Plagiarism from Autocar India?

[speedy]

karl i dont think you should let it go that easily. i think you should write a letter to HORMUZ SORABJI and to SHAPUR KOTWAL bringing the matter to both their knowledge. Mr Joy should be taught a lesson and should render an appology and compensate you in some form.
this plagiarism should not be tolerated my friend. you have taken it in the form of flaterry, but lets not forget you would be encourageing the guy to do it more often and it might affect someone elses livelihood.

[benbsb29]

Originally Posted by nitrous

Yes, one of the mags did.

But, Tushky posted a C-class picture here claiming it to be "fresh" while it was already printed in Autocar before it was posted here.
Im guessing he's now a "freelancer" for Autocar India ,now that I don't see any spy posts from him.

As per my observations, Tushky holds on to his spy pics, sends them to AutocarIndia, and once they have published the pic, he puts it up here as 'fresh'. He gets rewarded for these, and you can find a mention to his name as well in the magazine. The Captiva pic in the anniversary issue is also from Tushky. Another member of our forum, LandCruiser who had the spy pics for the Ford Focus, upon sending them to AutocarIndia was surprised to know someone had already sent therm to the mag claiming it was theirs. The editor said the pics sent to them should be exclusive, and shouldnt be published anywhere else. That explains why Tushky holds onto his pics till they get published.

Karlos, please do follow up with them, and make sure you get your due share of credit, and i do not refer to a small miniature mention somewhere in the magazine which no one can find, or even care about.

[stampro]

yeah, it sure looks to have been pinched from your article and as God knows probably from various sites as pointed out by Stanher.

Originally Posted by karlosdeville

Autocar India celebrates its 8th Anniversary this month, and have got a great special issue out on stands, 500 pages. Yummy! Theres a neat little booklet attached called "60 years of Cars in India 1947-2007", covering the history of major Indian manufacturers and the automotive scene post independance. I was quite enjoying browsing through, especially when I reached the Standard Motors section, an area very close to my heart. The model line was described in great detail, and somehow sounded too familiar. After putting on my thinking cap I recall having written most of that article for the Standard Motor Club here History of Standards in India
A major part of ACI's article is directly lifted, not even changing most words.

Now I cant say im cheesed off, if anything, Im flattered, though I thought that the source ought to be mentioned. I did get a response from Joy Chaudhrie, who put the article together, and while he agrees to make a mention in the next issue, he doesnt think its a direct lift. What do you guys say? I've underlined what I think is, compared with the link above.

[karlosdeville]

Originally Posted by speedy

i think you should write a letter to HORMUZ SORABJI and to SHAPUR KOTWAL bringing the matter to both their knowledge.

Like I said, I wrote a mail to the editor Hormazd first. He put Joy in touch, as it was Joy who put that booklet together.

[deepaktpatil]

dude,

talk to somebody who has knowledge about copyright laws and see if you have a case. If yes then pursue it or else as you rightly said sit back and enjoy the flattering.

[Ram]

When you take from one source it's plagiarism.
When you take from multiple sources it's research!

The world's entire educational system runs on this. All the top management consultants -- the McKinseys, BCGs, ATKearneys, Deloittes, Ernst & Young, Pricewaterhouse Coopers,... survive and thrive on googled information.
Does anyone think all the profs at our top institutes do independent research?
It's all a lifting game!

But then isn't that what human knowledge is all about?

When you go to a super-specialty medico with an ailment, does he really draw from his own experience? or from that published by zillions of his professional rivals?

IMHO, the least that a magazine writer should do is express his research in his own words.

Today, in the era of the the googlenabled information superhighway as a knowledge repository, one can't disguise one's reading and research as independent thinking, as easily as in the non-internet past.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by ram

The world's entire educational system runs on this. All the top management consultants -- the McKinseys, BCGs, ATKearneys, Deloittes, Ernst & Young, Pricewaterhouse Coopers,... survive and thrive on googled information.
Does anyone think all the profs at our top institutes do independent research?
It's all a lifting game!

That is why one should write Bibliography, this is done by all researchers who have some sense of propriety. But some people think they can gain more credit by hiding their sources, it backfires badly if discovered, like in this case.

Write a Bibliography: Writing a Bibliography

[GTO]

Its bad enough that someone had to stoop so low and copy your write-up, but what really cheesed me off was the absolute callous manner in which he replied to you. What the heck does he mean by saying that he doesnt think its a direct lift? The content is there for the world to see and its a word for word xerox. Shame on Joy Chaudhuri for disrespecting the basic premise of ethical journalism. Getting a small box that says "credit for the said article to Mr. Karl etc. etc." is not the point of this exercise.

You taking this up strongly will ensure that this does NOT happen again. With you or with anyone else's work.

[deepaktpatil]

I had a similar observation sometime before. Times of India had done a similar thing.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifti...ent-board.html (Is this plagiarism or mental bankruptcy - TOI has picked up content from this board!)

I dont want to go but this seems to be a typical way how auto journalism is conducted. Never met or seen these guys but I am pretty convinced that most of these guys dont know much about automobiles beyond just using them for commute.

[vasudeva]

As I have said somewhat differently in another thread, `Autocar vs Overdrive', one should stop wasting money on these mags and invest bandwidth in Team BHP!. Of course, apart from this, these mags are often PR mouthpiece for automakers. For a very blatant PR piece, see Car India Apri-May 2007, and for Autocar see I think some Sep-Oct 2006 issue about `50 New Cars for 2007' and in that see the profile of Honda CRV. That seems like a straight lift.

[MaserQ]

This is an absolute disgrace. Karl, did you ask for an apology? Mods, any chance of putting up a notice that says something like - 'material from this forum may not be re-produced in any form without prior permission of the moderators/author.' That should make these copycats think twice before 'lifting'.

[V-16]

Originally Posted by nitrous

I think the appropriate punishment for joy choudhary should be firing him.

first lesson in journalism is to NOT COPY.

but,these days ,almost every journalist googles his assignment.

Shame on Autocar India for doing this. Hormuzd is a well respected auto journalist and he cannot just pass the buck to Joy who is a sorry excuse of a journalist. I thinkyou should make a hue and cry about this article pinching and they MUST apologize. Why dont we all get together and even if each one of us sends an email to Hormuzd, and Joy they will realise how many of thweir readers have seen through this charade of theirs and only then will do something. Im shooting off my mails to them today. Please lets all confirm their letters to these two guys by posting on this thread. I have spoken!!

[ajmat]

Why don't you write a formal letter to the editor and see if it gets published along with an apology?

[karlosdeville]

Originally Posted by ajmat

Why don't you write a formal letter to the editor and see if it gets published along with an apology?

Like I said initially, my first letter was addressed to Hormazd. I got a reply from Joy, I assume Hormazd forwarded him to me. I dont know about an apology, though credit will be mentioned in the next issue he says. Joy's stand is that it isn't a direct lift, so I thought Ill just get your views on whether its a lift or not, thats about it.

[iraghava]

Like I said earlier Karl this is not done. First you copy the article word by word & then have the cheek to tell the original author that "It's not a direct lift". Sorry Joy, you might think otherwise but there are people in the world who recognise a copy when they see one.

Karl, don't let this go, the standard of journalism needs to improve in our country & this should be a good point for that.

Joy - If you gotta write an article please do some reasearch yourself or if you use somebody else's work "ATLEAST GIVE THEM THE DUE CREDIT" and not try to pass the buck.