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Another Reason the Internet Sucks


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I wanted to look up the definition of a term, so of course, I used Google. Three of the hits were from web sites dedicated to recording (you know, like superduperhomerecordingexpertperson.com and iknowsomuchaboutrecording.com), and they all had cut and pasted the same copy from an article on Waves' website, without any kind of attribution or thanks. And I'm sure they didn't ask for permission.

 

I keep running into the occasional site that looks like the person running it checks out the Monday Mix videos I do for Full Compass, and then does his own a couple weeks later. I see excerpts from my books and articles all over the web, copies of schematics I did (with no credit), and so on. Some people do give a name check, but they're outnumbered by the plagiarists.

 

Now, I recognize that there is such a thing as parallel discovery. But when I see a component-for-component copy of a schematic I did on a site that has the balls to say what they've done is copyrighted and people shouldn't copy it, I'm blown away. I'm not bitter as in "I can't make a living." I can do plenty of things other people can't do, and I get paid to do them. What boggles my mind is the complete lack of integrity, and any sense of "credit where credit is due" - not because it damages me (well I guess maybe it does to some extent), but because these people are frauds for passing off the work of others as their own. No one cares, no one thinks it matters. That just the way things are - go ahead and steal, but only as long as you can get away with it.

 

I get that they have no shame, but what's even sadder is they have no pride or self-respect...and the internet gives them a platform where they can get away with no consequences from being frauds.

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This is a problem I had a good while back, starting in the mid-nineties.

 

With every diagram I created I then embedded a transparent "authored by" item where it couldn't easily be extracted without damaging the content.

I found that something as simple as MS paint was able to create it.

 

Later on, when I had created a number of Powerpoint presentations I found individuals copying some detailed technical slides (in this case about satellite telecoms).

I locked the presentations with a password so that they were read only, and put a by line on every slide.

The satellite company I'd created the courses for weren't to amused but weren't prepared to pay for breach of copyright.

 

It seems, today, that if people can plagiarise content they will.

See the ongoing dipute where Australia are going to make Google pay for plagiarised news content.

So the rule is make sure your copy or diagrams are marked so that they refer the reader back to your own site.

 

But there again, it ain't new, Mr Handel in his later years 'nicked' a lot of tunes from other composers.

The Internet just makes it easier.

Akai EWI 4000s, Yamaha VL70m, Yamaha AN1x, Casio PX560, Yamaha MU1000XG+PLGs-DX,AN,VL.

 

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It is really annoying as a user. Sometimes a search will take me right to what I'm looking for. Other times there are a half dozen sites with poorly copied content that's all the same between them, though it's often munged. I don't know what you call them, but it looks to me like these sites are just trying to get clicks though I often don't see the source of revenue since the ads aren't prominent.

 

I also hate sites that talk about things ("so-and-so said in a recent interviewâ¦") yet don't provide links (you know, the thing that pretty much invented the internet) to the original article. How lazy is that?

 

Last "why the internet can suck" rant for me for now. Blogging posing as journalism. As John Wayne said, "if I want your opinion I'll ask for it!" Sloppy-ass-written articles interjected with the author's opinion slathered all over it. Snarky comments interjected throughout. Authors trying to be clever and cute. I'm not saying things have to be totally dry, but stop it already. I came here for information, not for your "see what I did theres". :rolleyes:

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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I wanted to look up the definition of a term, so of course, I used Google.

 

Took me a couple of readings of that sentence before I got to the subject of your post. First I though you were looking up the term "sucks."

 

When I see word-for-word copies of (generally informative other than that I've already read that) text, it's often in magazines rather than web sites, or the web version of a magazine. It's what the press release reads, usually unchanged, not even paraphrased. It makes me think that the editor or writer doesn't really know what he's putting into print.

 

I have often used material in press releases, and occasionally reviews when the writer clearly knows what he's saying, but I don't copy them word for word except for an occasional sentence or two, always surrounded by quotation marks, and always acknowledging the source, and in "The press release says this as well as I can, so in the vendor's words ....."

 

I have on occasion copied an illustration, usually something generic like a microphone or meter scale from a web article because the author's graphics department can draw straighter lines or take sharper photos than I can. Since I learned how to use my computer to make charts and graphs, and how to draw straight lines and rectangles for block diagrams - to illustrate signal flow, rather than to explain why a Class A preamp is Class A - I do my own graphics. The VU meter on the opening page of my web site comes from a TASCAM ad back when they were using real meters on their mixers. There!

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I found quite a few people posting the styles I wrote for Band-in-a-Box and claiming credit for them. Opening the styles in the StyleMaker app, I could still see my © notice.

 

I e-mailed them and asked them to remove, which they did, but of course, they popped up in other places.

 

It's a sad state of affairs. Those people show no honor or self-pride, not to mention are stealing. But it's not worth losing sleep over. You can't make people be good. After all the 10 commandments are now simply the 10 optional suggestions.

 

Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton

Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com

Style and Fake disks for Band-in-a-Box

The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<

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Somebody with integrity thinks: "Just as I've always done, today I tried to do my best to be a decent, honest person with integrity and tonight I will sleep well."

 

A sociopath thinks: "Just as I've always done, today I did whatever would bring a benefit to me, regardless of how it affected other people and tonight I will sleep well."

 

The philosphy is profoundly different. Sadly, the end result not so much.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I recognized early on that it is futile to play whack-a-mole chasing down internet plagiarists. That's a big reason why my vintage synth restoration webpages are intentionally incomplete - there's enough there for a trained tech/engineer to figure out. I also watermark my synth photos, and the service manuals that I scanned are marked NOT FOR SALE OR AUCTION for a good reason.
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Blogging posing as journalism.

 

To which I would add user reviews from morons. I've seen so many user reviews that diss a piece of gear because it doesn't do something...or at least, doesn't do it unless you read the manual.

 

One of my favorite user reviews was a two-star review for my MIDI for Musicians book. The person said upfront he'd never read the book (well, props for public admittance of ignorance), but that the book was over 30 years old - so it couldn't be any good, and no one should buy it. Fortunately, a couple other people pointed out the MIDI spec hasn't changed since that book was written, and one guy wrote "You gave two stars for a book you didn't buy or read because of the copyright date?"

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My imaginary comic book villain/nemesis the Regurgitator and his Pustules strike again. They're everywhere; on line, in the forums, in the workplace , you name it. They have incredible abilities to memorize data and of course claim it as their own. They have tremendous egos. They lack independent thought and can't figure anything out on their own. There's nothing worse then being outed and this is their Achilles heal.

 

Fortunately I, the Besmircher (please don't reveal my true identity) can easily spot them. Confronted in person or in a meeting with a question outside their vast repertoire of general information they quickly fall silent (if they're smart) or turn into blathering idiots exposing their true nature. Unfortunately on line they usually just disappear for a while awaiting their next opportunity.

 

Fear not, the Besmircher never rests.

 

 

:bor:

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There was a truisim a couple of decades ago, when the Internet was evolving into being "the web": "As soon as you post it, it's public domain." The point was not one of legality or ethics, but of practical expectations.

 

I wanted to look up the definition of a term, so of course, I used Google.

Took me a couple of readings of that sentence before I got to the subject of your post. First I though you were looking up the term "sucks."

Don't feel bad -- I thought was saying he had looked up the meaning of the term "Internet."

 

By the way, my Internet pet peeve this week is listicles. No obscenity is too harsh for them.

-Tom Williams

{First Name} {at} AirNetworking {dot} com

PC4-7, PX-5S, AX-Edge, PC361

 

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This post brings back many memories.

 

My first book, Customer Service Over the Phone, was published prior to the Internet in 1992. A few years thereafter, when the Internet emerged, a simple Netscape search (on a key sentence from my book) revealed plagiarism, mostly among human resource documentation about employee phone etiquette - with no author attribution. Over the years, conference PowerPoint files featured paragraphs from my book on various slides - again no author attribution. It's been going on for decades and it's frustrating. I suppose there's a sense, among younger generations, that everything on the Internet is public domain and free.

 

Early on, I did contact plagiarists when I was able and they took down the content. But after a while, it was like "whack a mole" as The Real MC so eloquently stated, and I just gave up.

 

The upside of the Internet is that posting my best video content for free yielded much consulting and speaking revenue. At first, I was lukewarm to the idea about giving away my best content for free, but this strategy has proven itself again and again.

 

So has the Internet redeemed itself?

Steve Coscia

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So has the Internet redeemed itself?

 

Actually I was a little harsh with the OP...the internet doesn't suck, it's how people use it. In a way, we now have a modern-day equivalent of the library of Alexandria, where the sum total of the world's knowledge is at your fingertips. For example, museum sites that put all their famous paintings online so that even if you can't make it over to the museum itself, you can marvel at the artwork.

 

I guess it's like any tool...the tool itself is neutral, it's how a human uses the tool that makes the difference.

 

It is still the world's finest display of the reality of the human sewer farm...

 

I always hope that aliens aren't reading the comments on YouTube...because then they'll decide there's no intelligent life on earth, and they might decide to have us for dinner.

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I always hope that aliens aren't reading the comments on YouTube...because then they'll decide there's no intelligent life on earth, and they might decide to have us for dinner.

 

I hope they have pressure cookers, some of us are likely to be a bit tough and chewy.

Also, they may be disappointed if they plan on cracking skulls and eating brains... so it goes...

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I totally agree that outright copying of material is wrong, whether it violates legal, ethical or moral grounds. But I want to ask you guys do you feel a certain amount of ownership of the information itself? Do you distinguish between material you discovered completely on your own vice research and gathering of internet information and other sources?

 

To use Steve"s Customer Service publication- do you credit your company with the experience and do they own part of your publication? Or are you just claiming ownership of putting the material together? And if some practice you wrote about was adopted but thought of by another individual is it ok to publish that without giving him credit? Maybe you adopted certain philosophies that were passed down to you by more senior co-workers, supervisors etc.

 

What about your electronic stuff Michael? Didn"t you learn a lot of that on the job? Or school? Should we credit our teachers and the books where we got that knowledge? I sure don"t know specifically where I got the information I know in my head. I"m only certain about the things I truly discovered for myself. I also can"t remember very much without looking it up again and again.

 

Ok one more example that I wrestle with in my head: I just finished up a Prophet 5 Refurb recently. I was able to figure out what parts to order from a lot of time consuming research on line and my engineering experience. Now if someone ask me hey can you send me the parts list so I can refurb my P5?

 

I"m all for sharing info as people have done for me over the years. And I don"t stand to lose money ...but it was a lot of work.

 

Thoughts?

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I totally agree that outright copying of material is wrong, whether it violates legal, ethical or moral grounds. But I want to ask you guys do you feel a certain amount of ownership of the information itself? Do you distinguish between material you discovered completely on your own vice research and gathering of internet information and other sources?

 

Thoughts?

 

I just work on a "credit where credit is due" approach. Like I wrote up a tip for Studio One that was based on a Sonar idea that Steve Cook wrote up for the Cakewalk forum. Being different programs the implementation was different, and of course, the writing I did was 100% me. But I credited him for the idea, and told him what I had done so he was in the loop.

 

You can only take things so far...if I'm going to write up a unique circuit using an IC, I'm not going to credit Shockley for his work on inventing the transistor, or Logitech for designing the keyboard on which I wrote the article. I think name checks and shoutouts are appropriate when needing to give credit.

 

It would have been sooooo simple for the sites that stole the Waves stuff to a) ask for permission, but if that's too much work, b) credit it to Waves, include a link to the article, and include a disclaimer that the material is copyrighted by Waves and the site will remove it if requested. Frankly, I think Waves would rather have credit and a link.

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My wife likes the Internet. esp Amazon.com.

 

And she is a school teacher - with a near perfect record of being accurate 99.9% of the time ;)

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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To use Steve"s Customer Service publication- do you credit your company with the experience and do they own part of your publication? Or are you just claiming ownership of putting the material together? And if some practice you wrote about was adopted but thought of by another individual is it ok to publish that without giving him credit? Maybe you adopted certain philosophies that were passed down to you by more senior co-workers, supervisors etc.

Good observation, Mark.

 

In my case, the writing was a culmination of case studies, lessons learned by trial & error and the simplification of complex behavioral outcomes. Creating flowcharts, diagrams and scripting examples required new thinking and new paradigms. Granted, the case studies, etc. couldn't have happened without being employed. The book's acknowledgement section mentioned and thanked coworkers, mentors and family who were influential.

 

But the real issue is the personal time - hundreds of hours of writing, researching, proofing, re-writing, etc. etc. etc.. Anyone who has written a book knows the work and time involved - that first book stressed my marriage. I suppose authors want to be acknowledged for the massive amount of time invested. The slap in the face occurs when I see text, that took me weeks to write, copied and pasted so nonchalantly.

Steve Coscia

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Totally with you Craig (and Steve). I"m not a professional writer(could you tell?) or for that matter a professional anything these days. But I do agree and sympathize with those originators of work losing revenue because of, well, stealing. Let"s call it what it really is.

 

On a slight tangent I help a lot of people on line with all kinds of technical issues. On forums a number of people often want to jump in and help. Their intentions are good and that"s cool.

 

But I find people often suggest or rather guess at solutions they"ve read elsewhere over the years without really understanding the applicability. They fail to ask the right questions and at least try to follow a logical diagnosis. Noise/ ground loop problems is a classic example; 'Plug all your shit into the same ac outlet' or 'use one of those Hum-x filters', even though it"s been ascertained the noise isn"t coming from the ac. Hello?

 

The worst is when they inject suggestions without reading the steps taken thus far and try to follow the process of elimination. These are what I refer to as the Regurgitators.

 

Ok, even though I just had my little hissy fit we should be trying to enlighten these people, not discourage them. I want knowledgeable people (like the folks here) to continue teaching me stuff and I also want to help those people I just besmirched to learn and understand what we know. There are a lots of well intentioned folks that just don"t have the background and technical know how. I know many aren"t receptive to really learning this tech crap and that"s fine. But for those who are interested we should share freely and without concern for diminishing our mighty standing in the world that gets us all the babes. And when we do help someone solve a problem or make a technical break through, give them the credit. They have the tougher part in this and besides, we geezers don"t need anymore credit. People know those who know their shit from the regurgitators.

 

Just like people can tell the real deal from the assholes stealing shit and calling it their own. Those thieves may benefit in the short term but in the end they have to come to terms with themselves. Or go into politics.

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To use Steve"s Customer Service publication- do you credit your company with the experience and do they own part of your publication? Or are you just claiming ownership of putting the material together? And if some practice you wrote about was adopted but thought of by another individual is it ok to publish that without giving him credit? Maybe you adopted certain philosophies that were passed down to you by more senior co-workers, supervisors etc.

Good observation, Mark.

 

In my case, the writing was a culmination of case studies, lessons learned by trial & error and the simplification of complex behavioral outcomes. Creating flowcharts, diagrams and scripting examples required new thinking and new paradigms. Granted, the case studies, etc. couldn't have happened without being employed. The book's acknowledgement section mentioned and thanked coworkers, mentors and family who were influential.

 

But the real issue is the personal time - hundreds of hours of writing, researching, proofing, re-writing, etc. etc. etc.. Anyone who has written a book knows the work and time involved - that first book stressed my marriage. I suppose authors want to be acknowledged for the massive amount of time invested. The slap in the face occurs when I see text, that took me weeks to write, copied and pasted so nonchalantly.

 

Totally get it now Steve :2thu:.

 

Having come from the classified world for a good part of my career I realized about 10 years out that the only thing I could take with me was the money I earned, the knowledge/experienced I gained and the wonderful feeling helping the younger folks succeed.

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But the real issue is the personal time - hundreds of hours of writing, researching, proofing, re-writing, etc. etc. etc.. Anyone who has written a book knows the work and time involved

 

45 books later, I can vouch for that statement. Every time I finish a book, I swear I'm never going to write another one :)

 

It was very discouraging to run across a pirate site where over 10,000 people had downloaded my "How to Create Compelling Mixes" book in electronic form, especially compared to the pittance of print books sold by my publisher.

 

I started a new strategy a couple years ago when I realized conventional publishers were clueless: do only downloads, update them frequently, price them in a way that reflects the much lower cost of production, and do extremely targeted distribution (e.g., selling books about Studio One only through the PreSonus web shop). I'm happy to report this has been a very successful approach, even though the books are not copy-protected.

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It was very discouraging to run across a pirate site where over 10,000 people had downloaded my "How to Create Compelling Mixes" book in electronic form, especially compared to the pittance of print books sold by my publisher.

 

When I wrote my Mackie hard disk recorder book, I went with a print-on-demand publisher (no "real" publisher thought there was a big enough market to take it as a real book) for two reasons. First off, I wanted the reader to have a paper copy he could have in front of him while working on the machine. It was spiral bound so it could lay flat, and it's much more friendly than having to go to another screen to read a paragraph, then go back to the machine. The other reason for killing the trees was that it wasn't easily copied. Plus the printer handled all the money and shipping. Customers ordered from their web site, they took their cut, and they'd send me checks when there was enough money in my account.

 

I had many requests for a PDF copy, but I resisted as long as I could - until the print-on-demand outfit decided to quit printing on paper. Then I had to cave in since I didn't want to try to find another place that provided the same services as I had. I haven't yet found a pirate site where it can be downloaded, but I haven't tried very hard either. I still get a couple of orders a month.

 

 

I started a new strategy a couple years ago when I realized conventional publishers were clueless: do only downloads, update them frequently, price them in a way that reflects the much lower cost of production, and do extremely targeted distribution (e.g., selling books about Studio One only through the PreSonus web shop).

 

Do they pay you a fixed amount by the book, or do you get royalties based on purchases (or both)?

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I might spend hundreds of hours on a single Band-in-a-Box style to get it just right, pushing the limitations of Band-in-a-Box and doing the best to overcome the shortfalls of the app. My collections are up to 30 styles per e-disk. Then it's 'whack-a-mole'. I can't get them all, and sometimes think it's useless to try.

The only thing that changes is the technology.

 

I recall in the cassette tape days, the local FM radio station announcing, "We are going to play Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon LP in it's entirety at 11:00 PM tonight (or some other in-demand album for the hippie culture). At 11 they would start with a station ID, play side A, insert a short FM voice announcement consisting of the station's call letters and frequency and then go on to play Side B.

 

So the listeners could pirate the album for free, and the only price was listening to a short radio station ad between sides.

 

And how many people taped a Cinemax or HBO movie on their VCR to watch whenever or share with people who didn't subscribe?

 

The Internet isn't to blame, people are. The 'net just makes it easier and when things are already digital, it allows more complex things to be copied like books.

 

But then, how do we instill a sense of honor in the population when so many of our governors and even our clergy lie, cheat and steal?

 

I don't know the answer.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton

Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com

Style and Fake disks for Band-in-a-Box

The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<

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But then, how do we instill a sense of honor in the population when so many of our governors and even our clergy lie, cheat and steal?

Valid question. There might be future hope, but for now I am protective of my IP.

 

My third book was self-published and luckily, a best-seller. A Kansas print shop prints the paper copies and it's available in numerous online reader formats (Kindle, VitalSource & MBS). But, I never went to PDF because I believed in my heart that buyers would make unauthorized copies.

 

Am I a skeptic? Should I be more trusting? Maybe.

Steve Coscia

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Do they pay you a fixed amount by the book, or do you get royalties based on purchases (or both)?

 

I always go for a royalty arrangement. That way there's never a situation where a company pays a fee, then regrets doing so because sales didn't match expectations.

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But, I never went to PDF because I believed in my heart that buyers would make unauthorized copies.

 

Am I a skeptic? Should I be more trusting? Maybe.

 

Frankly, I'm shocked that the first book I did for PreSonus is still selling. If people were pirating, it would have tailed off a long time ago. As to the Mixes book I referred to, the thiefs simply generated a PDF from the print version. To me, the downloads indicated demand that wasn't being met. I believe if the book had been available from the publisher in an electronic format, the degree of piracy wouldn't have been so high.

 

I'm pretty sure the bottom line is that honest people will be honest, and the people who want to steal something will. In the case of the PreSonus books, I think people have a certain amount of respect for the time and effort that's put into them. The contents are available so people know what they're getting, and for many of the books, I post a free sample chapter. Perhaps another advantage is that I'm a person, not a company. It might be more difficult to steal from that guy who writes the cool tips compared to stealing from XYZ Publishing.

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FYI, I have worked with two software companies that used to have fairly rigorous copy protection. The expense of doing so was judged excessive if they wanted to stay competitive, so they dropped the rigorous copy protection and went to an "enter this serial number" type of approach.

 

After a year, both companies said it made absolutely zero difference in their sales, one way or the other. They both came to the conclusion that the people who stole it probably weren't going to buy it anyway, and that most people are honest and want to support the companies whose tools they use, lest the company go out of business.

 

In the case of my books, I think that by offering a PDF so that people can print it if they want, put it on an iPad, or whatever, shows that I trust them and I think that encourages people to return the favor. I'm also trying to be really fair, like offer updated versions after a year or two that include a lot more material, but are available to people who bought an earlier edition for 50% off.

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