Photo by michael starghill.

You know, a wise man once told me that if you make it really easy for someone to do something they feel compelled to do, then they’ll probably do it — despite all warnings to the contrary. Put a warm cookie in front of a child and tell them it will burn their mouth, and the kid will still grab and chomp. Put a cocktail in front of an alcoholic in distress and he’ll probably drink it. Make it incredibly easy for someone to siphon your work for a few extra pageviews despite all conventional mores, and damn it, they’ll be slapping Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V faster than you can get the words “fair use” out of your mouth.

Such is the dilemma facing Washington Post reporter Ian Shapira, after Gawker writer Hamilton Nolan “stole” (Shapira’s editor’s word, not mine) from his profile of Washingtonian business consultant Anne Loehr — admittedly a story ripe for the picking. Shapira’s reaction is balanced; he talks to Nolan about his process and states that despite the lifting of numerous parts of his story in detail, he was still “flattered” by the added publicity.

Shapira does comes off a little whiny and holier-than-thou at times, especially when writing about the “hours” he spent in reporting the piece — but that’s a stance he’s certainly entitled to. He also readily admits that he used his own promotional tactics in concert with the Gawker bump to push the story to more readers. For the most part, Shapira’s public complaint is handled with self-deprecation and understanding that it’s hard out there for a legitimate blogger, man. Here’s the main sticking point:

Even if I owe Nolan for a significant uptick in traffic, are those extra eyeballs helping The Post’s bottom line?