News Flash: Free Articulator Catches Intellectual Property Thief Stealing NDK Article and publishing it on MySpace
September 21, 2007
It’s not hard to reprint intellectual property licensed under a Creative Commons License. As we declare in the footer of every page of the Free Articulator, the content published on this site is Creative Commons licensed. We encourage other publishers around the internet to reprint our content, enhancing the value of their site and bringing publicity to our contributors. But we do have a few conditions, as stipulated by the Creative Commons license:
The content must be attributed and link back to the Free Articulator - a standard practice in any field.
The content must not be a derivative of the original, but an accurate and unchanged copy.
The content must not be used for commercial purposes.
Today we discovered plagiarism and intellectual property theft of our content by a fellow named Colin Preston on his MySpace blog. The article that was ripped off was NDK Creative Artist’s “Traditional Model Music Industry Shows Increasing Signs of Collapse”, and the plagiarized version can be found here, until MySpace takes action as requested. Screenshot here.
Mr Preston failed to attribute NDK Creative Artist and link back to the Free Articulator, he made a derivative by modifying the content, and it is arguably a commercial use of the content as his MySpace profile is clearly a promotional tool for his services as a musician and producer.
“I’d be flattered and grateful if he had just done the right thing,” said NDK Creative Artist, who wrote the lyrics for the tuneback “Creative Commons for the Common Man“.
The article in question is, in part, an anti-piracy piece, and Mr Preston has pirated NDK’s work in order to make himself look reputable and anti-piracy. The gall, hypocrisy and lack of integrity of some artists is undesirable.
The Free Articulator has notified MySpace and Allforart, the Free Articulator, NDK Enterprises Limited and NDK Creative Artist will take further action as necessary.
We offer our content to the world with only a few stipulations; it’s not that hard to reprint Creative Commons material. Do the right thing.
If you would like to learn how to protect yourself in similar situations, click here to subscribe to the Free Articulator now - we’ll be publishing a series on intellectual property for artists soon.
Email this article to a friend - or a nemesis, it doesn't bother us.
Subscribe now to receive notification of new Free Articulator articles like this one.
Holy heck, what a cheek. I can’t believe the audacity of some people. He’s written an ant-piracy piece yet pirated your work? That would funny if it weren’t so serious. I hope he’s held accountable for his actions in some way.
Despite the dark ironic humor, no, he didn’t “write an anti-piracy piece;” he pretended to by claiming it as his own. In reality he misappropriated a piece that touches on anti-piracy, which yes, could be construed as audacious if it weren’t ludicrous. Why steal something published under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share License? It doesn’t make sense. In a way it is flattering as it certainly shows that the work is valuable enough to steal.
Communications have been sent to MySpace, who promised an acknowledgment to my email box, that has not yet been forthcoming. A time limit is imposed for action, and the action requested is not unreasonable. There is no need to be punitive if the appropriate actions, as requested, are taken.
aw, how cute. He even kept the bolded words and all. >:(
Yes, and he added and deleted a few things thus making a derivative and all without permission. But no, not cute.
[...] always, the Free Articulator did its job and exposed the situation. People like this who pretend to be artists are a despicable stain on humanity. The bottom line is [...]
Pfft. Some people are just plain dumb. It would appear that this item is still live on myspace, as far as I can tell.
It has now been removed today. But yes, it was very foolish to take a Creative Commons ShareAlike Non-Commercially licensed work. There were better ways to do this that would not have cost us time, money, stress and effort.
More so, to steal a piece that was about piracy while pretending to be anti-piracy is the height of unconscionable and unscrupulous stupidity.
Did he steal it directly from this site or has the article been published elsewhere?
Hi Cabe. It was only published here and not elsewhere. I wrote the work. He stole it the day after it was published, and we found it that very day. Why do you ask?
Hi NDK, thanks for posting. It’s a well written article. I thought it might have been well known, and thus, he had found it in another publication. If he found it straight away, it would seem that the Free Articulator already has quite a presence on the Net. Well Done to all involved in creating it.
Thanks for the compliment on the article, Cabe. While we’re doing okay, we’ve got a long way to go, and a few things to get sorted out in the next development of the Free Articulator, which Joel is working out with Allforart. Once that and a couple of other things are done, we’ll be in a position to articulate a lot more.
We’ve got some great Features coming up and I’m personally in the throes of putting together one of the first Free Articulator Features with a talented visual artist. Very interesting interview. This and other features will expand the Free Articulator’s visual and aesthetic capacity to introduce some very fine visual artists, and others in different creative disciplines, also.
And we’ve got some new contributors coming on soon too.