A few days ago a twitter user by the name @mrayedee informed his followers that Nigeria’s Number 1 blogger Linda Ikeji Blog had infringed on his intellectual property by taking stories/pictures from his Twitter timeline without permission and/or credit to him as the owner of the copyrighted
materials.
He disclosed that he had reached out to her privately and publicly, but to no avail.
He revealed on Twitter, that he had sent a DCMA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) notice to Linda Ikeji Blog’s web host (Google.com) & on Oct. 4th he informed his followers that they had written to him informing him that the infringed content had been removed from Linda Ikeji blog.
A quick check of Linda Ikeji’s blog confirms that some stories have indeed been pulled down. Stories that she had posted earlier in the day were were no longer there.
The Linda Ikeji Blog is one of the top 10 sites visited in Nigeria, she is estimated to generate an income of $900,000 (N140 Million) from adverts and sponsored posts on her super popular blog.
Since the revealation by @mrayedee many tweeps have chosen sides, with some supporting @mrayedee and others like @sugabelly and @elnathan who also claim Ms. Ikeji has published their original works with permission or credit.
Others like Ohimai Amaize (Mr. Fix itNigeria) and Chude Jideonwo have viewed the plagiarism accusations as a smear campaign & have risen to defend the celebrated blogger, whose success story has inspired many Nigerians.
See some of the tweets below,
It started with this tweet,
@Sugabelly& @elnathan have both said Linda Ikeji has used their material on her blog without proper credit or permission
Ohimai (Special Assistant Media & Strategy to the Minister of State for Defence wrote,
Author, Activist & one of the owners of YNaija.com Chude Jideonwo wrote,
Another Tweep wrote,
According to entertainment lawyer Uduak Oduok of Africa Music Law, some of Linda Ikeji’s mistakes are: Not incorporating as a business to shield her from personal liability and not having her own self hosted platform.
Aye dee has also sent out mass tweets detailing examples of alleged plagiarism by LIB, in which he gave specific examples copying the relevant twitter handles of the copyright owners such as Daily Mail, Getty Images and others.
To be honest when you’re number 1, the spotlight is on you, more eyes are on you and watching every move you make. Linda Ikeji’s story is nothing short of inspiring, she has built her brand from zero to a million dollar brand. Number 10 website in Nigeria…That is epic. I respect her hustle & hope she overcomes this.
But as bloggers we all need to do better, proper credit has to be given.
At the time of publishing calls to Linda Ikeji had not been responded to.
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