If you’ve read this blog before, you may have stumbled over my first rant on plagiarism. Well, it has happened again, and this time it wasn’t just my idea for a pitch that was stolen.

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One of the first things the other Cracked writers will tell you is to use Google Alerts to scan the web for your work, watching to see where it appears and if its been stolen. Yesterday Google tattled its tale, and I followed a link to find my work appearing under someone else’s name. On a gaming forum, one poster felt he could simply strip away all reference to author and publisher and re-post my article on Sexual Dysfunctions, the one I sold to Cracked.com and was published by them.

This isn’t going to be about the theft, or the outcome of my discovery. Nor is it going to be on the concept of net neutrality, Napster or piracy. What got me thinking about this enough to write about it wa the reaction on the forum to my fellow writer’s post pointing out the theft. Granted, his tactic was heavy on sarcasm, but the initial reaction to it was a mocking reaction to the idea that anything on the internet can be protected. The members of that forum joined ranks and tossed out such words as “troll” and spouted unfunny memes while defending the poster and his actions.

It is the anonymity of the internet at work again, shielding the forum members with the illusion that there are no repercussions for what they have done. I made a single post, politely informing the poster of the error in his assumptions regarding copyright and plagiarism. I was then goaded in an attempt to get me to go on the offensive and initiate a flame war. This is a pattern that has repeated itself several times in the time I have been with Cracked. Different writers take different approaches when dealing with the theft of their work, and often it devolves quickly into a feeding frenzy of “NOOB” screams and mocking taunts. Flame wars are the equivalent of playground pissing matches with the internets own versions of “I know you are but what am I”. I have no intention of being baited, and though I still check the progress of the thread, I will not post again.

I have great faith that Cracked’s legal department will send the standard “cease and desist” letter, and a forum owner will be stunned and panicked to discover that he is indeed responsible for what is posted on his site. So many seem to think that they are absolved of any responsibility of what is on their site, and that the internet is a no man’s land, the proverbial “hive of scum and villainy” where nothing is truly illegal. When that letter arrives, I’m certain the entire thread will vanish in a puff of internet ether lightly dusted with denial.

I would like to be able to write off the incident as unique, or simply shrug and blame youthful enthusiasm overcoming sensibility. The fact is though, this is common. From torrent sites to plagiarism, the internet not only makes these sorts of theft possible, it makes them so commonplace that there are truly those who do not know they have broken the law, and there are others that simply do not care, seeing the entire internet as their playground where they can act in ways that they would never consider doing in the real world. Another poster pointed out that the plagiarist was married; telling me this was not a case of youthful hijinks but the act of an otherwise adult person who failed to bring the laws of the world into the internet with him.

The internet is one of our most advanced means of communication and community, and yet it brings out our basest instincts. To take what we want, react as a mob, and act without thought or repercussion. It’s the message from Lord of the Flies, played out over and over again. I never liked that story; I always thought it a grim judgement of my race. Now I don’t like it any better, but I’m starting to believe the warning it carried.