Plagerism

[David Schmidt]

You have to admire the cojones of this guy - big brass ones no doubt.
Go to: http://wiki.maquis.com/w/Image:Nova_Bridge.jpg
Do those look familiar? Check out the 'created by' tag.
This is stolen work. Any ideas? Comment?

 

[Albertese]

Plagerism is nobody's friend.

 

[Maurice]

Re: Plagerism <sic>

Comments? Sure...try the right word: it's "plagiarism", not plag-er-ism.

That said, plagiarism is a sadly all-too-common byproduct of the digital age.

 

[nx1701g]

Re: Plagerism <sic>

If you think that's bad take a look deeper (their Nova Assault ship for example...)

 

[Jack Bauer]

Re: Plagerism <sic>

Where did the original come from?

 

[felixofgolden]

Re: Plagerism <sic>

Misspelling not withstanding...

Yes, with the digital age and the internet, things are scanned/posted/spread around extremely easily, even without giving credit. Any Star Trek or Star Wars, etc etc site has all kinds of scans from books and so on.
But the fact that the guy actually put "created by him" on it. I mean, wow!

That's like, what if someone took a rendered image of the TOS1701 that say Tallguy or Vector has done, and put "created by (themselves)" on it? Or any other piece of work. A pencil sketch of Bill Shatner, say, and slapped their own name on it to lie and take credit for someone's else's drawing skills.

Even looking at the deckplan/blueprint and redrawing it themselves in (pick your favorite vector drawing app), *and then* saying, ok hi, i created this. That would be different.
But to simply slap their name on a scan and pretend they drew it, that's stunning.
Maybe I'll just go grab a cool Okudagram that Jose has made and put my name on it and post it on my site? Yeah, that's the ticket!

 

[sunnyside]

Re: Plagerism <sic>

Jack Bauer said:
Where did the original come from?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the origional is from the OP, who has a link to a "We'll give you ship schematics for $20" web site that it appears he owns. And further guess that the similarities extend beyond just where stuff goes.

As a side note kudos for making a profit on ship schematics.

 

[felixofgolden]

Re: Plagerism <sic>

sunnyside said:
As a side note kudos for making a profit on ship schematics.

Oh that's been done for years. I miss the conventions of the 70's and 80's when mainly all you saw in the dealers rooms were fan made blueprints for sale. The "Bridge Blueprints" for example, or some early stuff from Shane Johnson (the Weapons and Field Equipment book, or the Uniform book), or Jackill's blueprint sheets or books. Long history of it. Ships of the Starfleet, Ships of the Starfleet II, Grissom blueprints, K-7 blueprints.. etc etc.

 

[David Schmidt]

Re: Plagerism <sic>

I loved that era.

 

[sunnyside]

Re: Plagerism <sic>

Ah yes. I actually knew that back in my head.

Still kudos doing it now in a world with these vile plagurism tubes.

 

[Squiggy]

Re: Plagerism <sic>

I remember you posting this several months ago. He still hasn't taken them down?

 

[David cgc]

Re: Plagerism <sic>

DS9Sega said:
That said, plagiarism is a sadly all-too-common byproduct of the digital age.

This is ironic, but since you probably haven't noticed, you should know that anyone who looks at your avatar and doesn't have the original image cached (as you apparently do) sees a message telling you to stop hot-linking.

 

[aridas sofia]

David, I hate to say it, but I think it's hopeless. Once something is publicly available, it will be disseminated (if it is interesting to anyone). It really isn't new -- since printing began, publishers have stolen the work of other publishers and reprint for profit without attribution or remuneration. There was a brief window in the mid-20th century when it became harder to get away with, but even so... among lowlife Trek dealers it has always been de rigeur to reprint the work of fan artists.

No one seems to care that once you steal someone else's work, and deprive them of the money they have counted on to cover their costs of production, printing and distribution, you put them out of business. You kill the golden goose you've gone to all that trouble to steal. You might get your Nova prints, but what of the dozen other sets that will go unmade? And once it gets around that this is the way it goes, fewer people will want to jump in and fill the departed artist's place.

Of course, the Internet and the digital tools of illustration and 3D imagery have changed all this. So many can do things that are so awesome, there is little value in any of it anymore. It gets posted online, and the original artist is satisfied with the public attention. He is "paid" with praise, and because he hasn't laid out thousands of dollars for printing and postage and packaging, etc. he doesn't go broke, and in many cases thinks he has gotten a good deal.

And that's why this is happening, and isn't going to stop. The fact that this creep claimed authorship of David's work is obviously beyond the pale -- David did print these plans, and needs to be paid to cover his costs. He didn't post them online himself, and wouldn't be satisfied with public attention in the place of money. But that's the problem -- he's doing it the old way, and the new rules are making that increasingly difficult. Particularly for small publishers that don't have the resources to do anything about having their work stolen.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I'll second that. Plagarism is here to stay on the Internet. We can go after individual cases, but never stem the tide.

When I first started building CG meshes and releasing them for other folks use on the web I decided that anything I put out there was public domain.

I ask people nicely to credit me if they use one of mine, and it seems as if most people who have enough skill to render an image that I'd want my name on are respectful of that.

Nonetheless, having watched what went on with other artists for a couple of years before I started contributing I just decided that trying to control something put out on the Internet was asking for heartburn and resentment. I could either let this stuff go or keep it to myself. I certainly don't advise anyone else to do one or the other - but it's the only way I could stand to handle it.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

My recommendation is not to try suing the guy or anything like that. Instead... CONTACT HIS INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER and file a complaint. If you can provide evidence of your ownership of these materials (and you can, obviously), they will immediately freeze and/or delete his entire website.

You won't have stopped him from ever doing this again, but you'll have destroyed all of his "hard work," and his internet address and so forth.

He can always start over... get a new ISP, put up a fresh copy of his locally-stored copy of the website, get a new address. And if he does... get THAT one closed down.

Eventually, he'll probably get tired of having to steal the same thing over and over and over...

How's that sound to ya? The punk is out of line, don't rely on "daddy policeman" to take care of him. Just take away what HE'S "worked so hard" on.

Payback's a bitch, ain't it?

 

[fireyphoenix22]

I just checked and it's gone. (bridge deckplan)

 

[Squiggy]

Looks like a "Scummings" went through and blew out all those images.

 

[nx1701g]

yep - they're all down now

 

[David Schmidt]

Fast service!
I sent an email to this gentleman:
Samuel Cummings
International Coordinator, MFI
(not the 'artist' in question).
I also sent a letter to his ISP (and cc a copy to him as well).
I received a response at 5:11 am this morning.
He apologized for the problem and said he would remove any/all images immediately.
Then he sent another email 12 minutes later, stating he had done so. I wasn't even awake yet.

aridas sofia (nice to hear from you again BTW) - I don't think this in any way detracts from anything you said - I think it's the exception that proves the rule. Well spoken sir. Frankly, if this sort of thing became endemic, I would indeed stop publishing plans. (I'd still *design* them, but no one but Tim would ever see them).
Also, thanks to Cary L. Brown . Good advice - Tim came up with it as well. But thanks for the back-up. Okay, back to the design tank!

 

[ancient]

Bravo, David. Good idea, Cary.


That site was all screwed up anyway. The image links were misplaced and partly hidden behind text. Just the sort of incompetent layout one would expect.

I looked at a few of those links a while back. The edits were really obvious and funny actually.