Hey there, fellow users-of-the-internet! Remember plagiarism? That thing from college (and hopefully though not reliably before) that instructors threatened your life and limb (and immediate irrevocable failure of the course) for even trying to pull off? That thing that everybody thought of as bootlegging purchasing a whole paper off of the internet and forgetting to delete all the little imbedded markers that tip off your professor that you bought your paper on the internet?

But that also included an innocently-intended and properly punctuated quotation of someone else’s work, but that  still counted because you were writing at 0300 hour the day a paper was due and forgot to go back and add a citation, any citation, as to where one may follow your lead and find said quotation if they so chose? Or my favorite, ripping whole articles off of a website for a short paper or response, embedding them in their entirety in your paper, then “responding” with a line or three, essentially amounting to “you should read this”?

Guess what? It’s still a thing. Unlike the stylishness of Uggs with skirts, shameless public consumption of cup ‘o noodles, the ability to function at full speed and cognition on zero sleep in 48 hours, and a 10-15% discount at certain national clothiers with a valid student ID, it didn’t cease to exist just because you no longer organize your calendar by semesters. In fact, just like that day-drinking habit you picked up, it actually requires a bit more attention than it might have back then.

Believe it or not, people who write things and publish them consider their end results to be valuable, on some level or another. It doesn’t matter whether, or how much, you consider it to be valuable as well.  It also doesn’t matter whether it’s published in a book or on the internet – be it wee little blogs like this one, big blogs with huge followings, online versions of print magazines and newspapers or the same such in online-only versions – all of those words came from somewhere, or more specifically, someone. They put time, energy, effort and thought into their work. Even if they love it, it is work.

Regardless of whether it’s paid content, or a labor of love, it is work. And it is intellectual property. And it is stealing to take it, and share it – even in part, such as a quote – without proper citation. And taking the whole thing, copying it, and republishing it? Especially without adding any of your own thoughts? In what other forum of your life would you be proud to do that? Or if in case you have no scruples, in what other forum of your life could you get away with that? It doesn’t matter that it came from “some big news conglomerate” or if you got it from an aggregating source. Those big news conglomerates still have hardworking people, not news-gnomes, that research and write those articles, however badly you may think they do so. And the aggregate/feed source excuse? Double poop. Because a) see above re: news conglomerates/actual human beings, replacing “write and research” with “read, assess, and curate”; and b) that’s not even a source, dude; it’s like listing the radio station on which you first heard a song as its artist.

No, philosoraptor, no. No it is not. Just like stealing that bloodied pre-mammal carcass isn’t a “compliment of your hunting abilities.”

And while we’re on the topic of “passing off someone else’s brainpoop as your own”? Yes, anymore, in a world where one hacked tweet can cause 130 point fluctuations in the Dow in a matter of minutes? Your – and everyone else’s – tweets, Facebook posts, and other social media musings count.  Like to share a portion of your daily devotional or meditation guide because you want to encourage your friends? Awesome. Just add the title of the book, the chapter/section/day or other “where in these 400 pages might I find this” reference point, and for the love of karma, at the absolute very last least, the AUTHOR. Have a friend on twitter who’s constantly finding and sharing really interesting (properly attributed) articles? Spare a solid 2% of your character count and throw in a little “h/t” (short for “hattip”, to be followed by their twitter handle (name) –in short, a quick, easy way to give someone kudos for their curating efforts, and also to avoid being called out as an asshat by someone who follows you both and knows damn well you didn’t find that on your own). Now that the “share” button is available on nearly every post on Facebook? copying someone’s witty little status or esoteric quote posting word-for-word and reposting it, with nary an indication that it came from anywhere but your own cranial ball of noodles, is a lot more obviously deliberate and ridiculous than it used to be -  and while admittedly small, and unlikely to result in a civil suit outside “The People’s Court”, it’s still just lame.

I get that a lot of this is just not thinking about it – I know it’s largely not malicious, and especially in blogging, it’s often just laziness and pressure/desire to just publish something. I also get that the rules seem to change as fast as the technology. But it’s really pretty easy, folks. GOLDEN FRICKIN’ RULE. What would you want someone to do with that thar collection of werds (or them purty pitchers!) if you were the one who conjured, arranged, and published them? And if that leaves you in a gray area, one bit of technology that’s pretty universal is Google. You can literally type “How do I give credit to a quote from the internet?” into the search bar and get some half-decent answers. And people are usually reasonable about this kind of thing if they see you’ve given it 90 seconds of due diligence and effort (usually no more than the time it took you to consume and enjoy, or become enraged by, the hypothetical quote at hand, no?) Bloggers, especially, totally get that sharing our content is a fabulous way to spread the word that we exist. But only if in sharing our content, you actually let people know we exist. A link to the post is ideal, to our homepage is second best, but if nothing else at all, our/blog’s name? Something googleable if someone were so inclined?

Bottom line, just because it’s the internet – “it” being where you found the thing, where you share the thing, or both – doesn’t mean those stodgy old “citation” rules don’t still apply. This time, though, it’s not just your grade on the line. It’s your digital reputation, and as more people participate in social media and content sharing, the lines between your online reputation and your 3D, living, breathing one are becoming increasingly blurry. And as with that not so carefully selected sequence of swirls you had emblazoned across your lumbar region in Cabo, Myrtle, or the Jersey Shore, erasing such mistakes is a lengthy and often expensive process (neither of which you want to gamble with on a Groupon). Much easier just to step back, do a little research, and make the right call in the first place.