Plagiarism is not acceptable on Steemit. It's one thing to say "I made this" somewhere else, where there aren't posting rewards. It's still not cool, but nobody's necessarily benefiting from it besides a hollow boost to the ego. On Steemit, plagiarizing defrauds Steem stakeholders (that's you and me) and steals away post rewards from legitimate people.
Unclear on what plagiarism is?
plagiarize from Merriam-Webster dictionary
plagiarism on dictionary.com
A Plagiarizer
Let's take a look at someone who's been sneakily plagiarizing on Steemit for a long time, @jpiper20. Jay Piper introduced himself as a graphic designer and says he completed a Bachelor's Degree of Fine Arts in Graphic Design in November 2015 and was a dean's list student. He has posted some plagiarized works of art that he claims as his own going back as far as his third post on July 13th. Note: most of the design and art in that post is likely his own, however this image is not:
It comes from a YouTube video, an Illustrator tutorial by Ioana Șopov:
Later @jpiper20 posted the picture in its own post, putting a different space photo behind it. He also claims it as his own on his website.
Edit: In his comment below Jay says "The monkey illustration is mine. If you watch the tutorial it is a how to and I followed the instructions and drew the entire thing from scratch."
I think that's fair to claim that you drew it, but it is essentially a copy of the original. Mentioning that would have made it not plagiarism.
A History of Theft
Fast-forward to today. @jpiper20 posts "Newest Illustration - Gorillabong" and someone noticed it came from this artist: eggzoo (Instagram). As you can tell from the title and comments (see my comment there if they are edited), he clearly took credit for this artwork. Once called out, he downvoted the comment with the link to the source and promptly edited the post to credit eggzoo. After being asked by @anyx why the comment was downvoted he replied "The artist's name is in the post" as if it was always there. You can't hide and lying doesn't help.
So I and others looked into more of Jay's posts to see if there was more art plagiarism. Thanks to some collaborative help we found the Spacechimp's source. I then found more:
My Painting For National Elephant Appreciation Day!
5 days ago
Source: Elephant - The Art of Steven Schuman
Artist: Steven Schuman
Trippy Tribute Painting
6 days ago
Again taken from Steve Schuman.
A Style Of Painting You Have Never Seen..
Originally titled: "A Collection Of My Acrylic Dog Paintings" (look at the permlink URL)
All taken from Steven Schuman, again!
Looking at his screenshot from Facebook, he may have passed it off as his own to someone he knows. Edit: Jay has said this is his work (see comments) and I believe him.
World Lion Day Is Today So I Painted One, Do You Have The Spirit Of A Lion?
2 months ago
Stolen again from Steve Schuman
Jay Piper is not a full-time plagiarist
I need to mention that Jay Piper is not a full-time plagiarist, though his plagiarism of art calls into question most of the art he's posted here. He seems capable of illustration and I think he's posted legitimate works of his own. He also shares himself singing and playing guitar on YouTube. If you see his first upload to that account he gives a shoutout to Steemit. But...
Dishonesty
What bothered me enough to create this post is the dishonesty about plagiarizing, downvoting the comment that called it out, and then lying about giving credit to the author of the gorilla design, eggzoo. That is shady behavior.
Edit: Apology
Jay has made a post apologizing for the plagiarism.
Plagiarism on Steemit is Fraud
Because of Steemit's unique rewards for posts, posting plagiarized work is defrauding Steem, and all those with stake in it. That means anyone with a Steem(it) account. Furthermore any upvotes on plagiarized work takes away rewards from legitimate posters because Steem only has a limited amount of rewards it can give. Therefore it's important to out plagiarism and do what's possible to remove rewards going to plagiarized works.
With not much support for initiatives like SteamCleaners, it's hard to incentivize fighting of plagiarism and other abuse on Steemit. I hope readers will understand that there are consequences for giving Steemit rewards to abusers, and be willing to do something about it.
@steemcleaners' most recent post addresses plagiarism on Steemit with a guide, please give it a read: @steemcleaners - Plagiarism Guide
I spend more time on Steem, Steemit.chat and Steemit than my own stake accounts for, often looking into issues like this. If you believe I'm spending my time wisely I would appreciate your witness approval vote. If you'd like to know more about what that means, see my guide here: A Full Steemit User's Guide to Steem Witnesses. Thank you.
Thanks for investigating and writing this up.. knew such things would happen, and at this state, plenty of resources are required to keep an eye out on dishonesty. Definitely something worth thinking about - how do we systematically do this, while keeping posts relatively easy to produce without the hassle of covering all angles? If his posts are fairly without good payouts, this probably would have been overlooked. So I guess when more payout = more DD required (duh).
And how do we conveniently keep track of the truth on accounts. What is universally recognized, and what is not? Will the rep system be effective in indicating dishonesty?
What I think Steemit needs to look into is a karmic vouching/referral system for new accounts. If I vouch for someone, a new account can be registered using my uniquely created ref code, just for one new account.
By vouching quality accounts, one also needs to tend to the lawn by performing checks once in a while to rectify situations, if any. The karmic system is network based. If there's a bad actor in my network, I will be affected in some way, weighted by my rep and such. But of course, I'm only talking about this with my limited experience and understanding of Arcade City's karmic (karma) system. What about those without personal connections? And what are the incentives for vouching when there's a heavy disadvantage for doing so, given the fallibility of human nature that may not stand the test of time? Obviously there are better ways to do this. Worth exploring though.
This is a good idea. It will also help people spread the word that they are on steemit.
The problem arises when someone starts vouching for money, which often happens. "Vouches for sale" etc. So the concept is right, the execution would have to involve vouchers being reviewed and their vouch ability removed if it is found to be abused.
Something has to be done thats for sure. Not just about new accounts being created but also about accounts that already have a reputation and SP but are proven dishonrable.
For example right now, even though he has been caught and proven a liar and deceptive, his rep is still higher than me and he has transferred more Steem$ to BC than me. Despite the fact that I run an organization with multiple web site, feeding 40,000+ free meals a year and operating under world class sustainability standards.
With freedom comes great responsibility. We must be responsible for upholding the standards that are important to us.
I'm kinda divided about this case. I'll try not to criminalise others, but the advantage was taken.. and he was finally proven wrong in his initial claims, and did not buckle when prodded earlier by @pfunk and the others.. Don't really know what to think of this, other than rep points taking a significant hit, at least.. hmm, need to read more about this.
I really like that idea. I work with a system like that and whomever I bring on board I am responsible for.
That site is very specifically invite only, here where it is not... it is still an option. There's talk of an internal platform verification being worked on (I am not 100% on details). I am positive that I also heard it won't be mandatory. So whats wrong with offering a third option... a karmic invite you can grant, but it ties your account in very real ways to theirs? I love it
What site is that?
Oh it's iptorrent lol. So not mine or under my control and is invite only, but my account ultimately is held accountable for an account I invite that breaks the rules
Hang that bitch, I mean ....ugh plagiarism is not cool!
Too true, I really want to highlight this. I really hope that more people will get on board to support the initiative in the future, or we're going to have lots of problems when the userbase expands more.
I have been hesitant about supporting a group like this as I really am not sure about the goal/direction of the initiative.
Using a recent post as a reference, Identity & Content Verification Guide. In there it starts to approach the idea that identity verification is not always appropriate to ask for, and how it should be handled.
I would say for weeks leading up this post the group has fueled the cries for identity verification, Unverified Identity being commonly listed in the weekly reports. In a recent post (Identity & Content Verification Guide) it starts to talk about how it will be using it's reputation and power to flag comments they feel ask for this in a manner not appropriate. Isn't this change a direct result of a member, or at least an affiliate, doggedly pursuing identity verification of someone not wanting revealed?
In the original post from steemcleaners it is said members can remain secret. How are these "secret" members held accountable for their decisions and day to day interactions on the platform? I ran into one member several weeks ago, I assume they are a member as they are apparently active in the abuse channel, and the statement "less you do damage to your own rep" was leveled at me. However it was meant to be said, it could be received as a veiled threat because they were questioned.
I have seen lots of rewards being issues to various platform users from the wallet of @steemcleaners, but no notes as to what they are being rewarded for. I am not in any way crying foul, but I do like the idea of accountability for the funds when asking for support through funding.
Again, I am not opposed to a group that handles these concerns, but I would really like to see something different than the current model for me to support it.
Thanks for the thoughts @clevecross, let me see if I can address some of your concerns.
For reference, combating fraud and plagiarism has been happening for many months, from users doing it out of goodwill and honest intentions, and no rewards. These users also received flags on their own content often, from retaliation. In addtion, them spending their time and voting power of fighting this abuse is an opportunity cost compared to trying to earn a reward on a rewards-based platform.
These posts are actually in response to non members whom have gotten far too carried away with hunting for verification. @steemcleaners has always followed the practices we preach in that post, however other steemians were unaware of our rules for verification-asking. So the post was meant to clarify our asks for verification, in the hopes that these non-members will understand better.
The members are held accountable by a group based reputation and the incentive for rewards. If any one member abuses the steemcleaners account, they abuse the whole group (and forfeit rewards), which will cause support for the group to dissipate (e.g. no more funding from @smooth or @nextgencrypto). So far, we have had absolutely no internal issues - as all our members have been fighting abuse long before being rewarded for it, we have maintained unit cohesion.
There are many non-members active in the SA-C channel, an unfortunately that includes trolls due to the nature of a public channel. I can tell you that none of our members would say that. Unfortunately due to the trolling issues, we have required our private members only channel.
I understand the concern over reward distribution, however I would encourage you to contact one of our financial supporters ( @smooth can probably help with this) if you would like to audit the payout structure. However, if you would like to audit the work associated with the payout, every single action the @steemcleaners account takes is logged and these logs are publicly released on the account. I encourage you to look through all the posts in our logs, and if you see behaviour you do not agree with, you can message me directly in steemit.chat and I will make sure action is taken.
I hope this addresses some of your concerns, and if you do have feedback for how we can better structure the group you're welcome to chat with me in steemit.chat. We're still a new initiative, and growth and change is bound to occur, we just need to make sure it's always in a positive direction.
Thank you @anyx. This actually answers a lot of questions of my own too. I am grateful for what steemcleaners do and applaud everybody working for the initiative. I have however had my own concerns. They are not so great that I would say "I don't support" steemcleaners, but they are just concerns I think with time will become a problem as the platform expands.
I have seen this for myself where users see the abuse channel as something to join and make themselves useful, and then wind up making big mistakes with their take on policing. I have seen some posts about how to address things like plagiarism, sort of like having "policing etiquette" and this is helpful, but it's not a long term solution. I almost feel like there needs to be a sort-of training period for people entering into this activity. I see that currently anybody who reports plagiarism can get payed by steemcleaners and that is a good thing. But are there not rules against users speaking on behalf of steemcleaners unless they have been officially affiliated (by going through a training period or just learning from those more experienced)?
Just my thoughts on an issue I imagine could get a lot worse if it isn't prepared for. Policing is necessary, but we need to be careful of people getting carried away with policing and causing people to feel unwelcome...
Thanks @beanz, talking to @clevercross and reading this has made me realize that we need to be more clear with the fact that "if it's not from the @steemcleaners account, its not from steemcleaners". We don't have "affiliates".
I think we need to make a post about it to clarify some of this stuff.
I apologize for my above "concerns". My understanding of the group was flawed and after speaking to anyx in a chat, I was informed that they are unfounded and based on false assumptions
No need to apologize! I am very glad we talked, and it has made me realize that we need to be more clear that steemitabuse-classic is not a part of steemcleaners, and that we need to perhaps better inform the public of what we do. As I mentioned just now to beanz, I think we'll make a post about it.
I'm flagging this. Not because I support plagiarism. Nor do I have anything against @pfunk reporting on it (in fact I support him finding it and reporting it). However, I think it is unnecessary and harmful for this to be the second ranked and rewarded post on the entire site. I would not flag it if doing so sent it negative or if it were already a modestly-rewarded post in an obscure "meta" section on site-specific issues.
This is not even a summary or status report about rampant plagiarism (which I don't think exists). It is a post about one particular incident out of thousands of users and posts most of whom behave in a reasonable and responsible manner (non-plagiarizing). It was handled by flagging the user, who has even admitted his mistakes and apologized, and ongoing reasonable platform-wide efforts to discourage and limit the effects of plagiarism exist and I support them. So I see this is largely sensationalism and blowing the issue way out of proportion in a manner that is misleading about the current status of the issue.
I am disappointed by this. As you know I dealt with another dishonest plagiarist last weekend, and this second incident in the same week was enough to put me over the edge into drawing attention to the issue. I had a few objectives with this post, and you can see that reflected above as it's written.
Objective 1: Make the issue of plagiarism more known, make it more clear that it's not acceptable here, and make the case that it's defrauding us, the stakeholders in Steem.
2: Shine light on a part-time plagiarist who has managed to get to a high enough profile and reputation that it comes as a big surprise to some people. See the other comments here for examples. I did what I could to not sensationalize it. I actually don't see what you see as sensational. I edited in @jpiper20's response in individual cases where appropriate, and made sure to mention that everything about him wasn't false. I think I was fair.
3: Ask for more community support for fighting back against this kind abuse. Maybe most large stakeholders are completely pessimistic about being able to fight it. I'm not. It's impossible to prevent every bit of fraud but it's very possible to reduce it, even to a minimum. As the platform grows, the amount of people looking for abuse will need to grow with it.
Furthermore the liquid rewards from this post are to be shared with the three people who put their own time into uncovering and looking into this issue. I acknowledge you personally contribute quite a lot to SteemCleaners and I appreciate that on behalf of them. But the people who look into these things are under-rewarded for doing hard work trying to keep Steemit a valuable platform (and thus Steem a valuable network) by addressing stuff like this.
And finally if your issue was with this being on the trending list, voting on it has only put it on the list for longer.
There is a longer term view here. When (some) people vote up these sorts of posts they are betting on curation rewards, which are greatly reduced by subsequent downvotes. My hope is that future posts on these sorts of operational matters can get more modest voting, and not at the extreme upper end of the range. Yes, I like the idea of people being rewarded for write-ups about their work contributing to the well-being of the platform, but in moderation.
I don't see any evidence that the problem isn't sufficiently known nor that the problem is either generally out of control or becoming worse, as I mentioned in my first comment. If that is the claim being made that motivates giving it a lot of attention, then it should be supported by broader statistical data, not one report about one particular incident/individual.
Based on some dismissive reactions from people with large and small stakes to the notion of plagiarism and other abuse bringing the value of their own stake down, it's important to remind anyone reading this of the nature of the Steem network: all accounts are stakeholders. Dishonestly earning posting rewards is fraud against everyone here.
I think your concern about curation rewards is nonsense.
I may have been unclear. I have no concern about the curation rewards themselves. I do want to encourage professional (profit-oriented) voters to consider more carefully in the future what they push to the extreme upper end of reward distribution. Whether that will be successful or not, I can't say for sure, but that won't prevent me from trying.
I still don't see how curation or curation rewards has much to do with anything. Aside from some of the accounts that automatically vote for my posts, I don't think people were voting on this post in the interest of gaining curation rewards.
Maybe abuse reports shouldn't get funded and have a category just for these type of posts? Forgive me if I am being redundant, the comments thread is huge. I am also new to Steemit, for now I only down vote on obvious trolling using ad hominem attacks.
I disagree on the negative effects. From my perspective, it shows the ecosystem is self-policing. I didn't get the sense that there was rampant plagiarism going unchecked in this post.
If there isn't rampant plagiarism (and I agree on that), then this isn't noteworthy, it is just one incident being blown out of proportion. Other sites delete/police abusive posts, but you don't see reports featured on the front page about the fact that some abusive content was removed, you just don't see the abusive content at all. (There might be a mod log or other obscure location that provides transparency for those who seek it out.) We should operate on the same principle.
Thanks for posting this. This is a very important matter especially now in the building of the foundation for the future of this community.
I hope this standard is enforced and that people see that it is, so as to discourage it happening to begin with.
Though, deceptive selfish people probably don't check out other peoples posts to much...All the more reason to have people looking out for this stuff to call it out and stop the criminal theft ASAP.
As long as people are looking out for it and investigation is done the truth will be revealed and accountability can be enforced by the community.
There needs to be a way to actually lower someones reputation by enough down votes so that they don't just loose the value of a recent post but loose the reputation that they got from being false and deceptive.
For example right now he had some posts flagged but is reputation is still at 67 which is supposedly quite relatively speaking "high/reputable"
In fact this and MANY OTHER plagiarizers or false accounts have earned more $ and have MUCH higher rep than someone like me who is running an organization feeding 40,000 free meals a year and operating at the lowest carbon footprint of any organization I am aware of.
Even still after being caught hi rep is still higher...
I appreciate your hard work @pfunk it's one of the reasons why you got my witness vote a week or two ago.
One of the things that I plan to implement for my own blog is running all my content through copyscape, especially any researched articles. I think it's vitally important for the community to trust the platform and its members. I started today with including my copyscape banner. It might be something the community can be encouraged to do.
I appreciate it. Does running through copyscape mean that they store it in case anyone tries to copy it? Or is it to verify that you haven't zonked out and copied an entire sentence?
Hi @pfunk - it's more like a scanning tool. Here is a link to their FAQ page. http://www.copyscape.com/faqs.php
I personally use the premium service for scanning my own material or researching an article that I believe is plagiarized. It does not differentiate between which is original or copied, or whether there are proper citations to the copy. For the individual, it's a great tool to protect one's own material. They also have a copyscape sentry tool, which will scan the entire web weekly or daily for duplicate copies of your material, which could be costly.
I would personally love it if Steemit was able to implement something like an opt-in (for a small fee) where everyone could enter their text and scan it on site before hitting the post button. Perhaps with an automatic banner that states it is plagiarism free or a Trusted contributor.
This is disappointing! But I find his apology sincere, and hope he becomes an example for the community.
Me too.
Yes, so do I. It's refreshing when someone changes their ways for the better. It was very big of him to be public and admit his mistake.
Rewards from this post will go straight to @steemcleaners?
Liquid rewards will be split evenly between me and three other people who looked into the matter and participated in finding their plagiarism.
Thanks for the work you are doing. Transparency and investigation. It is important that where the code fails the community together makes it clear we do not accept behavior like this. I just gave you my two accounts vote as a witness. Keep up the good work, this is what type of witness activity I can definitely get behind.
Thank you, I really appreciate that.
Did you pass the plagiarism data to the real author, so that he may chose whether or not claim his rightful share for the benefit this guy got with his work?
(we know that google Inc. is VERY helpful in that situation, and given that the youtube channel exists...)
Honestly, I like this as an option better than I like flagging. I mean.... wouldn't it bring the original creator over when they start to see what some of their material made for someone else?
I've been amazed and saddened by the amount and forms of plagiarism I've seen on steemit, even cooking recipes. One tell seems to be when someone starts out by informing readers of the dramatic amount of time they've invested into the post, that always raises my radar.
That is true. People who write original content don't list how long they spent on it... for the most part.
well said @pfunk i saw his " apology " post to the community and was pretty staggered to see it so strongly upvoted. Good for him again I guess. I think that is also a little misdirected to vote up this bad behaviour for want of a better word, but its also a good sign on the forgiving nature of this good community. But i could not find myself wanting to vote that up, as indeed theft is a terrible crime here and should be seen as such, so not rewarded surely !! Its the building block principle of this blockchain i hope and what indeed gives this community it true authentic value.
Man, this is so disappointing. Thanks for bringing this to light.
The monkey illustration is mine. If you watch the tutorial it is a how to and I followed the instructions and drew the entire thing from scratch. The paintings are not mine and I admit I was wrong to post they were. I did paint the dog in the original post and was influenced by the paintings. I wanted to share them because I was so drawn to the style and I was very wrong to not source where they came from. I am very sorry and disappointed in myself to have led others on. I will never post others work again without sourcing it.
Thank you for commenting and being honest.
I will gladly send back any earnings from the posts of need be. I honestly thought nothing of it at the time. I didn't even know if steemit was a legit thing at the time. I was just posting like everyone else.. Tons and tons of people posted others things and got credited.
Will you contact Steven Schuman with an apology and offer him the money earned from posts with his art in whatever form he accepts? Inviting him here would be cool too.
Yes I will. I will apologize for the wrong I have done.
This is a step in the right direction. I'm glad you've manned up and decided to attempt to save face. Honestly I'm rooting for you and I hope you go on to shed this bad scenerio and go on to make good content.
You are talented man. Please don't cut yourself short taking the easy way.
I edited in a comment on this comment in the post. My comment is:
I think that's fair to claim that you drew the space chimp, but it is essentially a copy of the original. Mentioning that would have made it not plagiarism.
Good catch. I'm disappointed that someone who creates art himself would be actively plagiarising other people's work. It's disgusting.
Yes~
It is disgusting and I hope this standard is enforced and that people see that it is so to discourage it happening to begin with.
Though deceptive selfish people probably don't check out other peoples posts to much...All the more reason to have people looking out for this stuff to call it out and stop the criminal theft ASAP.
I didn't realize the irony until you just said it. Wow.
Let me ask you something. Do you think the 4 posts a day limit/rule in a way encourages this?
The thought in my head is that hitting 4 quality posts a day would probably be quite hard for an individual. With Curation and how it works... it is also advantageous to find authors that post regularly and with a good quality to vote on.
I have seen authors come back from small breaks to find the train of votes take awhile to come back, if at all. So this 4 post a day limit almost becomes a kind of quota, which if not met can affect your future earnings and as a result.... kinda inspires this.
I don't have proof or statistics, just a little observational analysis, curious on your thoughts and if decreasing that soft limit would change it at all.
The 4 posts per day is not a hard limit, nor a quota. It just means that more than 4 posts within a 24 hour period will be penalized in potential rewards. I don't believe it encourages plagiarism. It probably does the opposite, hampering people from posting 100 things a day they copied from somewhere.
@smooth, @garethnelsonuk, and I had a discussion on steemit.chat just yesterday about the 4/day scheme limiting Steem's scope to Steemit as we know it today. It's a discussion better left for another place though.
Very true... I remember a similar discussion in posts about wether it should be removed entirely as it had the effect of limiting how people can and will use steemit. Just brain working things through :)
Thanks for the answer (and reminder of what I already knew lol)
I saw it mentioned on Steemit.chat the other day that edits to a post count as new posts, so you could easily use up your four post a day limit by excessive editing. Anyone know if this is true?
I have freelance writing clients and gigs that pay me regularly, so I can't devote the time to make four Steemit posts a day. I usually post once every two to three days, and make it a quality one. But, I'm a stickler for accuracy, and will read over something several times before and after I publish it here. If I catch a typo or an awkwardly worded sentence after I publish it, I edit it. I need to know if my edits are counting as new posts.
It's not true. Edits do count to your post count which you can see on your personal account blog page in the header, but editing any top-level post won't count as a new one.
I heard the same thing. Maybe it's something that's been fixed. I would like to know, everyone should know that clearly.
Otherwise it actually helped me be less meticulous about editing on my more neurotic days.
See my reply.
I make four posts a day, usually, 2 are art or photography, one SteemIt topic and One on something else. I have more time available than the average person.
I am not taking offense at your comment, just saying that it can be done.
Oh it can for sure, and I am glad your not offended. It was a thought was all, and a thought for and about the average user..... META-HUMANS HAVE NO PLACE ON STEEMIT.... so... take that.
lol - It's all good. Nothing wrong with exploring ideas.
I am sorry to everyone. Please take the time to read my apology. https://steemit.com/life/@jpiper20/an-apology-for-the-plagerizing-i-have-done
Never understood they someone thinks in this day and age that they can get away with claiming someone else's work as their own. We have too many tools available to find out the truth with a few keystrokes!
Jerome "Smiley" Johnson
Actions speak a lot louder than words. Especially words spoken when backed into a corner. I would like to see jpiper20 getting in contact with Steven Schuman and giving him whatever was earned through the plagiarized posts.
Very good investigative work @pfunk, you have my upvote. A true credit to the community.
Yes I'd like to see a followup after getting in touch with Mr. Schuman. Thank you, it wasn't just me. I will be sharing this post's liquid rewards with three other people who helped in looking into this person's posts.
@pfunk, you're awesome.
Excellent work and a good wakeup call to all who are considering deception.
The only problem we have, is those who consider deception often will not read or research in advance. They just deceive first and then get their hand caught in the cookie jar. :(
What I think benefits the most here, is if the community itself becomes more observant for catching people in the cookie jar, and slapping those cookies from them. Sorry, I couldn't resist the visual.
I like the visual.
Good input.
Exactly!
Me to in, B1 weapons
Such potential pissed away in hopes of easy money.. :/
Thanks for the heads up mate, muted the account now..
Surprising, one thing is wrong and sin for not knowing my way I figment of my ignorance and another to know your actions are wrong, that shame, really a lot of pain for these people cause me. His post is xcelente my congratulations
Thanks for the information!
Hi @pfunk...you get my vote, both for the article and for the early heads up you gave me on one of my earlier posts (Collective nouns) ... {smile}
Good work @pfunk!
Great investigative work there, bravo @pfunk, big props yo.
(Image Source)
I did not make this meme it came from 4chan. Just fyi. Not trying to get flagged for plagiarism on a blog about plagiarism, lulz. Peace.
Happy 2months of Plagiarism @jpiper20. @pfunk how about his post with earnings ? i suggest to ban his IP addres for creating account.
Thanks! Cool article.
@alex2016
Fantastic post. My first reaction is this almost sounds like cryptorespect, the new term I was trying to create.
But it's not. Plagiarism like this, really at its base, has nothing to do with crypto. It's just virtual theft, and often from small authors and artists who can least afford it.
This is something we need to remind people of periodically as new users show up. Thanks for doing it @pfunk
Man, I go away for three bloody days and everything just goes straight to hell! This one was a real shocker, but you've been dealing with it in a really admirable way @pfunk. Keep up the good work man, you're one of the ones keeping this platform amazing.
I appreciate that @dexter-k. I'll say the initial deception got to me and I did something hasty (adding his father's account to cheetah, what looked like an alt at the time until I read some of its content after), but as I wrote this post and looked at more of @jpiper20's posts I cooled down to present more of the facts, including that he doesn't go and plagiarize everything.
Yeah I saw that, I'm glad that it is someone like you handling this and being very mature about it. You're doin a great job man :)
Please feel free to read my apology to Steven. https://steemit.com/life/@jpiper20/i-reached-out-to-steven-schuman-for-plagiarizing-his-artwork-please-just-read-no-upvotes
Hi @pfunk, I stopped back to let you know that this post was one of my favourite reads today and was included in my Steemit Ramble. You can read my comments on it here.
Just something for everyone to read and think about, taken from Steem's White Papers.
Enough people in the community think differently. And the people that care to fight plagiarism and other abuse are the crabs. We use our stake and time to reduce it. Like Dan said, going to extreme measures isn't a solution. This isn't going to extreme measures whatsoever, it's community curation.
As the white paper states it:
Indeed, but if no one did nothing about it, the platform would drown in scammers, spammers and plagiarizers cashing out like mad ultimately devaluing the platform providing no incentive for anyone to invest but instead to come and join the copy-paste money making circlejerk that would't last long, the aim here is to provide balance in the system, without an incentive that hard work pays out, no one would work and everyone would copy-paste. The aim is to keep the "battle" going on all times, as long as there are good guys fighting the battle the system will remain healthy and well balanced.
I agree with you. The key phrase from the white paper (quoted above) is:
That is exactly what these community efforts to identify and discourage abuse are doing.
On point.
Maybe it is time to run ALL images posted on steemit through reverse image search before they are allowed to be posted? I've had lots of creative works "borrowed" from me over the years and it is patently not cool!
#420 baby! whooo!
Seriously, in terms of Art, I think it's okay if someone created the image from scratch, even though it was inspired by so-n-so. However, the artist sould at least show props to their inspirers.
If I painted the Mona Lisa, from scratch. Total knock off of Michelangelo work, I can, by right, sell the painting for whatever amount I choose. If someone love the image, it doesn't matter where it came from. The original artist will have a difficult time to contest anything in court because, although the work is strikingly similar, the work that was put behind it was done by someone else.
The fuzzy part about this whole issue, is claiming of ownership. Sure, I can say that I painted the Mona Lisa, but if I said I came up with it, would make people think I was insane. Why? Popularity, of course! It's a sad reality, because if so-n-so took the monkey image from a youtube tutorial, (which youtubers should read the terms and conditions carefully btw) and someone did an exact monkey image only altering it a little, we'll that is really difficult to gage who did what when. On the other side of the coin, what if the person that posted the tutorial, took the idea from the Monkey in the Galaxy image and made a vid about it. How would one know who did what when? If someone could prove that they had their image licensed first, is usually the winner. :(
Let's we make a better STEEM, a clean STEEM. Love steemit, love you all.
I disagree with this statement. Most published content on the Internet ends up getting missed or ignored. If someone reposts material from years ago that is still valid and is theirs, it is a good thing to have it on the blockchain instead of having it get passed by or removed.
You don't seem to be talking about plagiarism. That's what I'm talking about. If you go somewhere else, say "I made this" and then post someone else's art for instance, it's plagiarism. But it's not considered as big of a deal, because the stakes are low. Steemit is different.
This post has been linked to from another place on Steem.
Advanced Steem Metrics Report for 28th September 2016 by @ontofractal
Sept 28 - Steemit Ramble - Notes on My Favourite Reads by @shadowspub
STEEMIT ME VUELA NUEVAMENTE LA CABEZA! Plagio, Arrepentimiento y Perdón by @traducciones
Thoughts on @jpiper20’s Plagiarism: Forgiveness Restores Relationship But Only Trust Can Restore Reputation by @jasonstaggers
Steemit Club 500 - 27 September 2016 by @topten
STEEMIT BLOWS MY MIND AGAIN! - Plagiarism, Repentance, and Forgiveness by @papa-pepper
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Ban for this!