Screen Rant Stole Content: A Bigger Issue

I was in the 5th grade when I learned what plagiarism was. My best friend, Mikey, and I were just learning about what a bibliography was so we needed to put it into implementation with some science paper. We thought as long as we referenced the sources in the bibliography, we could copy and paste their content into our paper. One meeting with our teacher and the vice principal later we found out the hard way we had “plagiarized” several sites. We were quite literally ignorant to what plagiarism was until this point. I bring all of this up because there are major corporations like Screen Rant out there jacking content from smaller creators, writing it off as their own, and ignoring conflict when they get called out.

You may be surprised by this, but we actually break gaming news from time to time. It is expected that larger gaming media companies will harvest content they see on Twitter, post it as their own and reap the benefits. We get it, we do this as a hobby, but we don’t condone it. I’d rather you show some fucking imagination and come up with some unique content or at the bare minimum link to the source in which you stole content from. Unique, unfiltered, and relatable content is what we value the most. We want our readers, community, and new viewers to be drawn to our own voice so when we see others taking our voice, putting their own filter over it and claiming it as their own all we can do is call out their bullshit. I’m so emphatic about this because it happens to use so frequently and I have been seeing it more and more for some of my favorite content creators, so let me add my voice to the echo.

CZsWorld is a Youtube content creator who bases much of his work around horror movies. I’m a huge horror junkie so I stumbled across his page about a year and a half ago and have been checking in routinely when he covers movies I’m interested in. Some of his content revolves around pointing out things we may have missed in said movies. It isn’t like hes the only person who’s ever done this concept, but it turns out Screen Rant took the contents of his video, slapped their own label on it and profited. Naturally, he reached out requesting to be linked to for reference and was ultimately shut down. The only logical next step is to make a whole video calling Screen Rant out on their bullshit. Bravo CZ, I would have done the exact same thing. Here is his video explaining everything blatantly stolen and how little Screen Rant ever tried to make it their own.

Larger corporations do this shit all the time. We get it you have the bigger platform, you have the resources to pay for lawyers and drag out court cases to beat smaller creators into silence. What I want to see is for them to grow a fucking spine, admit your faults, right the wrongs by referencing the original work, and come up with some unique content of your own instead of leeching off more talented smaller creators. Go support CZsWorld on Youtube and if you have a problem with anything I have said here @WGGBert on twitter, come debate me bitch.