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1UP, Plagiarizing, and Other Bits of Joy
Nathan writes "1up recently posted their Dead or Alive 4 strategy guide on their website. It didn't take long for users at the Dead or Alive Central forums to recognize their hard work analyzing the fighting game engine had been blatantly pasted into the strategy guide without any credit given whatsoever. While movelists are largely factual and can be argued to be public knowledge, the most incriminating evidence is the section on the evasion system, which had been pasted into the 1up guide with a few reworded sentences. Discussions are ongoing at Gaming Age Forums (with 1up members defending the writer of the guide) and DoA Central.
Perhaps the most interesting bit about this is that just a month or two ago, Dan Hsu from EGM and 1up had famously written an editorial criticizing shady ongoings at other publications." I've reread the different pieces, and while I think the DoA Forums are a large basis of work, people need to read Kate Turabian's on how to cite research because I don't see this as plagiarism in the whole - just poorly cited. Update: 01/23 22:20 GMT by Z : 1up has announced that they've pulled the guide to review the situation.
I interviewed at 1up recently, and when I brought up the subject of game "journalism" the guys just laughed it off. They said, basically, that they're in the business to make money, and that the editorial wall of old-guard journalism doesn't apply.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
I did enjoy Hsu's blog which was discussed but not linked in the article.
I went to Kate Turabian's site. Nowhere did I find evidence of how to cite string combos from gaming websites. I found "non-periodical internet sources" but they were stealing their words, they were stealing their research in a game. Ironically, I believe the inventors of those combos (the programmers and authors of DoA) would be the sole owners.
Furthermore, who do you give credit to? The forum owners? The owners of the posts? If it's the owners of the posts, how do you acquire their real names? Should I be writing "Taken from a post by worksucks69 at DoACentral"? And how do I know that this material wasn't ganked from some other website without my knowledge? What are you to do if you want good information from a forum but it is in no way credible?
My work here is dung.
"Oh, oops, I forgot to cite my usage of these third party pieces of code. It's just poor citation. It's not stealing or anything right?"
Yeah, people need to stop making up euphemisms for things.
I've reread the different pieces, and while I think the DoA Forums are a large basis of work, people need to read Kate Turabian's on how to cite research because I don't see this as plagiarism in the whole - just poorly cited.
Which is exactly the opposite of everything they teach you in school. If you don't cite your sources, you are plagiarizing. Claiming incompetance by poorly citing your work is no excuse...
"...I don't see this as plagiarism in the whole - just poorly cited." It's widely accepted that poor citing == plagiarism.
I don't see this as plagiarism in the whole - just poorly cited. Copying something without properly citing or crediting its course is the definition of plagiarism.
I once showed a script I wrote to a guy who heads IT security in our company. A few months later in a company newsletter he mentioned the script, how it had helped find and resolve a serious security falw and how he had submitted it to a 3rd party security organization for review. He took full credit for everything and ended up getting an interview with SANS. Granted, the guy is higher up the corporate ladder than me, but he's not my boss and my name was never mentioned as being the autor of the script. For me, this was a lesson learned.
I'll never show this dude a script again! Now, I understand how he got to where he is... making friends with smart people and using their work to gain a reputation that he does not deserve.
Anywhere I go on the web to find information I see the same thing. Whether it's a Doom walkthrough or a guitar tab/chord guide for the latest song it's the same thing. One person did some work and everybody else with a site is there to copy and paste that work to their own site. Melissa Etheridge's 'Closer to Fine' guitar tab for instance. I've found that one tab at a ton of sites, not one site bothering to change one word of the introduction from the one person who tabbed out the song. Go look at Google News and find all the related stories under one header and you'll find 1000 stories, all the same. Same words and sometimes attributed to a wireservice report. Now just let me copy and paste this comment into my Digg comment on the same story. No use fighting against the tide here.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
No, copy-pasting is a copyright violation. Rewording of sentences, while inacceptable practice for a professional journalist (in the case the sources aren't cites) is completly legal.
/. dogma.
Furthermore, one could argue that an information published in an internet forum is public. I agree that a journalist have been unprofessional here, but I am surprised with most opinions expressed here, that tend to go against the "information wants to be free"
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
If the TOS for the boards says, "Anything you post becomes our property to be done with as we wish," there's not a lot of recourse for anyone. The writers all agreed to the TOS in order to post, and the board managers turned it all into a manual. Odious, but within the letter of the law - provided that the TOS was bulletproof. Another reason to read those things closely......
Nathan writes "1up recently posted their Dead or Alive 4 strategy guide on their website. It didn't take long for users at the Dead or Alive Central forums to recognize their hard work analyzing the fighting game engine had been blatantly pasted into the strategy guide without any credit given whatsoever. While movelists are largely factual and can be argued to be public knowledge, the most incriminating evidence is the section on the evasion system, which had been pasted into the 1up guide with a few reworded sentences. Discussions are ongoing at Gaming Age Forums (with 1up members defending the writer of the guide) and DoA Central. Perhaps the most interesting bit about this is that just a month or two ago, Dan Hsu from EGM and 1up had famously written an editorial criticizing shady ongoings at other publications." I've reread the different pieces, and while I think the DoA Forums are a large basis of work, people need to read Kate Turabian's on how to cite research because I don't see this as plagiarism in the whole - just poorly cited.
Speaking of plagiarism, this slashdot user has ripped all the content right out of here, without attribution, and is taking credit, getting mainstream press and making money off selling t-shirts as a result. I think that is so shitty; like a link to the original source would kill him or something.
~jeff
Information wants to be free, but it also wants its original author(s) properly credited (as in at least mentioned *somewhere*).
I didn't see the links.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I agree on the second argument. A copy-paste of something, even publicly published, requires a citation. The amount of change required for something to be a different work is a gray zone and is very subjective (ever wondered why Lucas trademarks every name in his Starwars(c) tril..er saga ?) But I think it is commonly recognized that a rewording transforms sufficiently a work.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I am surprised with most opinions expressed here, that tend to go against the "information wants to be free" /. dogma.
The problem is that 1up isn't licensed under the GFDL; sure, the GFDL allows commercial use of information, but it's still pretty bizarre for such a large site that gets so much profit copypaste something others wrote. If someone were to mirror the information on Wikibooks, it wouldn't have been as wrong as this.
Actually these guys have been ripping off video game FAQ authors for years. Even as far back as 1993. A well known faq author for some of the Mortal Kombat games would actually poison his FAQ with false moves just to see if they appeared in other peoples FAQs or magazines. Any MK fans from that era will prolly recall seeing the "Tiger Run" move from MK2 posted in an EGM "strategy guide" in one of their issues. Sure enough, EGM was there to rip of his every word, even the fake ones. A few years later they ripped of a FAQ author of a Tekken 3 Moves list. So to most of the people in the fighting game community this isn't really nothing new. Really sad, but it has been happening for over 10 years now.
Put the files on a bit torrent box and poof-- it won't matter who copies it where. The magical, rose-colored, I-don't-care-who-really-owns-it glasses make all problems go away.
Cogito Ergo Sum
Nope, it's movelists - As in lists of moves, for fighting games. It probably shouldn't be one word admittedly, but it certainly isn't novelists. ;)
two words: broken links. couldn't we then make up anything and just attibute it to some website that isn't there. I suppose this could be the case with any website, but at least there is some information about the source if it has the title, date, etc, granted not all that much though. I suppose such transient sites aren't very trustworthy anyway.
But I think it is commonly recognized that a rewording transforms sufficiently a work.
Says who? Lester, of the infamous Lester's Guide that I hated from around 5th grade thru speech class in college, in all His glorious versions, says otherwise. According to Him, all sources must be cited. Even just a paraphrase. My friend failed his senior paper for far less than that.
Acceptable (with the whole link later in a sources cited page): Yvanhoe, in his comment on www.slashdot.com, says that if you just take text straight from a document, you must cite it.
Unacceptable: It isnt really settled how much you need to re-word someones writing before it becomes your own.
No bastard ever won a war by dieing for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb, bastard die for his.
I'm sure there's someone I should cite for that quote, but I can't remember who. ;)
TZ
but it also wants its original author(s) properly credited
And perhaps paid what you would pay a freelance writer for it.
I guess they take Mondays off.
"Helena Can avoids Most attacks, except low mids, and low attacks. "
vs
"Helena Can't avoid low mids and low attacks."
"Lei Fang - Avoids most attacks with proper timing, not good against mid kicks. "
vs
"Lei Fang must have good timing to avoid most attacks, but is horrible against mid kicks"
"Class B- These are characters who can evade alot of single blows, and evade some attacks within strings."
vs
"Tier 2 characters can evade a great deal of single blows, and even some attack strings."
"Class C - These are characters who can evade only a select few blows(high and jumping attacks), and evade hardly any attacks within strings. "
vs
"The characters Tier 3 are limited to evading a few highs and jump attacks, and can barely evade any attack strings. "
I don't see this as plagiarism in the whole - just poorly cited.
Wow, someone dumber than Hemos. That's quite a feat.
"I don't see this as plagiarism in the whole - just poorly cited."
"I don't see this as torture in the whole - just cruel and unusual interrogation."
"I don't see this as lying in the whole - just truthiness deficient."
"I don't see this as adultery in the whole - just extramarital polyamory."
"I don't see this as murder in the whole - just intentional killing without extenuating circumstances."
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
As is often the case with guides like this, the strategy guide itself displays the authors' phenomenal understanding of the game and fighting games in general.
Quoth the guide:
This statement (and some other statements about "combo strings") is unclear and stupid. A "combo" in fighting games is, by definition, a series of attacks which cannot be interrupted or escaped, no matter what you do. A "string" is a series of attacks which is not a combo. In other words, it is possible to escape a string by acting correctly (may require guessing correctly). It is unclear whether the author means a combo or a string here (it obviously cannot be a combo, never mind what the author actually says).Now, it could be argued that the DoA series does not deserve to be called a "fighting game" (the terms "counter contest" or "ogle-fest" could be used instead), rendering this post moot, but if they are calling it one, they should at least use the proper terminology correctly.
Information doesn't just want to be free, it wants to be legally distributed according to the author's permission. Public does not mean "public domain." Rather, information published in public is subject to the author's right to control its distribution, even if it's a derivative work. From Copyright Office Circular 14 (pdf): "Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work. The owner is generally the author or someone who has obtained rights from the author."
1. Type The Stand into word processor.
2. Change the names of all the characters and places.
3. Reword more than half of the sentences in each chapter.
4. Send work to 20 publishers.
5. Receive 20 rejection letters.
6. Publish magnum opus on Internet.
7. Profit!!!
8. Get sued by Stephen King.
IANAL
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
Just trying to fit in. :)
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
RUN
If the internet archive is doing its job, you can sometimes find old articles. Especially if you link to 'em enough. Google can sometimes help here as well, but it's not nearly as helpful.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I know an artist who's had a work stolen by 1up, and know of another group who've had at least two of their works appear on 1up's site. It takes several emails, and sometimes a bombardment of emails, before they'll take the work down (they refuse to offer credit, they'd rather remove it).
I'm not at all surprised to see they lift text as well as images.
During the early 1990s, writers had a decent chance of getting away with misappropriating information from Internet-distributed strategy guides.
I myself had at least two Internet strategy guides plagarized or used without attribution during that time.
In the first case, an almost word-for-word copy of my Command & Conquer strategy guide -- which itself was a distillation of comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategy posts used by permission-- got printed as a booklet, and featured as an "extra" that month for a tier-one newstand magazine. I found out about it from a fan 10,000 miles away on another continent who sent an e-mail to congratulate me on making the cover.
The editor and I agreed that I would be compensated standard rates for the material, and that he would deal appropriately with the irresponsible freelancer.
In the second, a staff writer from a tier-one gaming website copied data from another guide -- I don't remember if it was Red Alert or X-COM 3, but it was stuff that could only have come from my guide. In any case, I wrote the editor, who in turn had a word with the writer. The next day, those portions had proper credit given to the guide.
There was also the email I got from a guy who wanted me to produce a valid U.S. copyright registration within 30 days or else he was just going to steal my work and publish it on his own. *shakes head back and forth*
So, anyway. The mid-90s was the end of the "get material free on teh Intarnet"* era for publications that wanted to remain respectable. Even then, the Internet audience had grown too large to plagarize Internet-distributed material without someone noticing the similarity and raising a stink.
As the 1-up case shows, the chance of someone getting away with that today is near zero.
* - it's even becoming more difficult for college students to plagarize term papers verbatim, as more professors are asking students to register their term papers on similarity-checking websites.
Ziff Davis has a legal department that routinely checks certain websites for scans from their magazine. The reasoning is that once an individual has viewed the scan of a featured article, they have lost any need/interest in purchasing the magazine for that article. The scans therefore ruin the potential marketability of the magazine and in turn incur an estimated number of losses in proportion to the number of people that have viewed the image. Ironically, I find this analogous to the position that DoAC is placed in as a result of 1UP's plagiarism. There are many possible ways that the information provided on the DoAC website could have been marketed prior to being plagiarized down to their formatting. This material could have been sold and published as a strategy guide, paid memberships could have been instituted, among many other possibilities. The fact that this information was being provided for free by virtuaPAI and other posters at the time of the plagiarism is irrelevant, as scenarios are endless in how they could have profited from it at some point in the future. 1UP's publishing of the plagiarized content has infringed upon DoAC's inalienable right to individual capital by profiting from DoAC's written work and forever diminished the marketability of that work. That makes what they did legally actionable in addition to being morally and ethically corrupt. The plagiarized work includes more than "listed facts." What was plagiarized in my opinion included DoAC's own organization of these facts, as well as their detailed explanation of gameplay features and strategies. That written material is the property of its DoAC contributors (namely virtuaPAI), of which 1UP neither cited nor compensated. Plagiarizing the presentation and explanation of these facts and ideas -- namely gameplay and strategy descriptions -- is disconcerting enough to raise legal questions. Of course, I highly doubt that virtuaPAI is going to sue 1UP and take on the Ziff Davis legal team. =P I'm just pointing out that this could be actionable for a number of reasons and that 1UP should be careful in how they use fansites in the future. There was nothing legal about using DoAC and not citing it as a source of their material.