Image screen grabbed from the DM this morning at 11am this morning.

The internet is rife with accusations of plagiarism towards the Daily Mail newspaper. In the past couple of years, esteemed organs such as the New York Times, humble football blogs and seemingly everyone in-between has noted that articles published in the bible of Middle England have been based on pieces appearing elsewhere first, and in some cases, lifted word for word.

Without credit.

Obviously it’s impossible for smaller entities to sue a newsgroup as vast and financially powerful as Associated Newspapers, so the obvious route for revenge for an angry blogger would be to steal copy and stories from the paper themselves. It seems that this is what they expect anyway, since they are clearly taking steps to ensure that no self respecting writer would want to.

Take this morning’s online edition of the Mail, which features a fascinating story about celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe and her shoes. Amelia Proud advises us that Zoe, who had a baby almost a year ago, was wearing platforms so tall it wasn’t safe for her to carry her son and she passed him to a ‘friend’.

If it wasn’t hilarious enough that the ‘friend’ is in fact her long time make-up artist and constant companion Joey Maalouf – a fact that takes approximately twelve seconds to find out via google – the sentence describing the reasoning behind the move is one that will have anyone with a moderate grasp of English rolling on the floor in agony.

Which makes it not a massively sensible idea to carry her actual baby while wearing them.

You’ve got to admit, it’s foolproof. I defy anyone to steal that and publish it on their blog without giving credit to Amelia, her copy editor and the Daily Mail themselves.

Actual, massive credit.