Copyright: how righteous would you be?

[lph]

I found out by chance that one of the most popular kayak shops in my area has a blog, that is actually a random hodge-podge of articles from newspapers, books and other media. As far I can see all of them are credited the original author, except one: an article about kayaking for women. It's presented with no author or credit, so you assume the kayak shop people have written it themselves. It's a word by word translation of an English article, written by a well-known American female paddling instructor for an English web site.

It's not very hard to find, if you read both languages and google "kayaks for women" in both languages...

Anyway - when I found out I pointed this out on Facebook to them. They replied, and "would look into it". After several weeks nothing had happened so I wrote them again, pointing out that this was bad style, to use somebody elses work for commercial purposes. No answer.

Would you continue to badger them, or just let live? For some reason it pisses me off even more because it was an article written for women. There are that few professional women in kayaking that I feel quite protective. On the other hand their "blog" is pretty slapdash and unprofessional and they're probably just a bunch of guys who like to paddle and just slapped together a website one day.

(Apart from the copyright issue, having a special article about paddling for women, written in a friendly "hey girls" tone, on a page that already has a gazillion tips about paddling or buying a kayak, looks pretty darn condescending. As if the other articles are just too difficult for us to comprehend. But that's their own problem, that they can't judge context.)

[Veronica]

I'd be annoyed by both the poor treatment of females in general and not crediting the author. I'd probably choose to take my business elsewhere if possible, just because I don't like condescension.

Veronica

[Irulan]

I'd notify the source and let them decide what to do.. Having had my articles plagiarized on the web before, a notice from the author seems to be most effective. For US law it is up to the holder of the copy right to enforce it.

[lph]

Thanks :-) I just did that.

[smilingcat]

I'm with Colorist, Irulan on this. In my professional work, I noticed that men have far less qualm about usurping women's idea and proposal as their own. And when you confront them, they just blow you away. One of my (many?) hot buttons.

So thank you lph.

[colorisnt]

I found out by chance that one of the most popular kayak shops in my area has a blog, that is actually a random hodge-podge of articles from newspapers, books and other media. As far I can see all of them are credited the original author, except one: an article about kayaking for women. It's presented with no author or credit, so you assume the kayak shop people have written it themselves. It's a word by word translation of an English article, written by a well-known American female paddling instructor for an English web site.

It's not very hard to find, if you read both languages and google "kayaks for women" in both languages...

Anyway - when I found out I pointed this out on Facebook to them. They replied, and "would look into it". After several weeks nothing had happened so I wrote them again, pointing out that this was bad style, to use somebody elses work for commercial purposes. No answer.

Would you continue to badger them, or just let live? For some reason it pisses me off even more because it was an article written for women. There are that few professional women in kayaking that I feel quite protective. On the other hand their "blog" is pretty slapdash and unprofessional and they're probably just a bunch of guys who like to paddle and just slapped together a website one day.

(Apart from the copyright issue, having a special article about paddling for women, written in a friendly "hey girls" tone, on a page that already has a gazillion tips about paddling or buying a kayak, looks pretty darn condescending. As if the other articles are just too difficult for us to comprehend. But that's their own problem, that they can't judge context.)

Neither hahaha. I would probably email the original author and let her know what is happening.

In academia, women get far fewer citations, so I get ragey about it, too. It's plagiarism and nothing makes me more frustrated.