Copyright law does not protect blog posts and ideas, yet, but if you want to keep blog etiquette and resist a flamed reputation, reference to blogs that give you food for thought.
It’s polite in the blogosphere and necessary if you’re in the same niche. Otherwise, it’s called stealing.
Link back to the original blog post and add to it. Taking an idea and putting your own spin is the most beautiful things of publishing your own content, however, re-writing an idea in your own words is the stuff of Year 7 essays. Rise above it! If you were a journalist, you’d have limitations and rules but you’re a blog writer so do as you please, but be polite about it and add your own unique twist.
Link and expand, not re-write. As Brian Clark of copyblogger.com says, “Understand first that a unique perspective simply means you see a connection that others do not. So, you can still cite your sources and yet speak in a truly new voice, because the connection makes all the difference.”
And remember, when copyright does get rewritten, “protection arises automatically, without any action taken by the author, from the moment the work is fixed in a tangible form so that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.”