Thou shalt not steal. ...

What do you say, when one fine morning, you find out that there are actually companies/portals/websites, that have no qualms copying some one's blog posts, word for word, title for title, and have the temerity to claim copyright ? This has happened to many friends who blog, even some who take excellent photos.

Some sites  have almost all their content  copied from somewhere else.  Blatantly.

While FB friends mobilize as if by magic , and consolidate energies to right the wrong, even within the hour, some even pinpointing other bloggers who have been plagiarized and their work copied at the same site mentioned above, one wonders why this kind of cheating is done, and why so called educated folks have no qualms doing this.

One then looks around, reads the newspapers, watches the news, sighs, and keeps quiet.....

 (image courtesy Google)

Riches that she dreamt of .

As she
at 4,
walked
trailing her mother
in the supermarket

Chocolates
in shining wrappers,
in heaps
in bins,
to be bought by weight,
and
the tiny hands,
slid up the side,
and then down,
clutching two,
stuffing them under the tee,
simply thrilled with the sudden bounty....

Back home,
the mother noticed,
and distraught,
turned around
and went straight back to the store.

" Ask me, and you will get,
but never ever
lay your hands like this
on what is not yours"
she said,
and taught the child
to apologize,
and had the stuff billed
at an admiring
store counter.

Years on,
the child
continued to learn
the advantages of truth.

Unlike the child,
some never learned
and as grown ups with their own kids,
learned to steal knowledge candy.

Fate has a different treatment
for such folks.

Wordy treasures
of a blogging lady
blatantly stolen,
kept in fancy shelves
and called his own,
by an unfortunate fellow
who made a living that way
calling it,
"Education".

He didn't know
how to fend of the
arrows and bullets,
announcements, and accusations
of an army of women bloggers,
Senapati B.
fighting in the forefront
of a plagiarism war,
as
even the electrons
that flew through the air,
jumped levels
and spit black energy at him.

"Did no one tell you
never to touch what is not yours ?"
they asked;
and asked him to
empty his shelves and pockets
to return the stuff.

And apologize.

Unfortunately,
the fellow,
was surrounded,
not by angry house womenfolk
but
by powerful folks,
who blatantly stole what was not theirs,
changing titles,
putting new covers,
modifying rules,
and abusing the law,
which quivered in their presence.

The little child ,
studied,
truthfully slogged,
and got educated.

The other fellow,
with different role models
got,
a doctorate
in Chorshastra***....


*** Chor = Thief,  Shastra = Science of,