The Perils of Sharing Your Work Here.

[Wooffy]

Small Rant coming up.....

In my utter naivety I have now twice shared work I have researched, collated and written with other interested parties only to find out that they have used it, shared it, even published it without any form of acknowledgement. Recently one of those pieces has been reproduced through another medium which has been recently shared with me - accompanied by a note that I need to acknowledge the source should I wish to share it further. I find this particularly irksome and it is this which has triggered me to write this post.

In both cases, those I shared my work with were are members of this forum.

Make of this what you wish to - I merely post this as a warning to others.

Rant Over.

Dave

[leigh kitchen]

Sounds deserving of a rant.

[yorkstone]

Dave,
I had a similar experience I shared my research on The war memorial in Stone Staffordshire see my avatar,

Only to find missing names I had researched and corroborated missing from it added to the Town memorial Without my knowledge with great full thanks to another ie the person I had shared my work with.

It Sucks however I look at those names with pride knowing That ultimately I did the research.

Regards

Stephen

[CAM]

Originally Posted by Wooffy

Small Rant coming up.....

In my utter naivety I have now twice shared work I have researched, collated and written with other interested parties only to find out that they have used it, shared it, even published it without any form of acknowledgement. Recently one of those pieces has been reproduced through another medium which has been recently shared with me - accompanied by a note that I need to acknowledge the source should I wish to share it further. I find this particularly irksome and it is this which has triggered me to write this post.

In both cases, those I shared my work with were are members of this forum.

Make of this what you wish to - I merely post this as a warning to others.

Rant Over.

Dave

Fair point!

Chris

[Sonofacqms]

Other Blighters Efforts . . !

I find this sort of thing totally annoying, I have so far only had one small item published in the Military Historical Journal and was kindly helped by two other forum members who I credited at the end of the article.

Give people their dues, if they have helped in any way credit them with it.

Rob

[popskipa]

I can sympathise as I have had similar experiences.

I will relate one such experience. I wrote and published a book about a German Jew and SAS veteran Rudi Friedlander, "Rudi's Story", I did a lot of research, met his family, took photos etc. Only to have my work and photos used in "The SAS and LRDG Roll of Honour 1941-47" this without my permission or credit given to me or my book. Absolute plagiarism!

Keith

[grenadierguardsman]

Thats bang out of order.
Andy

[GregN]

Been there, I've had content pulled directly out of my albums and placed right onto a dealers listing. It sucks and as a result I no longer feel the need to share my knowledge.

Greg

[fairlie63]

Originally Posted by Wooffy

Small Rant coming up.....

In my utter naivety I have now twice shared work I have researched, collated and written with other interested parties only to find out that they have used it, shared it, even published it without any form of acknowledgement. Recently one of those pieces has been reproduced through another medium which has been recently shared with me - accompanied by a note that I need to acknowledge the source should I wish to share it further. I find this particularly irksome and it is this which has triggered me to write this post.

In both cases, those I shared my work with were are members of this forum.

Make of this what you wish to - I merely post this as a warning to others.

Rant Over.

Dave

Completely agree with your rant, and sorry to hear that.

Keith

[Lemataf]

I agree, could be a very annoying behavior, but unfortunately this is the intrinsic risk for anything published on internet. Some don’t mind about their contributions being re-used, even w/o indicating the source, some -like myself too- who spent days, months, years researching/copying etc..., travelled 1000s of km to visit archives, museums, memory places, vets & interview them, and spent significant money in this, may have different views.

IMO, there is no 100% good solution to address this problem, one can only mitigate this risk by some protective methods. In my case, having met similar issue in the past (other forums), now I always reduce the size of the pics I post (so that the resolution is not fit for big zooms & paper publications) + mark them with my mark. I am sorry to say too that I decided to pay attention to what I post, having also unfortunately experienced with at least one «*known author*» in his special domain, that the guy was asking me for pics & information in back office, then used this in his books w/o asking me prior authorization, nor crediting me for the provided material...

Problem is not that easy when one needs to protect textual information, outcome of long researches, unless you take the extreme decision to share a lot less than what you used to before.

At the end, a matter of education & ethics I think, but unfortunately by these times of faster global access to the information, definitively a challenge which is hard to tackle.

Cheers,

JD

[Wooffy]

Thanks for the support folks.

I am heartened to know it hasn't just happened to me and I am equally dismayed that this is more prevalent than it should be!

[mike_vee]

Even within the forum if I use a photo or quote from another member I try to include a link to the original post. Not only is it good manners but it also shows the other person probably has more detailed knowledge of the topic.


.

[btns]

I have my own rant

I had an original research article held by a magazine's editor until one of the board members was able to publish his version of the same. My article was printed in the final pages of that issue. It was called a coincidence.
The board member never published other research. I subscribe to the magazine, but I am not going to send in articles or answer questions.

I occasionally publish articles on forums to identify misnamed buttons. An eager collector picks them up and does the rounds presenting the proper ID everywhere as part of his personal marketing. After communicating with Ian Kelly, Mr. Kelly had the button's ID and the collector's name printed in that same magazine.

A little bit wiser I did not answer pressing questions on a forum by someone writing a book. That same collector helped out and the result is a disaster in print. I am the bad guy and they think they have done a great job. It does not give satisfaction but I am pleased I have kept my research from them.

[lifeochil]

I have had a similar experience recently.
I have also had at least two sellers ask if they could use what I have said on their listings in regard to me verifying what they were selling. I agreed and each of them gave me the credit.
Copyright is breached constantly, every second on the internet. The problem is most people know that the majority are not going to pursue it.

[Staffsyeoman]

To cut a long story short...

In the early 1990, before the net became widely available, I spent nearly every lunch hour for over a year going through the London Gazette compiling a list of honours and awards to a large unit which had never had a history written before. This was to be part of a group effort to write that history as a book. The group leader said someone had asked to join the project and was interested in helping me. I had a bad feeling, as I had heard bad things about this person, but the project leader said he'd spoken to him and clarified things, got understandings, etc etc. So I shared a copy of my work.

Nothing, Three months, six months... nearly a year. No reply to contact. When this louse was finally run to ground, he said he'd found one or two mistakes (I had never claimed it was finished or perfect, but ongoing) and had corrected them; that meant - he said - that the WHOLE list was now "his".

I let the project leader know exactly what I thought of all this and left the project. This was nearly twenty years ago and the book never happened.