Tuesday, July 6, 2010

John Smithson Copies The Midnight Review

It has come to the attention to this website that conservative activist John Smithson has plagiarized this website.  If you are unaware of who John Smithson is, don't feel bad, not many people do - a couple months ago he attacked this blog for plagiarizing his website because of the similarities of names.

This morning I decided to check up on our little friend when I noticed that John Smithson had changed his header to the following:

Notice any similarities with the header of this site?  Here is a snapshot of Smithson's header from June 26th:


Now take a look at a banner created for this site from June 24th:


The Midnight Review added to the title of this blog "Report & Opinion" right before Smithson's title conveniently changed, copying this site.  Looks like Smithson is a bit of a hypocrite if you ask me.

I wonder why he changed the name of his site - my bet is that he is too unoriginal to come up with something of his own and so he has to steal it from someone else, which is why he has plagiarized so many other articles on his own site in the past.

Also, I just wanted to point out that it has been almost 80 days since Smithson threatened this site with a "cease and desist" for allegedly plagiarizing his site.

Comedy...

5 comments:

  1. Evidently, he was unalbe to attract sufficient readership under his own name. Republicans are as high in their ethics as they are in their intellect.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You cut and paste my site, plagiarize my blob name, reference my commentary without giving any credit at all, go to the new format two days AFTER I changed mine and you have the audacity to write this post ?? !!

    With the change in headliner, I was saying "Two can play the same game." The name change has insured that the original Midknight Review is wedded to your site. Content and style of writing separate the two sites. The "cease and desist" puts me in a good position legally for future eventualities should they materialize . . . but, of course, that has not occurred to you, as of yet. Thanks for acknowledging the receipt of that order. I knew if I waited long enough, you would acknowledge it.

    Since you think that change a single letter in a title means you are not plagiarizing, well, again, two can play that game.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "With the change in headliner, I was saying 'Two can play the same game.'" - John Smithson

    You admit plagiarizing my site... Thank you.

    As for your accusations, you seem to be, as always, mistaken.

    I never plagiarized your "blob" name (you may recall the countless posts I had written detailing the differences such as the "Breyers/Dreyers comparison), whenever I reference your commentary, I always specify the source (Just check the labels "John Smithson" and "Midknight Review"), and I changed the format of my website when Blogger offered new options, not when you changed your site (although I prefer your new layout more).

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Since you think that change a single letter in a title means you are not plagiarizing, well, again, two can play that game." - John Smithson

    I also found this statement to be very interesting because as I had detailed in previous posts, I had not "changed" anything because this site was in no way copied from your site, and you plagiarizing this site by stealing the slogan of The Midnight Review, passing it off as your own, is by now means lawful.

    You wrote the following back on Aprril 15th:

    "You consideration of the legal issue with regard to the misuse of my blog name is a rather important matter, to me. While your comments sound reasonable, they miss the point of infringement protection. We are in the very same "business" and your name is substantially similar to mine - these are important factors. In fact, in at least one of your longer articles, you have made a point of making the two names as similar as possible. Thanks."

    This seems to contradict your July 6th comments:

    "Content and style of writing separate the two sites."

    Which is it? Are we in the "very same 'business'" or is our "content and style of writing" to different? You can't claim to have a cease and desist while simultaneously believing you are free to do whatever because of your belief of copyrights...

    ReplyDelete

Please share your thoughts and experiences in relation to this post. Remember to be respectful in your posting. Comments that that are deemed inappropriate will be deleted.