Comments on: Plagiarism or coincidence? You decide

By: Julie J

Julie J — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:04:17 +0000

Hey, Ben — thought you’d enjoy some antics about a REAL plagiarist, David Richards. I’ll admit that we did steal a movie-poster graphic to create his own “CopyCat” movie poster. I’m sure he’s borrowed a few good nuggets from you … http://juliejacobson.blogspot.com/search/label/David%20Richards

By: ian

ian — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:59:02 +0000

the post was not my me, its the HackMC guy and I pulled the post after chatting with Ben. Not sure why its back up

By: Clifton Griffin

Clifton Griffin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:41:45 +0000

I was assuming he hadn’t read your guide. My apologies.

My American sensibilities make it difficult for me to see that correction as anything but sarcastic, but I am by no means the final authority.

I noticed that Hack7MC also updated their post on this…not sure if it is the same post or not (I didn’t compare them). I think his statement of credit was worded more kindly though.

By: BobsledOhio

BobsledOhio — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:05:20 +0000

He is british. This is a compliment and not a backhanded one.

By: Ben Drawbaugh

Ben Drawbaugh — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:38:24 +0000

Yes he updated his post, and added a half hearted apology saying “apparently this god amongh men warrants extra credit.” So in other words, I don’t deserve credit but I got it because I work for Engadget. Which is totally not even the point.

By: digital_archivist

digital_archivist — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:35:29 +0000

Has he since updated his post to reflect your contribution?

The profile for DVRMSToolbox was developed by Ben of Engadget HD with help from Warren Wiltshire of Seagull Consulting for use in this guide. Be sure to head over there and check out Engadget HD as they have lots of great home theater related articles each day.

By: Davis Freeberg

Davis Freeberg — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:20:38 +0000

It is rude, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it plagiarism. It seems like it was written in his own voice even if he used Engadget as a resource. If you want to talk plagiarism, you should take a look at SmartHouse first. They get linked to by Engadget all the time even though they’ve been outed numerous times as hacks.

http://www.jasonunger.com/2007/12/19/david-richards-technology-journalisms-biggest-plagiarist/

One of the Aussie News programs also did a piece on SmartHouse and in it they claimed that over a six month period hackers had somehow posted plagiarized articles to his site. If you take a look at some of the articles in their archive you can see that they are still plagiarizing today.

http://gottaget1.blogspot.com/2007/08/mitsubishi-shows-3-d-hi-def-tv.html

http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Home_Cinema/Projectors_And_Screens/M4U3E3L9

http://www.crn.com/digital-home/189500215

http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Home_Cinema/Set_Top_Boxes/G9A8G6T2

By: Ben Drawbaugh

Ben Drawbaugh — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:08:27 +0000

Clifton,
Whether or not I wrote the original profile is immaterial in regards to the accusation of plagiarism. The question is did the author see my original post before he wrote his or not?

If he saw my post and didn’t reference it, then it is plagiarism, no matter who wrote the original profiles. An author is supposed to site their own sources, and not required to source every author who ever thought about the idea in the history of the world.

By: Clifton Griffin

Clifton Griffin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:23:56 +0000

Hmm, I just read something that suggested that you wrote the Convert to DVR-MS profile. I didn’t realize that when I wrote the above.

By: Clifton Griffin

Clifton Griffin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:51:14 +0000

I highly doubt this was intentional. They wrote this to address a fundamentally different problem.

The convert to dvr-ms profile existed before your guide…it isn’t unthinkable that two people would come up with ways to make it useful and write illustrated guides.