Plagiarism of The Art of Kiltmaking

[ForresterModern]

Rex,

You deserve kudoes as well for ferreting out the originial discovery of the plagiaristic post and then notifying Barb of ist existence. Take two pats on the back out of petty cash.

But now it has me wondering just exactly how much time you spend online searching obscure links to find some of this stuff, as you do bring some very unique findings to us here. Not complaining, just wondering. And my wife thinks I am computer addicted.

Anyway, if no one else but Barb has said it, Well done you.

jeff

[Rex_Tremende]

Well, thanks, Jeff. I think. I consider myself an adept searcher, but I also have bad case of online attention deficit disorder. I get distracted easily by links that catch my interest. (In other words, I probably surf a lot).

In this case, I was searching for a diagram of a kilt with the various parts being labeled in Google images in order to communicate accurately to someone when I spotted one that looked awfully familiar (having a copy of TAOK myself).

Regards,
Rex.

[Barb T]

OK - so here's an update. I just got an email from Brett Gordon (after my second email to him, in which I mentioned possible legal action), and he claimed that he had bought a photocopy at a flea market and that the photocopy didn't have any title or copyright pages. He claimed that the person he bought it from said it was part of a bunch of old docs that someone had found in an attic. So, he just wanted to "share" it with the rest of the world.

It's quite remarkable to me that he thinks I'd buy this story, given that the appendix of the book has *Internet* addresses in it, and he actually used quite a few of those Internet addresses in "his" article. I wonder how stupid he thinks I am??

I thought you would enjoy banging your heads against the wall over this one.

[Tim Little]

Thanks for the update, Barb. Some people never cease to amaze.

Anywho, I seriously hope you've retained a lawyer....

[The Guy in the Kilt at UC]

I've run into a contingent that doesn't know a thing about copyright law, and proceed to fly in the face there-of and just make-up what they feel to be right. ...

Yes, well I suppose I am assuming he went to a US school and didn't skip class that day. Though, you're right. In my other field (science) I see people make those kind of errors often.

[The Guy in the Kilt at UC]

Ladies and Gentlemen of XMTS,

A few posts had to be removed from this thread for review because I felt that we were beginning to cross the line between standing up for Barb and lashing out at this fellow in a way that did not become us and what our forum stands for.

Making comments on that site and alerting the site's owners are one thing.

Offering up this fellow’s personal information (and the implied suggestion of taking this to a more direct level of confrontation) is another.

Taking this fellow's artwork and posting it here (therefore plagiarizing it) isn't helpful. Two wrongs don't make a right.

It says much about the prestige Barb has earned in our eyes that we all were so angry about this.

It says much of us that we protect our "family" here.

But we are the Ladies and Gentlemen of XMTS and as appalling as this individual's act was, we should in our response to him show our quality.

The Forum Moderators will look at those couple of posts and decide in the future what we should and shouldn't allow if this sort of an issue comes up again.

Sincerely

Jamie

Thank you, Jaime. What was meant to be a joke would likely have been an embarrassment to me later on. And to the poor chap who was the butt of it.

[Squeaky McMurdo]

And was all your wording condensed like a can of soup in this "fleamarket photocopy in the attic from a bunch of old documents"?

Sheesh.

Like I said, the better the article on eHow and more hits it gets, the more he gets paid.

And even if he was telling the truth, he STILL tried to pass someone else's work off as his own and is therefore STILL guilty of plagiarism.

[The Guy in the Kilt at UC]

Well, this guy is a real peach!

About 30 seconds of searching turned up this:

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/w...n-ledford.html

Compare to:

http://www.brettgordonart.com/gallery/tiger.html

I suspect the background at the very least in the second pic has been digitally altered. It's little things like this that steam me up. I personally have had to deal with copyright infringement (and bandwidth thieves).

Ray

Well, let's be fair. I thought it highly likely that they both were working out of the same learn-to-paint book from Hobby Lobby, but it turns out that they were probably both inspired by the same photograph.

Regards,
Rex.

From experience I can say its very tempting to work from a photograph. I admit I did once in art school. I was never caught, though I suppose I would have earned an F on that assignment. Now I'm in another field, and plagiarism is much more serious. Not only would you get an F, but you would also get fired, and likely have to change careers.

[KFCarter]

...He claimed that the person he bought it from said it was part of a bunch of old docs that someone had found in an attic. So, he just wanted to "share" it with the rest of the world....

Aw, gee... found it in an attic and just wanted to share...

My kids come up with better stories than that on a daily basis.

[The Guy in the Kilt at UC]

OK - so here's an update. I just got an email from Brett Gordon (after my second email to him, in which I mentioned possible legal action), and he claimed that he had bought a photocopy at a flea market and that the photocopy didn't have any title or copyright pages. He claimed that the person he bought it from said it was part of a bunch of old docs that someone had found in an attic. So, he just wanted to "share" it with the rest of the world.

It's quite remarkable to me that he thinks I'd buy this story, given that the appendix of the book has *Internet* addresses in it, and he actually used quite a few of those Internet addresses in "his" article. I wonder how stupid he thinks I am??

I thought you would enjoy banging your heads against the wall over this one.

It sounds like he got caught and is trying to BS his way out of it as quickly as possible. He hasn't thought his lie through very carefully, given the obvious holes in the story. I suspect he picked up the bad habit very early on and isn't caught very often. The university here keeps a very close eye on plagiarism, and tells us how to look out for it.