Giving Credit

Have you ever heard the phrase “credit given where credit is due’? Most people have, unfortunately many Witches and Wiccans on the net seem to ignore it. Look around the plethora of beginner sites out there and see if you can find the author of the Rede of the Wiccae. You may get lucky and find it after the first ten, or you may not find it all unless you look on a more advanced site. The sad thing with this is nearly all beginner sites have the Rede, though they forget to give credit to the original authors.

Why is a whole essay devoted to this topic? Simply because it is immoral not to give credit, it is stealing. Since stealing is a form of harm it is actually against the Rede that so many are posting! As a Witch or Wiccan would you steal a handbag or jewelry? If you follow the Wiccan Rede the answer should be “no”. However you may be stealing intellectual property rights by “copy and pasting” info onto your sites. Before adding information to your site, witchcraft lesson, book of shadows or anywhere else please try to find the author, it is the only right thing to do.

Some information is now too old to be covered by copyright. Even though these works are available to print out or copy without breaking copyright the work should still be credited. If you are trying to educate others or share knowledge it is much more helpful if the original author is also given. The habit of not giving credit could one day mean that when future Witches or Wiccans are trying to study there will be no authors that people can find and everything will be by “Anon”!

Enough of this rant, some primary texts and their original authors are listed at The Ranting Witches (original authors are listed on this site unless unknown or the work is by Temple staff) http://rw.faithweb.com/custom2.html

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