By Funsho Arogundade
Nigerians have lambasted controversial gossip blogger, Linda Ikeji, after Google on Wednesday, 8 October, shut down her blog, to the relief of some celebrities and established mainstream media whose reports, she allegedly lifted routinely without crediting the sources.
While there was no official reason from Google why the popular blogspot was yanked off, sources said Linda may have contravened one of Google’s policy or terms of service.
Her travails may have been orchetrated by alleged plagiarism (theft of intellectual property) and copyright infringements.
“The blog is still up on lindaikeji.mobi …please read there for now until I sort this out…Oh wow! Thanks guys for all the love and support. I’m overwhelmed. Trying to get a new site…please bear with me. Long live LIB. Kisses…” she tweeted.But Ikeji has quickly reverted to a mobile version of her blog pending when she will be able to restore her blog.
In spite of this ad-hoc option, experts said this might not likely fly with advertisers who have paid her to run their campaigns.
A senior entertainment journalist, who does not want his name mentioned, said what Linda Ikeji does with her blog is purely intellectual robbery.
“This lady would rather steal information from other people’s sites without giving them credit. She feels it will be an advert for them on her blog if she references them. She wants to remain the best blogger in Africa with other people’s creative idea. What a shame!. When you send her good entertainment content she will ask you to pay very outrageous fees. Yet, she never bothers to host her site,” he said.
“Everyday is for the thief one day is for the owner. I guess it is the law of karma working on this lady,” another commentator said.
Adelakun Adunni Abimbola, a columnist with Nigeria’s The Punch said on her Facebook page: “This thing started as plagiarism but it has extended beyond that, I think. The issue is multi-faceted now with the accusers now openly saying they will close down her blog. You can sense bad belle in their rhetoric. I am against unethical practices but I also do not blame Linda Ikeji much. Most of us have never thought so much of online plagiarism that much in sharing photos and stuff. I share people’s photos all the time. If you slammed me with a lawsuit, I will be genuinely shocked. But hers is different because she is a big time businesswoman and the resentment against her success is intense judging from how far folks are willing to go on this issue. Methinks she should move to her site as folks have suggested and begin to pay attention to the seriousness of people’s grievances.”
Justin Akpovi Esade, CEO, Media Image Managers, said “we should not be too sentimental over the fall of Linda.
“Someone stole and people are telling her she stole and some are saying we are celebrating her downfall. Why not? Don’t some of us celebrate when EFCC arrests some politicians over alleged fraud? What is the difference here? Linda has been stealing from people and getting rich and showing off her ill-gotten wealth and some people expect us to cheer her on. Fraud is fraud,” Esade said.
Jagunmolu Oluwadare Lasisi, he said the avoidable ‘tragedy’ must be a very bitter lesson for Linda’s stupidity and arrogance.
“Plagiarism is a crime against humanity. I tried all possible means to contact her over my Alaafin’s photos! She ignored me. I complained on Facebook. Some Linda’s loyalists tagged me as an attention-seeker. They said I was looking for cheap popularity…I hope she would re-package and bounce back soon. She must appreciate and credit other people’s hardwork. She is now free to showcase her proposed private jet (not Range Rover Jeep) on her re-branded blog…,” Lasisi wrote.
“This girl sits in her bedroom and makes $90k in 3 months from stealing other people’s ideas. Wetin she take beta pass yahoo yahoo boy na?” (meaning: howis she different from internet fraudsters?)” another commentator with twitterhandle @originaljoe tweeted.
Lola Adefowope, also a blogger, said Linda should take heart “after she got it for free and made millions of dollars from blogging as she rightly boasted.”
Days before Google shut down her blog, Linda wrote: “The only reason this is happening to me is because I’m number one. So I am flattered. I am currently number 10 on Alexa.com. my blog is more read than all the other news sites in Nigeria, so I understand why I am the target.”
Also, before her blogsite was yanked off, Linda had responded, saying she doesn’t plagiarise and claimed that an unspecified number of cyber squatters had acquired all the possible Linda Ikeji domain names on the internet and have been targeting her for years.
But a source told P.M.NEWS that Linda is offering half truth on the registration of her own domain name.
He said a friend had assisted Linda to open her blog a couple of years back. The friend, he said, never expected that the blog would hit it big as it was until recently.
“When the guy noticed the success run of Linda, he asked for his commission but Linda refused. Since he holds the password and admin power, the guy waited for the right time to strike. When this issue came up, the guy escalated the matter,” he said.
P.M.NEWS also learnt that the blogger might have lost her lucrative Adsense, while over 50 blogs in Nigeria, that practically take contents and follow her format, might have collapsed alongside her blog.
Linda’s recent travails largely border on alleged plagiarism and libellous reports on her blog. An intense series of bitter exchanges on Twitter between Linda and a man simply known with his Twitterhandle @Mr AyeDee had ensued in the last one week.
The guy had filed a petition to Google, accusing the former model of plagiarism, copyright infringement and other offences. The online search engine giant, we learnt immediately first sent out a notice to Linda that it was investigating the matter and first acted by deleting several posts from her blog, before finally taking it down on Wednesday.
Many Nigerian celebrities have had cause to quarrel with Linda over some stories they found libelious and said were outright lies. They include actor/politician, Richard Mofe Damijo; singer 9ice; rapper Olamide; on air personality Toke Makinwa and Nolly actor Jim Iyke.
The 34-year-old Linda currently holds the bragging rights to being Nigeria’s number one blog. She comfortably sits at the 10th position on the Alexa ratings log of top websites and blogs in Africa.
Culled from: pmNews