MoHPC Plagiarism?
#1

Paying one of my occasional visit to the UK eBay site I was interested to see that there is an HP15C for sale at the moment.

As I read through the listing I started to get a sense of deja vu (again) and compared the listing against the entry for the HP 15C at this site. They match word-for-word including the links within the article, the use of the American ‘math’ rather than the ‘maths’ that one would normally se in Nantwich and the MoHPC watermark on the photos. After all that I was hugely amused to see the seller assert his copyright at the end of the listing.

When I’ve sold stuff on eBay in the past I’ve looked around the Internet for reference material to use in creating the listing but I have always felt that you should try to create that information to create your own listing. Would I be correct in thinking that this problem is pretty common with eBay sellers? If so this seems like a pretty egregious example.

--
Cheers,

Steve

#2

Hello!

Quote:
Would I be correct in thinking that this problem is pretty common with eBay sellers?

Yes, you would be... Just read the text in the yellow box at the bottom of the front page of Joerg Woerner's Datamath-Website: http://www.datamath.org/ It has been there for quite some time!

One problem is that eBay does not allow external links in the article description any more (for whatever reason?). So instead of just placing a link to a site with more information, people are forced to either write their own text, or copy-paste whatever they can find. And according to the laws of physics, the path that offers the least resistance or effort ist the preferred one...

Greetings, Max

Edited: 26 Sept 2007, 3:27 a.m.

#3

Quote:
the use of the American ‘math’ rather than the ‘maths’ that one would normally se in Nantwich

[sarcasm]

I'm the token American in a large research group peopled mostly by elements of the Australian mafia. Despite their logical arguments on why that extra `s' is there in "maths" -- well, I'll just never get it into my head that this sounds right.

I don't think I'll ever start saying "ground floor" either.

Another stupid American,
Mark

[/sarcasm]

#4

The auction in question does have a link to the HP museum. So it looks like eBay does allow at least some external links.

Namir

#5

Hello!

Quote:
The auction in question does have a link to the HP museum. So it looks like eBay does allow at least some external links.

This seems to be one of the subtle national differences of eBay. On german eBay, some automatic mechanism removes every auction that contains external links within a couple of hours! I thought this was the same everywhere. And in this case, I really cant't understand why the seller should copy-paste the contents of the site he links to into his item description?

Greetings, Max

Edited: 26 Sept 2007, 10:55 a.m.

#6

Quote:
On german eBay, some automatic mechanism removes every auction that contains external links within a couple of hours! I thought this was the same everywhere.

I thought the different national eBay sites (ebay.de, ebay.nl, etc.) were just language-specific front-ends to the same global eBay system. I guess there is more eBay weirdness than is dreamt of in my philosophy. ;-)

I also find it odd that an automatic system would remove auctions with external links after a couple of hours... Why use a cron job for that kind of cleanup when it would be so much easier and more efficient to filter such content the instant the user tries to submit it...?

- Thomas

#7

Quote:
I guess there is more eBay weirdness than is dreamt of in my philosophy.

= quoted from (without naming) J.W.v.Goethe, Faust (without TAS, of course).

Copy & paste (= quoting without naming a source) is very common on TAS and in the internet in general. More educated people mention the source at least. Even pictures are taken, erasing the watermark. This is in no way correct, but such is life. If everything would be deleted which is incorrect or unfair or irrational (besides numbers ;), the world would be a lot easier, but it is not.

#8

Quote:
Quote:
I guess there is more eBay weirdness than is dreamt of in my philosophy.

= quoted from (without naming) J.W.v.Goethe, Faust (without TAS, of course).


Actually, Shakespeare, "Hamlet".


Edited: 26 Sept 2007, 11:45 a.m.

#9

I'd rather think there are hordes of students checking every auction for any possible break of rules. I have had auctions being pulled due to putting my ebay name as a copyright protection into my pictures. No links at all. It's against their rules though, since my ebay name is one of my websites URLs - with no content however. They obviously didn't care to check, nor did they care about me being a member for more than 10 years now :/

#10

Ceertainly any copying should at least identify the source. Once such identification is in place there is another way of looking at all of this. In the early 1800's Charles Caleb Colton wrote "Imitation is the sincerest of flattery."

#11

Quote:
Would I be correct in thinking that this problem is pretty common with eBay sellers?

Unfortunately, yes. I have seen many sellers (sometimes experienced sellers) use material from the Museum website. Most of the time I send a short request like:

Greetings, Do you have a picture of the actual calculator 
instead of the photo you stole from the Museum of HP website?"

I then attach a link to the IMAGE AND PICTURE THEFT Policy.

Just as Joerg Woerner has said in his disclaimer, many sellers respond and remove the copied material, BUT some others respond with some pretty nasty verbal abuse. Even If I can't report the copyrighted material stolen from MoHP website, I can report obscene emails.

The worst of these emails is from the TAS administrators themselves!! As frequent a victim of image/text theft, I will tell you, the department that handles this kind of abuse is full of incompetent people. Their response is a three-day process which always follows this pattern:

REP: I'm sorry we couldn't find any evidence of stolen images or text in the listing you reported.
ME: How about my name typed on the screen in the picture? And the links to my store in the auction text?
REP: (one day later) The auction text seems generic or is from the manufacturer.
ME: Google the first 20 words of [this] paragraph! There are no other paragraphs like this on the internet.
REP: (two days later) Oh, we'll take some action we can't tell you about.

This is completely obscene for a company that charges as much as they do for their services.

Unfortunately if your copyrighted material is not in another (active or still archived) listing, it is MUCH more difficult to spur the VeRO team into action. The process involves a Faxed NOCI form. NOTE: there are provisions on this form for Dave to delegate reporting authority to others if he desires.

In contrast, I recently found some of my items on craigslist, and with one short email titled NOTIFICATION OF CLAIMS OF INFRINGEMENT the stolen ad was removed within a few hours without fuss. I didn't have to write and explain what a 'link' or 'jpg' was.



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