Copying: What is it?

Ever wonder why someone says, stop copying me! In real life you have little siblings mirroring everything their older sibling does. Or how about when you say something out loud your friend starts to mimic everything you say? Fun right? But up to a point don't you start getting annoyed?

Now step it up a notch. In school aren't you constantly warned not to copy off someone's exam paper or if you're writing an essay not to copy/paste an entire section of someone else's writings?

I honestly feel that just because we're "online" doesn't mean that the feeling goes away for those of us who have been copied. It also doesn't give someone the right to be allowed to copy off someone's site just because it's "online." If you copy/paste someone's online content it is the same as plagiarism. They wrote it, not you. If you take someone's graphics, CSS, content layout, ideas, it's not any much different from if you were writing an essay paper. It's just plain rude to take someone's hard work and use it for yourself.

So you have those asking, what if I credit them and use their ideas? Think back to the writing a paper analogy. Your professors allowed you to credit your sources right? It's called a Works Cited or Bibliography. Use the same idea. If you use an idea credit the person back! However, this doesn't mean you can use the tool or word credit by simply copy/pasting someone else's site and then linking them back for credit. That does not define what credit means. Credit ing someone indicates you liked their idea and used pieces of it to create your own new concept or support your new concept.

Breaking the ice, on what copying and crediting mean...