reputable online publishers – New York Times, San
Francisco Chronicle, McKinsey Chronicle, Society for Public Health Education
(SOPHE), A.D.A.M. Foundation and others.
In many cases, what Kevin and his blogging team do is make a straight
copy of original and copyrighted material from a publisher’s web site and paste it as a “blog article”. Then they post a
link to the original article at the bottom of the blog post.
Compare:
Spot the similarity....?
Kevin’s “link bombing” of the Linked In groups with his blog
posts sparked a bit of a reaction.
- David Fitzpatrick from Voyageur Group
commented:
“ a whopping 38
active discussions no less - my interest peaked I was keen to see what insights
and discussions were making an impact; this interest then quickly turned to
marked annoyance as I saw that these "discussions" were nothing of
the sort - on your own you managed to splatter gun 13 links with no discussion
or insight whatsoever on to a single group”
-
Scott Frankum
commented:
“Keep in mind that no reputable creator
or aggregator shares the work of others without notice, permission, link-backs
and respect. Scraping is an automated process, but done with permission.
Scraping without permission falls into bottom of the barrel "Internet
tricks". We're exploring health care. Respect helps us all.”
Kevin has carried on regardless and seems to think there’s
no real issue here. He says he posts a link to the original article at the
bottom of the blog post. So that’s OK, he says. What’s the problem?
According to Kevin....
“The internet is about sharing information, the credit is a
link back”
He’s right ... the internet is about sharing information, but it should not be about stealing
information.
There’s a thing called copyright and it applies to the web
just as much as printed materials. The downside of the web is that it is very
easy to copy and paste other people’s work, claim it as your own and “share” it
with others. Copyright is there to protect people and businesses (like mine!)
that invest in editorial, that pay writers and journalists to pour their
intellect into writing articles that provide insight, opinion and analysis.( If
you want to know more about copyright, see World
Intellectual Property Organization.)
IMTJ, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, McKinsey
Chronicle and others pay people to write for their journals and for their
readers. They don’t pay them to write
for Kevin (even when he is generous enough to provide a link back to the
original article.)
So, Kevin, please take note!
And here’s a challenge for Kevin.. one blog article that is
“all your own work” and that provides insight, opinion or analysis of the
medical tourism market. You run a medical tourism facilitator business.... so
tell us what YOU think.
If it’s any good, we’ll post it on IMTJ.
Date published: 18 November 2011
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