Earlier this year I wrote a tournament report about the BJJ British Open in Birmingham and it was published on the Fightworks Podcast website as part of their regular Tournament Tuesday section. Material from Fightworks gets reposted in various places around the internet so I was not surprised to see my report republished on the Gracie Barra blog.
However, the title was changed from "Tournament Review Tuesday: British BJJ Open" to "Prof Braulio Estima and the British Open 2009" and my name omitted. Sure, the Barra version of the article is credited to Caleb and the Fightworks Podcast, but I repeat...my name has been omitted.
If you see the original version on Fightworks, my name is clearly credited at the top and the bottom. Caleb is very good like that. He is fastiduous in giving a writer or photographer his credit. That's why I like sending him my work. He even adds my website address and a little bit about who I am.
An honest mistake?
So I emailed the contact on the Gracie Barra website with a polite notice to add my name to the piece. No response. So I email Caleb and ask if he could chip in with his request. Still no change. Now I'm really annoyed.
So Mr Gracie Barra website news writer and webmaster, the one who decided to leave my name, Seymour Yang, writer of the blog Meerkatsu, out of your 6th July 2009 news entry Prof Braulio Estima and the British Open 2009, you leave me no choice but to resort to the only weapon I have left - my voice as a blogger to out you as a PIRATE OF THE INTERNET HIGH SEAS. Take that you swine! Grrrrrrr!
Seriously though, I spend many hours writing my articles. I do this voluntarily of course and I do it for the fun and to give a voice to my passion. But it does not cost you, the swindling copier and paster, to actually give the original author a name-check. And to actually delete said author's name from your version of the article, well that is truly despicable.
I await your amendments to the article and I will accept a written apology. I won't hold my breath however.
11 comments:
Plagiarism is foul. When I was a history lecturer my students were terrible for it. Go ahead, take something from someone else - ideas, direct quotations - lift a huge chuck directly from someone else, but ALWAYS site your source and NEVER insinuate that it is your own work. Sorry this happened to you, Meerkatsu, I hope you do get an apology and the article amended.
Hi Seymour,
I'll send them an email too, letting them know how similar their article is to yours :-)
I know you have a lot of readers, maybe if each of us send an email. They will reconsider it, or simply add us to their spam folder :-P
Hope that helps :-)
Wow! Meg, History lecturer, IT coder, BJJer, you are mutlitalented in the extremis!
Cheers Isaac, every bit helps I guess!
The fact that you write the blog for fun is beside the point - you own the copyright in it. At the very least they should credit you as the writer (and better yet ask your permission before using it).
Dave T.
I know just how you feel: my BJJ glossary has been copied without permission numerous times now (most recently by the 10th Planet JJ site, as I discuss in my post). Bravo responded to my email saying "I'll talk to my web guy," but nothing has happened.
You could try using the Google Spam Report, putting it down as a duplicate site and listing your reasons for wanting it removed from the search index. Not much, but might help a little.
Agreed with all! You know, once I actually copied and pasted some stuff from another blog... AND I credited the source and linked to it etc... and I STILL got harshed on by the blog owner for copyright violation!
So GB ought to really be happy you're so tolerant....
Shame on them.
PIRACY CLAIM UPDATE@
Looks like if you click the Gracie Barra link, the page has been removed. Interesting. So clearly the webmaster is aware of my campaign and has chosen to remove it wholesale rather than simply insert my name as the author - which is all I really want.
Oh well, guess my GB membership just got revoked!
It's supposed to be a community not everyman for himself. What extra work does it take to include the source? Or better yet to ask permission?
Very unprofessional Seymour, credit where credit's due bro!
Plagiarism is rampant on the Internet. I've had a few smaller pirates hijack a few of my posts. It just gets you mad and makes you wish you could choke them out. I sympathize with you.
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