Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? Or is it just plagarism?

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I read The Register, but there have been enough times where their reporting is pretty shoddy or outright nuts that I always take what they post with a HUGE grain of salt. That said, I never thought that they might, um, borrow verbage and reporting from something I’ve written. Anyway, from the Sametime news yesterday, my article for Intranet Journal had this to say:

That said, support for rival Microsoft’s instant messaging platform is noticeably absent. When asked if the lack of connectivity to Microsoft’s MSN Messenger service was a technical or political hurdle, Saeedi stated that it was neither.

“These aren’t technical issues or political,” Saeedi said. “These are simply business agreements that we’ve put together with other vendors. We currently have agreements that connect us to the majority of IM users worldwide.”

The quote above and Akiba Saeedi’s response were from a phone interview I did with her. I asked the “technical or political” question, and got the response. And even though I didn’t write it, her response indicated to me that Microsoft didn’t want to play ball, not the other way around. Now she never stated that, and as such, I didn’t write it. To make that assumption is not something I would post as a journalist.

Anyway, in his article entitled IBM Snubs MSN with Sametime Gateway, Bryan Betts wrote this:

Conspicuously missing from the compatibility list are MSN Messenger and Microsoft’s Live Communication Server. The snub to Microsoft appears to be a business decision by IBM, not a technical or political issue – IBM obviously reckons it can reach all the business IM users it needs, without involving Redmond.

“Conspicuously missing” instead of “noticeably absent.” “Business decision” instead of “Business agreement,” and “technical or political” is verbatim. My article 12/06/06. His article 12/08/06. What do you think? It’s nice that someone does their reporting by using someone else’s article. Then to top it off, he spins it like IBM are a bunch of bastards. Totally unprofessional. That’s the final straw for El Reg for me.

EDIT: Reading further I noticed that he referenced Trillian and GAIM too, like oh I dunno, I DID. Here’s mine:

The buddy list will show users from all the platforms in a unified list, much like standalone instant messaging clients Trillian or GAIM. The user’s status will show in the client, letting a user know whether a contact is available, away or doesn’t want to be disturbed.

Here’s his:

The gateway allows you to have Sametime, AIM, Yahoo! and GoogleTalk contacts all in one single list, just as you can with third-party IM clients such as Trillian or GAIM.

Nice professional journalism, eh?

EDIT #2: I had read his stuff and become pissed so fast that I didn’t even read it completely through. Here is another example of re-appropriation in the same article. I asked Akiba Saeedi a question in my interview and got this quote:

“Back in the old days, email was proprietary. You could only send within one system. Eventually it became federated and you could email everyone using the same standards. IM will go the same way, and we’re purposely being a leader in that federation.”

Here’s his “reporting:”

IBM likens it to the evolution of email from its proprietary days, when you could only write to other users on the same network, to today’s open network that lets anyone email anyone else.

My article wasn’t a press release for regurgitation. It was my ideas, my interview and my writing. To simply re-write that and pass it off without attribution is something no good journalist would ever do.