Friday 3 October 2014

I've Been Plagiarised!


UPDATE: The offending blog post has been removed from the hitting on a double 1 blog.  Presumably due to either this post or some of the messages left on that post.  No apolagy has yet been received.

I'm annoyed, very annoyed, a couple of days ago I posted a post on the new Mars Attacks miniatures from Mantic Games.  This has been a popular post and has generated a lot of hits in a small space of time, and too be honest I was quite pleased with it as a post.  Please take a minute to read it here.

Now take a second to head over to Hitting on a double 1 and read Carl Packham's post on the same subject posted a day after mine.

He's changed some of the wording and added a few bits of his own, and at least has had the decency to take his own photos, but as I read it was still clearly my post that I was reading.

Plagiarism is the "wrongful appropriation" and "stealing and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions" and the representation of them as one's own original work. (definition from Wikipedia).

Which is what I feel has been done here, it's the sort of thing you get when a 14 year old copies his mates English homework and I don't think it's acceptable.

Some evidence;

My post 'The minis come in three colours, red for the heroes, tan for the US army and green for the Martians, again a good idea as not everyone will paint their minis and this looks better than them all being grey'

His post 'The miniatures come in three colours, red for the heroes, tan for the US army and Turquoise for the Martians (But with the Martian Hero in Red) again a good idea as not everyone will paint their minis and this looks better than them all the same nondescript colour'

My post 'The first thing to note is that a lot of the minis suffer from what I call 'floppy weapon syndrome' as can be seen in the top photo above.  However I can also report that this is easily fixed by dipping the minis in a cup of hot water.'

His post 'Typically with the minis being soft! they suffer from the 'floppy weapon syndrome' as can be seen in the photo right showing the Heroes.  This can be easily though by the hot water method, a few of the bases will need this treatment as well as they are slightly warped.'

My post 'The minis are in true 28mm scale, rather than the 'heroic' scale favoured by many manufacturers'

His post 'Sculpts are fairly good and they are true 28mm scale, rather than the 'heroic' scale favoured by many manufacturers'

My post 'There are of course mould lines, but these are no worse than on any hard plastic minis and a damn sight better than those on Mantics restic minis'

His post 'The ubiquitous Mantic mould lines are evident, but no worse than on any hard plastic minis and a damn bloody sight better than those on the restic stuff.'

My post 'There has been some talk on the internet about the undercuts on the Martian grunts, well they exist, at least it exists on one sculpt.  Each pack of 10 Martians comes with one of the ones on the right in the pic above, which does have a ghastly undercut'

His post 'There has been some talk on the internet about the undercuts on the Martian grunts, well they exist, at least it exists on one sculpt. Each pack of 10 Martians comes with one of the ones at the front in the pic right, which does have a bad undercut'

It's not just the wording either, the structure of the two posts are so similar as that can't be coincidence.

Thank you if you bothered to read all this.

I'd really like some thoughts on this.  Am I overacting? Should he have credited me at least? Are 'derivative' works like this fine?  I put a lot of effort into my blog and having it taken like this just makes me feel angry is that right?

22 comments:

  1. Yes, it was obvious to me when I read his post yesterday. So much so that I did a double take and checked you hadn't got two blogs running.

    You've every right to be angry.

    ReplyDelete
  2. One can expect the broad themes and possibly even overall structure to be similar but there are blocks of identical text.

    Perhaps he read your post first and unintentionally copied your work with no ill intent. It remains that the right thing is for Carl to rewrite his post and if he is a gentleman, apologise.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unfortunately I think the identical text rules out innocent inspiration in this case.

      Delete
  3. There's synchronicity and then there this - seems pretty blatant. No excuses really, he should delete that post and start again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! he does indeed seem to have deleted the post.

      Delete
  4. I can't understand that some people could do that !!
    better to post a link to the original post and just add his own opinion !
    That's what I shall do ...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Did you post a comment on his blog ?
      That's what I will do!

      Delete
    2. I did leave a comment, his reply was that he hadn't taken anything away from my post!

      Delete
  5. It's bad form and you have a right to be very annoyed. However his response to your comment on his blog where he had a chance to make amends was very poor and made a bad situation worse.

    If you get in touch with Blogger he will have the post at the very least deleted. May be worth looking at other posts to see if he has copied others.

    I like his comment "I have taken nothing away from your post" too right, you left all of it in!!!

    Ian

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was after his response to my measured comment that I decided to write this post and bring attention to the issue. Thanks for your support.

      Delete
  6. Very disappointing. Somewhat topical: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_original/svf7tixzpsrghcov2w8e.jpg

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice diagram! proves I was right and this was plagiarism.

      Delete
  7. Thanks to everyone for your support, I guess a few people left comments on his site or he has seen this post as his post has been taken down. still no apology though. it was his response to my initial comment that Ian referenced above that led to me writing this post.

    ReplyDelete
  8. it seems that his post has been deleted !
    ...

    ReplyDelete
  9. That is really lame! I am glad the other post ended up getting taken down.

    ReplyDelete
  10. For the amount of trouble he'd taken to "rework" your post, he could have just written his own! Why on Earth would someone do that? What do they possibly have to gain? Good on you for speaking up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for that, I was wondering if I was being a dick for making such a big deal out of it. But I'm glad I did speak up and that he has removed his post.

      Delete
  11. Well that's not on at all. I am certainly guilty of re-appropriating ideas, but to actually copy specific blocks of identical text, including quite clearly personalised phrasing ( 'floppy weapon syndrome') is just wrong.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. re-appropriating ideas is fine as long as credit is given and you have something new to say or have your own painted version or something. Inspiration is to be encouraged, stealing of blog posts is not. Thanks for your support.

      Delete

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