» Alan

Plagiarism in Lanzarote

Alan — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:03:22 +0000

Seems I spend a lot of time on this topic – and I suppose the upside of it is that plagiarism is a form of flattery – but hell, it is annoying when we put so much work and time into our business and our website content.

It’s a small island – so plagiarism isn’t that hard to stumble on here…

This one completely takes the biscuit for bare faced cheek – it’s lazy, it’s unprofessional and frankly – pathetic. (I’ve twice contacted the site owner without a response…)

Text from our Gandy-Draper home page (I’m very familiar with it as I wrote it when we set up the site soon after arriving on the island):

“Our working methods and systems make it possible for us to work with clients anywhere in the world.”

“Our aim is to provide an unrivalled standard of service to our clients, going that extra mile to make the experience of working with us something special.”

Text from www.aaronsananes.com/services a ‘competitor’ (whose site has had various incarnations, this being the most recent)

“My working methods and systems make it possible for me to work with clients anywhere in the world.”

“My aim is to provide an unrivalled standard of service to all of my clients, going that extra mile to make the experience of working with us something special.”

Spot the difference…? Yep – simply the change of ‘our’ to ‘my’. (His command of grammar doesn’t run to the distinction between ‘us and ‘me’). It’s laughable really…

Since being on the island approaching three years ago here’s some other examples;

Our Canary Nightlife site has spawned a number of imitators – a minor annoyance because these sites die when whoever sets them up actually realises we have got as far as we have only through hard work (Internet novices don’t realise that running a website takes as much work as any other business)
It’s very frequent that text turns up from Canary Nightlife – click here to see how we dealt with one particular incident (if you are having such problems there are a few tips on dealing copyright infringement and an email template you can feel free to adapt to your own purposes)
A site built by one of our clients was completely copied with only minor changes – click here to see that story
Occasionally during the course of building a site, we provide some photographs for our clients provide some photography – these have then turned up in magazines and on websites. The thing about photography in particular is that the photographer – me in this case – always owns the copyright unless there is something in writing to say otherwise.
We have noticed someone employ a strap line we have used for a long time on their website “Superior web design in Lanzarote” – Google the phrase if you are interested…
We’ve had more than one of our site concepts copied and then our clients approached – either using our names in a derogatory manner, or even implying some kind of approval or connection with us…
We’ve had feedback from various clients and friends of a number of people trying to cast aspersions on us – for instance giving false information on our pricing or levels of service for their own ends, be they competitors or other business with their own agenda. One example being a person who did some work for us and blatantly lying in attempting to take some work for herself which she then promptly screwed up. Unbelievably she then phoned us for help – not knowing what she had done we actually mistakenly spent time fixing it for her – won’t fall for that one again!
Simon Harris (a Google search will soon show that this man has been accused many times of being a serial fraudster and con man) and his Lanzarote Society site appear to have deceptively tried to imply our involvement and ride our reputation – WE WOULD NEVER GET INVOLVED WITH THIS SITE OR THESE PEOPLE!
And of course there is always my old friend Cyprus Bob who had a phase of abusing us on here and my personal blog under a fake ID. We know exactly who it was…

I could go on… No doubt if you are reading this you are getting the picture…

What is it with people that they feel the need to mimic, to copy, to ride our damage our reputation – one we have worked hard to achieve. Are they really dumb enough to not realize that we will defend it!

The thing about this island is that this is what happens once people percieve you as ‘doing well’. I just wish people would actually go out and use their imagination and do something original instead – but lets face it – it’s not going to happen is it!

It’s a fact of life in Lanzarote – as everywhere else… And as times get harder – if people have this perception of us, it is probably going to happen more and more…

Plagiarism and Copyright on the Internet

Alan — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:50:41 +0000

The simplest advice of all is if you want to protect your Intellectual Property and don’t want it to be copied, stolen or abused – don’t publish it on the Internet. Be your work words, photographs, websites or anything else that can be described as creative this is the only sure way to protect yourself. However, it’s nigh on impossible these days to run any business without making a certain amount of examples and information about your business easily available. (The same can be pretty much applied to your private life too with the prevalence of Social Networking sites like Facebook!)

Now, here’s a short story for you by way of example; After a somewhat ‘entertaining’ evening I knocked together a little t-shirt design for a bit of fun on a site I use – I am not going to mention the site here, for the simple reason that despite feeling let down by them, it remains one of my favourite sites and I have no wish to get myself banned…

This t-shirt – drop your politics and personal opinions here – was a mickey take of the (in my opinion) Diana inquest fiasco. Having been subjected on a Lanzarote forum to an ongoing, and ludicrous debate, from a number of conspiracy theorists I decided to have a joke with a couple of friends.

If you’re easily offended by comments on this topic – look away now. The image appears lower down the page…

In bullet points, here is the chain of events;

The t-shirt design was uploaded to the site in question on 6th April
It received a number of positive comments from like minded individuals who took it in the vein it was intended over the next couple of days
About 6 or 7 days later, as I recall, someone sent me the address to this article from the Daily Telegraph in Australia about an Australian t-shirt company called Goat Boy who had seemingly copied the idea
Strictly speaking this is not a breach of copyright as nobody owns ‘words’ or the image of Diana, but for a company claiming to be ‘original’ it’s pretty poor form
A number of other comments arrived in the ensuing couple of days which led me to believe that other users of the site saw what this company had done as a copy, and a very nice lady in Australia approached them on my behalf to ask. They responded that they had been sitting on the design for five years? (does that really sound very likely?)
Rather perturbed that what I had done as essentially a joke was getting mass media coverage on TV and in the press, and being used for financial gain, I decided to write to both the Daily Telegraph and The Today Tonight show – no replies
To get Goat Boy to crawl out of the woodwork (they had already been given my email address and had ignored mail from me) I posted another t-shirt design on the site accusing them by name of stealing ideas, the description said that I would happily remove it if they provided the documentary proof they claimed to have
Sure enough Goat Boy did crawl out from under their stone, got that t-shirt removed – which, frankly I expected, and responded with a comment that they had this same documentary proof (calling me a ‘whinging Pom’ – really guys for someone who sells themselves as ‘original’ it´s not very imaginative is it!)
I responded telling them I would remove my original design when I’d seen that proof, by this time I’m actually getting bored of the whole thing – but I’m not really the type of person to let things drop
Of course I have not had a response
From this point the website removed my original, saying that I had breached copyright in using the image I had – which is not the case – it was taken from the public domain and manipulated before use
The website again passed my details on to Goat Boy to allow them to contact me – of course they have not.

So here it is the design on the t-shirt….

…and here is the link to the Goat Boy version that I allege was an imitation. (I’ve refrained from using a thumbnail so as not to get accused of ’stealing’ it from their website)! I wonder where they sourced their image?

I’ll leave it to our viewers to judge for themselves whether they think I’m right or not here…

Goat Boy (Peter isn’t it?) – if you are reading this my offer still stands, I am happy to remove this post when you supply me verifiable copies of the documentation you have claimed on three occasions to have. I can’t really say fairer than that can I? Do feel free to ‘whinge’ about my allegation in the comments on this site as I am happy to enter into either open or private discussion…