Nigerian online newspaper, DailyPost is taking another Nigerian news site, Naij.com to court over claims of piracy of their content. DailyPost released a statement on Sunday night lamenting over the blog’s continuous use of its “hard earned materials” without appropriate permission.
DailyPost Content Editor, Adoyi Ali said, “It’s shameful that Naij.com could not change even a line in the stories we exclusively reported”.
In a way, all news sites are reporting the same content. Blogs, newspapers, video blogs, all reproduce different versions of the same news, event or happening. Not word-for-word, but the same still. Slavish copying without the slightest adaptation or permission however is plagiarism and is not only a breach of journalistic ethics but also constitutes copyright infringement, a grievance for which legal recourse can be sought.
The evidence of infringement adduced by DailyPost in its statement — a list of original DailyPost content placed side by side with the allegedly stolen Naij counterparts — does look damning. Perhaps the threat of lawsuits will deter the unabashed and notorious copying of content that is common in the Nigerian blogosphere.
More information as it comes.
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