I wrote for slash film for a bit. I get why ppl there end up plagiarizing. The pay is terrible, and they treat writers like crap. They may say they don’t approve of plagiarism, but the incentive structure is going to push ppl to unethical practices to try to make ends meet. It’s an ugly business model.
Thanks! What's really depressing is that I can totally see that happening at a lot of big film blogs or sites now that used to be good. Collider, for example. Like, it's almost certain that this is going on there based on their current output.
I had this problem though not with SlashFilm personally. Recently I created a meme and had someone reshare it with their branding on it. I didn't originally brand it myself because I don't own the underlying content. However, it was pretty annoying. I reached out to them and they were nice enough to add my own branding although they didn't edit the original post.
I'm angry at what you've been experiencing and getting zero accountability from their side. I haven't had my work plagiarized but I've had photos of mine stolen by people I knew, which broke my heart, but I've witnessed blatant plagiarism in the lit community, plus it is something we fought against at my job where I used to work. It baffles me how people don't understand plagiarism. At the same time it doesn't surprise me when people resort to it as they're getting paid pennies.
Thanks! And so sorry to hear about your photography. I know how much more it hurts when it's people you know that steal from you. Something like that happened to me at a university I've attended. It really makes you reassess who you can trust.
That is horrible. I'm sorry that happened. For sure, trust is broken. I hope it's just that they didn't understand the consequences of their actions, that it wasn't out of malice. But it's still an insidious act.
Yep. Nothing new here. I have pictures (I was a part-time photographer) on expedia and lastminute that were stolen and are still there despite my attempts to remove them or get paid...
What happened to that website happened to most similar websites and YouTube channels. I remember how cool allocine was (a french cinema news website). Now about 95% of their work is disguised advertising (distribution companies pay to get articles there), sub quality reviews written by young pretentious journalists or dumb content without any value (they just made a full article about a Vincent Cassel saying he likes to work with Eva Green). Same thing for that American cinema blog made by a young filmmaker a long time ago. It was one of my favorite websites. It just became horrible and uninteresting (I forgot the name).
But the real issue is Google and how SEO works, really.
Thank you for sharing this. I used to study French and remember reading some stuff from Allocine here and there. Sad to hear about it but I guess the degradation is virtually inevitable given the way the web economy currently works, with SEO demanding clickable titles in less than 60 characters.
Haven't heard about that Cinema Blog - do you remember the filmmaker perhaps? Curious to check it out.
Just found it, it’s No Film School. Really liked it at the beginning, more than 10 years ago. There are still some good articles, it’s not clickbait but I’m not a fan of most of the writers.
Oh, I remember that one! Haven't checked it out in a while, it fell off my radar. I''l take a look. I'd say I feel similarly about Collider. 10-12 years ago they were great and I loved the work of Steven Weintraub especially.
How frustrating! I imagine this kind of plagiarism is way more prevalent than anyone realizes.
I had Kirkus Review plagiarize one of my reviews about ten years ago. I didn't do anything about it and the original review no longer exists because the original magazine went under, but I found it very annoying.
Wow. Sorry about that. And yeah, I think it's way more prevalent than is generally believed. It honestly seems inevitable, given the economic model of mainstream film sites.
I wrote for slash film for a bit. I get why ppl there end up plagiarizing. The pay is terrible, and they treat writers like crap. They may say they don’t approve of plagiarism, but the incentive structure is going to push ppl to unethical practices to try to make ends meet. It’s an ugly business model.
I’m sorry they screwed you over as well.
Thanks! What's really depressing is that I can totally see that happening at a lot of big film blogs or sites now that used to be good. Collider, for example. Like, it's almost certain that this is going on there based on their current output.
I had this problem though not with SlashFilm personally. Recently I created a meme and had someone reshare it with their branding on it. I didn't originally brand it myself because I don't own the underlying content. However, it was pretty annoying. I reached out to them and they were nice enough to add my own branding although they didn't edit the original post.
I'm angry at what you've been experiencing and getting zero accountability from their side. I haven't had my work plagiarized but I've had photos of mine stolen by people I knew, which broke my heart, but I've witnessed blatant plagiarism in the lit community, plus it is something we fought against at my job where I used to work. It baffles me how people don't understand plagiarism. At the same time it doesn't surprise me when people resort to it as they're getting paid pennies.
Thanks! And so sorry to hear about your photography. I know how much more it hurts when it's people you know that steal from you. Something like that happened to me at a university I've attended. It really makes you reassess who you can trust.
That is horrible. I'm sorry that happened. For sure, trust is broken. I hope it's just that they didn't understand the consequences of their actions, that it wasn't out of malice. But it's still an insidious act.
Yep. Nothing new here. I have pictures (I was a part-time photographer) on expedia and lastminute that were stolen and are still there despite my attempts to remove them or get paid...
What happened to that website happened to most similar websites and YouTube channels. I remember how cool allocine was (a french cinema news website). Now about 95% of their work is disguised advertising (distribution companies pay to get articles there), sub quality reviews written by young pretentious journalists or dumb content without any value (they just made a full article about a Vincent Cassel saying he likes to work with Eva Green). Same thing for that American cinema blog made by a young filmmaker a long time ago. It was one of my favorite websites. It just became horrible and uninteresting (I forgot the name).
But the real issue is Google and how SEO works, really.
Thank you for sharing this. I used to study French and remember reading some stuff from Allocine here and there. Sad to hear about it but I guess the degradation is virtually inevitable given the way the web economy currently works, with SEO demanding clickable titles in less than 60 characters.
Haven't heard about that Cinema Blog - do you remember the filmmaker perhaps? Curious to check it out.
Just found it, it’s No Film School. Really liked it at the beginning, more than 10 years ago. There are still some good articles, it’s not clickbait but I’m not a fan of most of the writers.
Oh, I remember that one! Haven't checked it out in a while, it fell off my radar. I''l take a look. I'd say I feel similarly about Collider. 10-12 years ago they were great and I loved the work of Steven Weintraub especially.
But now it's just... meh and a lot of filler.
How frustrating! I imagine this kind of plagiarism is way more prevalent than anyone realizes.
I had Kirkus Review plagiarize one of my reviews about ten years ago. I didn't do anything about it and the original review no longer exists because the original magazine went under, but I found it very annoying.
Wow. Sorry about that. And yeah, I think it's way more prevalent than is generally believed. It honestly seems inevitable, given the economic model of mainstream film sites.
You raise a lot of good questions about how we protect ourselves as writers but also remain visible to finding new readers. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much for your kind words and for restacking this post.
This sucks. So sorry it happened to you. I think it's good the way it reinforces the non-content work you do though.
Thanks so much! I really appreciate it. And yes, I guess that is a silver lining.