While most have been shocked by the
sudden shutdown of Linda Ikeji’s blog by Google, many are pointing accusing
fingers man who threatened to see to it that her blog is deleted for alleged
plagiarism.
Punch
contacted Google’s Manager for Communications and Public Affairs, Anglo-Phone
West Africa, Taiwo Kolade-Ogunlade, and he gave reasons why the blog was shut
down
“Google as an organisation takes
issues of copyright seriously and belongs to a group of digital companies that
respect copyrights.
“Copyright is a big deal and this is why you can’t just go and pick up another
person’s intellectual property or content and lay claim to its ownership.
“That is why we have copyright
guidance. I don’t know if Linda picked up any content and I don’t know what
content is the bone of contention-neither have I looked into the complaints
personally.
“But it is not a case of
witch-hunting and has nothing to do with Linda Ikeji’s personality or anyone
else because there is a process, and irrespective of who you are in the world,
that process would apply to you,” Kolade-Ogunlade explained.
“Let’s respect other people’s rights
and intellectual property. Making money off other people’s content without
permission is wrong. Although the Internet is inanimate, it is the content on
it that gives it life. These are the issues.
“Whenever owners of online contents
come after you accusing you of using their content, it is because they have
families to feed and businesses to sustain.
“People should also understand that
copyrights does not only apply to text, but also extends to literary works,
images and photographs, music files and MP3s, movies, movie trailers and videos
as well as software,”
No comments:
Post a Comment