ForumsArt, Music, and WritingATTENTION: copyright infringement and plagiarism

2 5417
Strop
offline
Strop
10,817 posts
Bard

This is just an announcement to remind people to be careful about where and how they source and distribute intellectual property. We've noticed a recent spate of users attempting to pass the work of others off as their own, and feel the need to reiterate that this is NEVER okay.

It's worth reading this very precise and concise guide posted on this very forum. It will not only explain what you shouldn't be doing, but should also make obvious why we'll ban you for doing it.

The question I have is why do it? The desire for praise and fame etc. is one thing but surely it isn't real if your work isn't yours. Furthermore, all of us on the moderation team have been dealing with this time and time again for several years and so we've intimately familiar with a whole range of ways to pick up when somebody's done something dodgy and find the evidence. This applies to text, graphics and audio, so frankly, unless you were intellectually deficient, you shouldn't ever think that you'll get away with it.

And when we do catch somebody out, then we have to confront them, and they usually panic, deny it and make up some stupid excuse or try to counter-accuse us of false accusation, which again is really dumb because we don't launch cases unless we've done our homework, and we frankly don't care about who's actually using the offending account.

Most importantly, you should know that further failure to disclose copyright infringement/plagiarism when asked to do so will result in your case being referred to the original agent or authorised copyright holder. Depending on who that is, you will find yourself in varying degrees of trouble, additional to our then having to permanently ban your AG account and tell you not to come back ever, when you could have saved us the time and trouble by not doing it in the first place.

It's all very unpleasant, all very transparent, and you will lose out big time all over some need to be acknowledged without putting in the hard yards. In short: DON'T. DO. IT.

kthnx

  • 2 Replies
pangtongshu
offline
pangtongshu
9,815 posts
Jester

So that one guy was using other's work, eh?

Gotta say, I love his message back to you. He goes from asking how his dubstep is (on the threads) to saying it was his "friends"

Strop
offline
Strop
10,817 posts
Bard

So that one guy was using other's work, eh?


The case was referred externally, but even despite the principle of "innocent until proven guilty", this is no court of law and anybody familiar with the posting history can see the discrepancies for themselves.

It's not an isolated case either.

And don't steal from AG users either!


Oh yeah, definitely, I mean, one would have to be extremely dumb to do this at least here. As for posting it elsewhere, well, if you suspect something is up, there's always TinEye.
Showing 1-2 of 2