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[Resolved] Blatant Content Theft/Plagiarism by YouTuber


AtlasP

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Pre-emptive answers to questions/sentiments that are likely to appear in the comments:

"something something copyright something something…"

This post has been entirely centered around an *ethical* argument regarding plagiarism, not any legal argument regarding copyright. (Observe that the word 'copyright' does not appear anywhere in the original post.) Ultimately copyright is sufficiently complex and so widely misunderstood that its entrance in the discussion would only sidetrack from the fundamental ethical issue. Plagiarism is generally wrong irrelevant of whether it happens to narrowly violate copyright law or not in any particular jurisdiction. (This is not conceding whether or not such would also qualify as copyright infringement, but I am completely unwilling to participate in discussion over that complicated subject on a public forum.)

"But he made sufficient additions/changes to qualify as fair use…"

My answer here is the same as the previous. The concept of fair use is a component of copyright law, not the ethics surrounding plagiarism. If one plagiarizes content even with some changes/additions which may qualify under fair use with regards to copyright (not conceding that's the case here, but hypothetically if), that still does not absolve them of the ethics violation of plagiarizing content with improper attribution/while misrepresenting its source.

"How dare you claim ownership of spec information which is really owned by the manufacturers/resellers…"

I have made no such claim. Very simply, myself and some other community members worked to make something, compiling/curating a complex set of information with proper attribution/citing sources, and he plagiarized that content without proper attribution/misrepresenting its source.

Edited by AtlasP
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Did you try to contact him first about your legitimate concerns? He may have thought that it’s not a big deal, which legal or not is not a cool move.  That would be my first move before calling him out on here. 

Edited by shellac
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I suspect this is a money beef...

@AtlasP I appreciate your effort to aggregate EUC technical info into a single table. It helped me when I entered the hobby. I hope the community continues to maintain things like this, for the benefit of future new riders.

@Jimmy Chang's website is a different format from a single table. Maybe some people find it more useful? (I didn't.)

You raised the point that his site used information from your table. Got it.

"Why are you mad about that?" and surrounding discussion will likely dominate this thread.

I presume the potential loss of referral benefits is your motivating concern.
If it weren't for the money at stake, would this be noteworthy? (Was there something else I missed?)

Edited by RagingGrandpa
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I know you said to exclude copyright from this discussion, but there is a reason that you cannot own a copyright on facts. Map makers can't accuse someone of plagiarism just because a map contains all of the same cities on it. They own the way the map is colored or styled. You say you want him to replace the data with legitimately gathered data but if all of the information from your comparison table is factual would he not just come to the same numbers you did?

I am by no means unsympathetic to your position but I don't think I should need to give you credit if I tell someone the MTen3 has a top speed of 23mph instead of 25mph

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Hey @AtlasP, no disrespect intended, I'm just thinking of some ideas here. If you are providing access to your aggregated information free of charge, are you collecting any ad revenue. If not, perhaps @Jimmy Changcan offer you some of his website ad revenue. Some money is better than no money. Or perhaps if you have another goal, like subscribers or email lists, perhaps he can offer his patrons's contact info in exchange. Does he state that he created or maintains the list?

Again no disrespect, I'm just an average EUC rider giving my own perspective of the described situation. Information and data presentation, to me, is like Wikipedia or the news, where these are single convenient places where I can go and believe what I read. And just like Wikipedia or CNN, I can't see myself paying for that presentation of facts. Facebook and Google came upon this legal/ethical predicament against mainstream media when their own news aggregator just collected the news stories of The New York Times or the SF Chronicle and showed it to people bypassing the originators websites. FWIW, ultimately the lawsuits showed that news, data and information is not copyrightable, but if commentary about that news and information was introduced, it could be considered art/entertainment and therefore protected. In a strange twist, if Jimmy adds his own opinion to the information from your list, his content may become protected and not yours.

Is Jimmy's use of your master table harming you? Taking traffic or ad revenue from your website or YouTube channel? Maybe your table is more valuable than you realize and you could monetize it now.

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1 minute ago, null said:

fun fact: Map makers actually include small errors they can point to if a competitor have copied their map rather than making their own.

fun fact: Dictionaries do(or at least did) the same thing

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On 12/8/2020 at 1:33 PM, Silver said:

I know you said to exclude copyright from this discussion, but there is a reason that you cannot own a copyright on facts. Map makers can't accuse someone of plagiarism just because a map contains all of the same cities on it. They own the way the map is colored or styled. You say you want him to replace the data with legitimately gathered data but if all of the information from your comparison table is factual would he not just come to the same numbers you did?

I am by no means unsympathetic to your position but I don't think I should need to give you credit if I tell someone the MTen3 has a top speed of 23mph instead of 25mph

It is easy to expect/visualize a scenario in which the manufacturers provide consistent, unambiguous spec sheets and resellers can easily rely on and republish this information such that all the information everywhere lines up. In such a hypothetical scenario anyone creating their own such project would eventually end up with the same info/numbers.

Unfortunately this is simply not true for the current EUC market. The state of documentation by manufacturers is a contradictory mess, then on top of this they're constantly revising their hardware without acknowledging this publicly or updating their documentation, and there are huge gaps in what numbers they provide at all leaving individual retailers to fill in the gaps providing yet more numbers which don't reconcile with each other. It was exactly this situation which is what prompted the initial creation of my table, as I was frustrated at trying to figure out what was correct/true and make informed purchasing decisions.

See for yourself. Here are three competing table/database/spreadsheet projects:

If this were so straightforward, we'd all have the same numbers, and yet you'll find that is hardly the case. Within about 30 seconds of poking around the listings you'll find conflicting numbers between them *everywhere*. And this is NOT because the others are blatantly "bad"-in most cases one could find a reference/citation for whatever number you find on any of them. So it comes down to their individual methodologies and standards and how they choose to parse/reconcile the conflicting source data. And so you have a scenario where there are a bunch of these projects each with different numbers all over the place, except Jimmy's miraculously aligns with just one of them perfectly.

--

Also there is a fundamental difference between repeating facts, and for example republishing large percentage of a dataset wherein the value is largely a product of its compilation/curation--you can't just reprint the Guinness Book of World Records and claim it as your own because it's "just facts". Incidentally a decent portion of copyright law revolves around this, although it is just obvious and applicable pertaining to the moral considerations surrounding plagiarism completely independent of copyright law.

Edited by AtlasP
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1 hour ago, AtlasP said:

Also there is a fundamental difference between repeating facts, and for example republishing large portions of a data set wherein the value is largely a product of its compilation/curation

For sure, and I think Jimmy should have just asked you(it's the nice thing to do right or wrong). But, with a data set of less than 30 and it being formatted differently I think it's a bit more in the gray area between the two.  

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No disrespect intended here mate, your work certainly is useful and I can totally understand why you'd feel like you have been kicked in the guts when something you've worked on is copied and attribution is not applied correctly. 

However this assumption of poor faith on behalf of Jimmy without trying to contact him and instead of contacting him directly and instead blowing it up into _a thing_ doesn't sit well with me. 

If you'd contacted him and he'd blown you off, totally fire a salvo like this. But communication is a two way street and it doesn't seem like you've attempted communication here.

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On 12/8/2020 at 6:58 PM, Brendan "nog3" Halliday said:

No disrespect intended here mate, your work certainly is useful and I can totally understand why you'd feel like you have been kicked in the guts when something you've worked on is copied and attribution is not applied correctly. 

However this assumption of poor faith on behalf of Jimmy without trying to contact him and instead of contacting him directly and instead blowing it up into _a thing_ doesn't sit well with me. 

If you'd contacted him and he'd blown you off, totally fire a salvo like this. But communication is a two way street and it doesn't seem like you've attempted communication here.

I don't know how to make this any more clear. If you've got an idea for a project, and three of the steps include:

  1. Copy someone else's work
  2. Paste your own referral links over their links
  3. Write a scummy and intellectually dishonest attribution to evade/misrepresent the actual source

With that combination you have firmly passed "honest mistake" territory or the victim owing you anything in how they choose to handle the situation, and deserve to get called out. I refuse to be victim-blamed for calling public attention to this. Not to mention he perpetrated this for an audience of 20,000(!) people without any hesitation. Here I am calling him out on a narrow enthusiast forum where 25 people are going to see it or care (hyperbole, the point stands). And yet somehow I'm the bad guy? You've gotta be kidding me.

This person has demonstrated that they will cross commonly understood standards of decency in the blind pursuit of building their brand/media empire. That information is of direct interest to the community, both as casual media consumers and particularly to other generous content creators here who may wish to be more careful as a result.

Edited by AtlasP
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8 hours ago, AtlasP said:

I don't know how to make this any more clear. If you've got an idea for a project, and three of the steps include:

  1. Copy someone else's work
  2. Paste your own referral links over it
  3. Write a scummy and intellectually dishonest attribution to evade/misrepresent the actual source

With that combination you have firmly passed "honest mistake" territory or the victim owing you anything, and deserve to get called out. I refuse to be victim-blamed for calling public attention to this. Not to mention he perpetrated this for an audience of 20,000(!) people without any hesitation. Here I am calling him out on a narrow enthusiast forum where 25 people are going to see it or care (hyperbole, the point stands). And yet somehow I'm the bad guy? You've gotta be kidding me.

This person has demonstrated that they will cross commonly understood standards of decency in the blind pursuit of building their brand/media empire. That information is of direct interest to the community, both as casual media consumers and particularly to other generous content creators here who may wish to be more careful as a result.

I unequivocally do not support plagiarism and to be clear am not saying you are to blame for what has happened (ala victim-blaming). All I am saying is that instead of escalating straight to the nuclear option you should speak to Jimmy first which going by your responses so far all I can assume is that you haven't tried.

People do dumb things without considering the consequences or complete follow-through sometimes and as fellow members of the EUC community and humanity we should be trying to give them the benefit of the doubt first. People don't respond well to outright escalation and personally had my work been duplicated like this I'd be asking for attribution from the person responsible directly before posting it publicly on forums/social media.

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Great tone and attitude in this response.  It was unfortunate to see this conflict between two who both seem interested in providing important information to the EUC community.

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On 12/8/2020 at 10:07 PM, AtlasP said:

I didn't realise we were competing! I just did my system (the 2nd one) for fun and because it was a natural extension of another project I was doing.

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@Jimmy Chang- I formally accept and appreciate your apology and the resolution outlined; thank you. (I will update the original post.)

(If I'm completely frank, I think the term "residual data" is spurious/downright misleading relative to what I believe I could demonstrate was the scope/majority-percentage of original data that was used. But ultimately I'm going to let that verbiage slide since I am pleased to see an explicit acknowledgment and apology over at least the fundamental issue, which I do applaud.)

--

To anyone else who may still be reading -

It is unfortunate that because of people's general fatigue over 'internet outrage culture' (which I can sympathize with), then even when a case was as clear-cut as this, many people's first reaction was simply to mentally categorize it as 'drama' and either ignore or even try to downplay or dismiss the situation. In this instance I had presented a straightforward outline of events, clear evidence, and simple/reasonable proposed steps to resolve; held my ground (even with the mix of proverbial crickets and some frankly bizarre responses); and ultimately was proven right and had the situation properly addressed/resolved. But I can't say the process and general community response or lack thereof wasn't disheartening to go through, and I could easily see other contributors not standing up/not holding their ground or even just saying 'screw it' and walking away from everything if faced with going through a similar experience (I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't occurred to me as a result of this)--which is generally bad for everyone if we reach that state.

Instead I urge everyone to support our great community contributors (particularly if they ever face something unfortunate like this)--from 'that mod who's always first to respond to account issues'/really the many great mods here, to 'the guy who knows everything about tires' to 'the guys who know everything about batteries' to 'the guy who knows everything about riding in extreme temperatures' to 'the guy who knows everything about soft pedal modes' to 'the guys who know everything about suspensions', etc, etc--you all know who these people are, and you must know our community would be worse off without their participation/contributions.

Edited by AtlasP
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On 12/12/2020 at 3:09 PM, mike_bike_kite said:

I didn't realise we were competing! I just did my system (the 2nd one) for fun and because it was a natural extension of another project I was doing.

I promise no antagonism was intended with the word 'competing' which was just meant in the colloquial sense of 'multiple offerings in the same space/generally offering the same thing'. :-)

Edited by AtlasP
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  • AtlasP changed the title to [Resolved] Blatant Content Theft/Plagiarism by YouTuber

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