Copyright abuse and Plagiarism on the Knol Project
 Note: You may wish to light the favorite star, above so that you can easily return here when you find something worth reporting. |
NewsFlash 14 July 2009: Norman Creaney has published Plagiarism Explained, with clear examples of legal and illegal use of the creative work of others.What is a copyright? Why do we have it? What is plagiarism? What are the penalties? Some answers and our motivation to publish this interactive Knol can be gained in a very recent startling plagiarism story, the Curious Case of Randy K. Click the link to have a look, then return here.
NewsFlash 12 June 2009: We are beginning to discover Knol to Knol theft via translation, where a new author claims the work in other languages (this Knol being a prime example in Arabic). We are investigating to develop a reportable story that includes insight from Google for dealing with the problem. Stay tuned...
NewsFlash 11 June 2009: See the table Current Plagiarism cases under review, below, to learn about a new form of copyright abuse: Knol to Knol theft. UPDATE 5:55PM PDT: Google has blocked the account of the violator as our team was alerting other authors about similar abuse of their work. See Closed Cases and Comments.
Plagiarism may be defined as stealing words or images originated by others, without attribution, and includes translations, using blanket references, duplicate unauthorized publication or "salami slicing" of data into multiple papers. Plagiarism can involve as little as a single unique word or portion of an image. It can happen at any stage of publication and applies to the old and new media, images, paintings, arts, slides, music or video.
Every fact or statement taken essentially unchanged from another writer requires permission and/or a specific reference and citation unless it is common knowledge. Even changing the words through paraphrasing (rewriting) can be considered plagiarism when the derived work is nothing more than an attempt to disguise the theft of the content expressed in the original work. If you step into my garage through an open door and steal my lawnmower, paint it a different color and claim it as your own because now its blue, not red, you are still a thief. As we know, the Internet is full of open doors.
Another worthwhile read is Knol Help's page on plagiarism, spam and low quality content. Highly recommended. And Knol Help recommends us right back. For formal definitions of plagiarism, see the references at the end of this article.
Google's policies on plagiarism are clear, and YOUR role is clear, too. Without civilian help, plagiarism is likely to proliferate at Knol. In one of the cases we report in this Knol, we asked Google if they could temporarily prevent authors under investigation from appearing in the Top Authors list on Knol's landing page. Here's the response:
Thanks for your message. We will follow the rules pertaining to copyright infringement complaints as summarized here: http://www.google.com/dmca_knol.html. This means that we cannot act on suspicions of infringement or requests originating from non-copyright holders. Thanks,
As a writing team, we are dismayed but understand the hands-off policy. Only the actual victim of plagiarism has legal standing. That does not mean that the rest of us are powerless. Acting together, we can defeat plagiarism, and this Knol is ground zero for those who wish to help. If you wish to delve further into the actual law, read Norman Creaney's Knol on the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
We wish to reveal right up front that our intention is to build a stable of collaborators who contribute to this Knol by accepting assignments to investigate the reports that arrive. Anyone interested is invited to add a Comment stating why you believe you can help. Our trio will act in good faith. If you'd prefer to communicate privately, click this e-mail address to send us a confidential message. Your identity will never be divulged.
Also in the domain of disclosure, please be advised that our team is entirely on the "civilian" side of the fence. We are Knol authors. We ARE NOT employees of Google. Our team also wishes to acknowledge earlier efforts on plagiarism by Knol writer Jay Pilger. His excellent Knol includes examples and is highly recommended reading. Since Jay also included a way to report infringement, as well as illuminating videos, we're pleased to be on the same wavelength. Perhaps Jay will join our effort.
"Every plagiarized article that appears on Google Knol dilutes the authority of everyone's work that is published here." Jay Pilger
Current plagiarism cases under review
DISCLAIMER: Listings in the following table are not conclusive of plagiarism. These are cases under investigation. In no way do we intend to impune the integrity of any author. Nor should readers assume impugned integrity by these listings. Listed authors are encouraged to use our private e-mail address to discuss the listing, thus speeding the investigation.
We investigate cases reported to us as well as cases we discover by our own methods. Listings entered here meet minimum criteria for investigation. Criteria includes clear evidence of exact or essentially similar content on both Knol and another website (or print publication). In some cases, this may be entirely permissible by Terms of Service and public policy, even if inappropriate. Ways in which you can help drive plagiarism from Knol are listed in What You Can Do to Help, below.
| Knol Author Name | Reported Knol | Original Work | Original Author |
| Nitin Krishan | Will Google destroy Microsoft? | Jonathan Strickland, Senior Writer | |
| Nitin Krishan | Best google search tricks and tips | marc [at] marcandangel [dot] com | |
| Sara, Sara K as of 15 May '09 "anonymous" | Investigating >65 Knols | American Express Black Card | Andrew M others |
| Darkwood Adrenalin | Investigating 3 Knols | NASA | Wikipedia |
| Pramod Kumar | Investigating 5 Knols | NASA | Wikipedia |
| Cong™ Huynh Thanh | Cong created a collection of Norman Creaney's knols but changed the byline in each Knol to his own, Norman notified, comment on Cong's collection. | Collection | Norman Creaney. |
| Sai Praneeth + Anonymous | I have written an article about Evolution and Intelligent Design a long time ago. However I just noticed that two people in Knol have copied the article as it is and posted it again under their own names! These copy-knols can be found at here and here. Besides copying from other sites, have we now started copying from Knol to Knol ?!?!? What should I do? | Evolution and Intelligent Design | skakos@hotmail.com |
'Top 10' Knols - Suspected of being Plagiarized
Color Blindness Tests - By Ravi Shankar My Impressions - PLAGIARIZED - This work appears to be plagiarized from - http://www.geocities.com/alfredo_71/vidaurri_5.html
10 things you need to know about ovulation - By Rob Mansfield My Impressions - PLAGIARIZED - This work appears to be plagiarized from - http://www.amazines.com/article_detail.cfm/664662?articleid=664662
Note that we're not giving the suspected plagiarized Knol a vote by linking to it. We do link to the suspect author's Knol page. We suggest that you post either a comment or review on an author's 'Top Pick' Knols if you agree that plagiarism seems apparent. However, in the tradition of "innocent until proven guilty," we also suggest diplomatic language and avoidance of accusations or personal attacks. It's much better to say "I found exact or very similar content to your content, by another author at another website. Can you explain?" This is far better than "you dirty rat, how dare you steal another writer's work."
Determining infringement is not as straightforward as Knol users might expect. Take the case of our top listing. We contacted Toni Smith, Contracts Manager at HowStuffWorks.com, reporting our suspicion by including both source and target URLs (The Google Knol triggers the connection under the heading Similar Content). Ms. Smith communicated immediately but her message failed to state explicitly that the work of author Jonathan Strickland had been infringed. Unable to communicate directly with Strickland (who may have signalled the Knol owner that it's OK to copy and paste the content), the case lingers. Here is Ms. Smith's message, which we have now posted as a comment on the suspected Knol:
Determining infringement is not as straightforward as Knol users might expect. Take the case of our top listing. We contacted Toni Smith, Contracts Manager at HowStuffWorks.com, reporting our suspicion by including both source and target URLs (The Google Knol triggers the connection under the heading Similar Content). Ms. Smith communicated immediately but her message failed to state explicitly that the work of author Jonathan Strickland had been infringed. Unable to communicate directly with Strickland (who may have signalled the Knol owner that it's OK to copy and paste the content), the case lingers. Here is Ms. Smith's message, which we have now posted as a comment on the suspected Knol:
Due to third party licensing and/or other business reasons, HowStuffWorks.com ("HSW") does not permit the posting of its website content (including translations) directly on other websites, except as provided in this policy or as otherwise allowed by law. You can use hypertext links on your site to link to content on HSW's websites. You are welcome to use the title of an article as long as you link directly to the article. You must observe all copyright, trademark, and other laws. In addition, you must not: (i) use any portion of the content (including images, audio, and video) that exceeds fair use rights under applicable laws; (ii) frame the HSW content or otherwise present the content as your own; or (iii) use any trademarks from the HSW Site, except as permitted by law.
If you have any questions about this policy, please email legal-dept@howstuffworks.com. HSW reserves the right to revoke any permissions granted under this policy at any time.
Toni Smith, Contracts Manager
HowStuffWorks, Inc.
(404) 364-5775
(404) 760-3458 (fax)
tsmith@howstuffworks.com
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evilis that good men do nothing"Edmund Burke
If you've reported a suspected plagiarized Knol, that is great... but you can do much more. Here are the top seven things to do to help eradicate plagiarism from Knol (or any other publishing site):
- Notify the original author and tell them their content may have been stolen or pirated. Give them an easy link to the suspected plagiarized Knol as well as a link to the place where they can report it - http://www.google.com/dmca_knol.html
- Write a review of the plagiarized Knol using the simple headline "Plagiarized?" as the sub header and linking to what appears to be the original work. Suggest in your review that you will gladly stand corrected when provided with evidence to the contrary
- Write a Comment that links to the original work, questions the work as plagiarized and makes the same offer of correction.
- Write comments in reply to supportive comments by others on the Knol. Ask the commenter to re-consider. However, deleting comments by others might be taken as vandalism
- Give the Knol a one star. "Hated it." One star is a stronger message than no stars
- Report to Knol Help via a comment on the main help page or via the Flag Inappropriate Content link (discussed in the next section) and ask to have Google AdSense suspended from the Knol pending an outcome from the investigation
- Look at the rest of the author's work to see if other Knols might have been plagiarized. If you think they have, report it here. If you think the infringement is massive, e.g., more than a few Knols, say so. Did you read the Curious Case of Randy K? That infringement amounted to about 1,000,000 words in 800+ Knols.
"Not all plagiarism is copyright infringement, but all
copyright infringement is plagiarism on its face"
Our team encourages "top down" and "bottom up" approaches in the fight against plagiarism and copyright infringement. Going forward, any model we build by actual practice may prove useful in fighting other forms of abuse in the context of the meritocracy of the Knol experiment.
Top Down approaches are policy based and legally driven. They deal with author verification as a starting point because pure anonymity invites excesses. As Google struggles with verification, it offers an anti-abuse effort in the form of a button entitled Flag Inappropriate Content on the right side of each Knol's top-most landing page. Click the link and here's what comes up:
 |
| Screen-shot of Knol's "Report abusive content" page. |
You won't find the word plagiarism on this page. At page bottom, you'll discover:
If you believe this content infringes upon your copyright,
Take note of the words your copyright. Click the new link but grab a breath first. You'll be transported to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act1 and one of the most intimidating pages that Google dishes up for civilians. Go ahead and click the link, then come back here. please see our instructions for notification of copyright
infringement
Here's the long and short of what we all face when we try to report plagiarism or copyright infringement:
- You must be a victim -- it must be your copyright to be able to report infringement. Google's intimidating DMCA page is there for a reason, and that reason is to advise you of your rights, and the rights of the accused under U.S. law. If you are the person from whom the material has been taken (stolen by copying), you can file. If not, you have no legal standing (and may attract legal action if you file)
- As a witness to copyright infringement, only the Other button and its associated additional information box is available. We encourage you to use it. If enough witnesses report using the Other button, we predict improving weather ahead.
This Knol is thus a bottom-up approach to empower witnesses to report copyright crimes. We strongly believe in both the morality and legality of citizen action when witnessing clearly illegal activity. Of course, not every suspicious event is illegal.
We've suggested to the Knol team that they take steps to improve the Flag inappropriate content page:
- Soften the DMCA link with an introductory paragraph
- Add a link just above Other, entitled "Report suspected plagiarism (additional information required below)", or
- Add a link to this Knol above or below the current Copyright infringement statement, using the language equivalent to the following:
If you are a witness (not the victim) to plagiarism or copyright infringement,
learn more about steps you can take at Plagiarism on Knol? Report it here!
Infringement Notification for Knol
The following process is copied from - http://www.google.com/dmca_knol.html
To file a notice of infringement with us, you must provide a written communication (by fax or regular mail -- not by email, except by prior agreement) that sets forth the items specified below. Please note that you will be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys' fees) if you materially misrepresent that a product or activity is infringing your copyrights. Indeed, in a recent case (please see http://www.onlinepolicy.org/action/legpolicy/opg_v_diebold/ for more information), a company that sent an infringement notification seeking removal of online materials that were protected by the fair use doctrine was ordered to pay such costs and attorneys fees. The company agreed to pay over $100,000. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether material available online infringes your copyright, we suggest that you first contact an attorney.
To expedite our ability to process your request, please use the following format (including section numbers):
- Identify in sufficient detail the copyrighted work that you believe has been infringed upon (for example, "The copyrighted work at issue is the text that appears on http://www.legal.com/legal_page.html") or other information sufficient to specify the copyrighted work being infringed (for example, "The copyrighted work at issue is the “Touch Not This Cat” by Dudley Smith, published by Smith Publishing, ISBN #0123456789").
- Identify the material that you claim is infringing the copyrighted work listed in item #1 above.
- YOU MUST IDENTIFY EACH KNOL BY THAT ALLEGEDLY CONTAINS THE INFRINGING MATERIAL BY URL. You can obtain the URL for a knol by going to the page and copy/paste the URL that appears in your browser’s address bar. For example, “The knol where my copyrighted work is published on is http://knol.google.com/k/john-doe/sample/QVKExjdp/J7jVSQ.”
- Provide information reasonably sufficient to permit Google to contact you (email address is preferred).
- Include the following statement: "I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted material described above on the allegedly infringing web pages is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law."
- Include the following statement: "I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."
- Sign the paper.
Send the written communication to the following address:
Google, Inc.Attn: Knol Legal Support, DMCA Complaints1600 Amphitheatre ParkwayMountain View, CA 94043
OR fax to:
(650) 963-3255, Attn: Knol Legal Support, DMCA Complaints
Closed cases
| Alleged Offender | Date & Facts | Action & Result | Details |
| Randy K + aliases | April 2009 - Founder of Knol Author Foundation, Top Ranked Knol Author with 63 Top Pick Knols. | Exposed using Knol Site Metrics and questioning comments. Notified original authors. | Voluntarily removed 800 plagiarized Knols. Removed 5 'ghosts' and 3 other family members. |
| Sai Praneeth | June 11, 2009 - Copy and paste of at least seven Knols under his name | Exposed by one of several victims, who was alert and vigilant | Multiple flags and victim complaints resulted in same-day blocking of the offender |
 | Australian Copyright Council |
 | Copyright law of the United States |
| 1Wikipedia article on DMCA | |
 | UK Copyright Law |
 | Copyright Law Canada |
T C. Long, M Errami, A C. George, Z Sun, H R. Garner. Scientific Integrity: Responding to Possible Plagiarism. Science, 2009, 323, 1293-1294. DOI: 10.1126/science.1167408.
M Errami, A C. George, Z Sun, H R. Garner. A tale of two citations. Nature. 2008, 451, 397-399.Skandalakis, JE, Mirilas, P. Plagiarism. Arch.Surg. 139, 1022-1024, 2004.
Cicutto, L. Plagiarism. Chest. 133, 579-581, 2008
Cross, M. Policing plagiarism. BMJ 335, 963-964, 2007
Universal Copyright Convention (much simpler than Bern Convention)
The links below provide detailed information on all 24 treaties administered by WIPO and the WIPO Convention.
Knol authors can use eTBLAST type of software to search duplicate knols copied from outside sources without reference, links or citations.
Interesting Reading About Copyright Infringement...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/technology/internet/12digital.html?hp| Knol Community Watch - The latest News on Knol |
Copy from here ..............
| This author supports the fight against plagiarism on Knol. Report HERE |
Norman Creaney
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Plagiarism Explained
http://knol.google.c
You open with "Plagiarism is an act of professional and academic misconduct...". Perhaps you can modify this to include the very unprofessional and nonacademic case of Randy K. Neither professional nor academic, Randy is representative of a broad group of wanna-be's, pretenders, vandalizers and psychologically deficient thieves.
Your Knol is great. I'll find a way to point to it from our team's work and hope you'll point back.
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Spiros Kakos
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"Copy of" criterion...Somethin
I have noticed that most Knol-to-Knol copycats are not even bothered to change the title of their knol and remove the "Copy of" tag that is automatically generated when you copy a knol (see for example that character "chao su")! I don't know if this is something to laugh at or to cry at...With the size of Knol growing day by day, we could have in the future automatic hacker-programs that simply copy thousands of knols and post them right back under another accounts name! Don't know the solution to that...
I agree that something must be done. I've left comments for Help and have begun flagging every copy I come across, using the following. I am resisting the temptation to merely vilify the thieves. Our chief hope lies in the hands of Google. If they don't act swiftly and decisively, your prediction will come true as anarchists try to out-copy each other. Note that Google's "similar content" capability is too slow for this kind of plagiarism. Here's my recommended flag:
Celebrating Your DMCA Violation
As one of several Knol authors whose work is being directly copied by you and others (aka the Plagiarized Authors Secret Society, or PASS), I am pleased to present you with our P-ASS award for your brazen conduct.
To help others earn the award, kindly respond to this comment. State your motive for copying our work. We plan to compile collected motives into an article or Knol under the working title "10 Best Cut-and-Paste Hacks for Knol Plagiarizers."
Although you replaced our authorship with your name in the work you've expropriated, we promise to give you full credit for your hack if we use it. Of course, only one P-ASS award winner can earn first credit for a hack, so speed is of the essence.
Keep up the bad work. You may earn other awards, such as the lofty and highly valued IgKnol-bell prize.
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Murry Shohat
Suggested Flag - P-ASS Award
I'm going to use the following flag on Knol-Knol copies and encourage others to follow suit or craft your own:
Celebrating Your DMCA Violation
As one of several Knol authors whose work is being directly copied by you and others (aka the Plagiarized Authors Secret Society, or PASS), I am pleased to present you with our P-ASS award for your brazen conduct.
To help others earn the award, kindly respond to this comment. State your motive for copying our work. We plan to compile collected motives into an article or Knol under the working title "10 Best Cut-and-Paste Hacks for Knol Plagiarizers."
Although you replaced our authorship with your name in the work you've expropriated, we promise to give you full credit for your hack if we use it. Of course, only one P-ASS award winner can earn first credit for a hack, so speed is of the essence.
Keep up the bad work. You may earn other awards, such as the lofty and highly valued IgKnol-bell prize.
Krishan Maggon
Unauthorized and unapproved translation
1 ANT Berezhnyi
Високі ціни ліків, що відпускаються за рецептом
Unapproved, unauthorized translation and copyright violation of one or several of my knols and showing up in links with several (checked top 5 with highest PV)
Global Pharmaceutical Market Review & World Top Ten/Twenty Drugs 2008
Market Research, Vaccines, Monoclonal Antibodies
Knol help was contacted: please delete and block this account ASAP.
Spiros thanks for the alert, I will check my other knols ASAP.
Knol Help needs to build a mechanism to ensure the original authors are kept intact on the translated Knol, and that the translator can claim a little page real estate for due credit.
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Murry Shohat
Amplifying the Lessons Learned
1. Use the tool on the right side of each of your Knols to "Search for uses of this page." Click to discover if use is appropriate
2. Check to see if "Similar content on the web" is shown on any of your Knols. If present, check out each listing carefully.
3. If you discover Knol-to-Knol copying, flag immediately at the offending Knol and leave an appropriate comment since this triggers an e-mail to the account holder. Demand removal. Being courteous about it is a personal call.
4. Alert our plagiarism team by commenting here. We will each endeavor to help by analysis, investigation and flagging
5. Directly alert Knol Help at this Knol: http://knol.google.c
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Spiros Kakos
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Copying from Knol to Knol!
You can flag these 2 offenders to knol help to take action and delete and block their accounts.
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I have just added a review to both entitled "Plagiarized Knol", added a banning request and flagged it.
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When it rains, it pours. In the midst of this episode, Andreas Kemper reports very good news about Google's translation tool. However, now we must be concerned about Knol to Knol plagiarism via translation. More reasons to get out of bed in the morning.
What's the best way to check for duplicates? Run the Knol title through the search toolkit?
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Spiros and the others of those other Knols had special rights under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. We've all see Google wave the DMCA when non-copyright holders complain of plagiarism. Now we have a case where flagging stimulated the Help team to appropriate action without the need for DMCA procedure. Hooray, Help Team. Let's all thank them.
I did not see a single Knol of 11 by this chap that was not plagiarized. But several thefts were from other websites.
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Krishan Maggon
Plagiarism both ways into and from knols
Commercial Abuse of Copyright Protected Knols
http://knol.google.c
Your observations and evidence are appreciated. The Knol experiment has reached a tipping point. You've added "outbound" to the "inbound" plagiarism interests of this Knol.
Since each author -- not Google -- owns and licenses his/her content, it's the author's problem. Given your documented evidence, I'd like to recommend that authors set up a Google Alert using the title of their work, e.g. "Plagiarism on Knol". Here's the link: http://www.google.co
Our team should consider writing a new Knol to act as Report Central. Something like "Has Your Knol Been Plagiarized? Report it Here"
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Andreas Kemper
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Wikipedia
Like the Mahalo-Articles there are also a lot of Wikipedia-Articles in Knol without permission. Until now the GFDL from Wikipedia is not compatible with the lincences in Knol.
Knol Terms of Service: "Please also be aware that the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) is not currently deemed compatible with Creative Commons licenses, and that content licensed under GFDL terms therefore may not be available for reuse under a Creative Commons or other non-GFDL license."
But in the next days the lincense in Wikipedia is changing to Creative Commens Attribution 3.0, the same license you can use in Knol.
It is possible that there will be a "gold rush" from Wikipedia-articles to Knol because of the AdSense. I think it's no plagiarism if you use the CC-by-3.0 and make a link to the Wikipedia-article.
I made here
http://knol.google.c
a Knol in the German language about Wikipedia-articles in Knol (By the way: to give copied articles a bad starranking, if they are not ethical, could be a boomerang - have a look at the starranking of this Knol ;-)) which has it's "brother" here:
http://de.wikipedia.
But I don't know what we can do if there is the new license CC-by-3.0 in Wikipedia...
Best
Andreas
With specific interest in Wikipedia, we currently favor the treatment afforded this topic by Jay Pilger. Read his Knol at http://knol.google.c
I have included numerous Wikipedia-linked references in my Knols, always giving credit. It's not possible to be a diligent writer and avoid Wikipedia. However, we do need good policy. We hope to earn sanction from Google for our considerate recommendation. In this regard, your inputs are extremely important. This is such a giant issue that we have no expectation of Google stating a Wikipedia-specific policy at the present time, apart from each author's contract via the Terms of Service when we sign up.
Have you compiled a list of possible Wikipedia transgressions? We already have two authors under investigation and welcome every one you or anyone else finds.
Peter and Krishan may offer additional insight as this topic gains traction.
Murry
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Here is a list of articles from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.
But as you see in the history it's not up-to-date.
Andreas
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The "Wikipedia to Knol" content issue is so big that it deserves separate discussion. And someday there will be a "Knol content to Wikipedia" attempt. With its "blatant advertising" and other swords, Wikipedia is fast to respond. We do not have such plagiarism mechanisms on Knol, except for civilian outrage as in the case of Randy K. It's important to point out that a humiliated Randy, not Knol, removed the offending content. With ~800 Knols, it took him three days!
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Perhaps you'd be kind enough to simply enumerate a list of suggestions in the comments like you did for the Wikipedia issue (which we are still studying). With gratitude,
Murry
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Alec Radford
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Regarding Sara
Its quite obvious many of Sara's How To Knols are copied from Mahalo. However Mahalo's Terms of service state:
"Mahalo's search result pages, Guide Notes and Fast Facts, and all other content are copyrighted under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States license. Under this license, anyone is free to copy, distribute, display, and to use Mahalo's content to make derivative works provided that the content used is attributed to Mahalo in both plain English and via a hypertext link and notice is given that the content is being used under the terms of this license. Additionally, should the material be used in print form, the full URL address of the source material must be included in the attribution language. "
As far as I can tell Sara's knols fulfill these requirements. From a legal stand point she is clear of any Plagiarism problems, containing both plain English and hyperlink attribution.
I don't know if anything can be done as I can't find anything violated in Knols Terms of Service either.
Still its sad that one of knols most viewed authors contains huge amounts of un-original work.
None of Sara knols the fact that it is copied from Mahalo is mentioned, in many cases without video. The hyperlink is provided as a reference. It may be legal but it is not very ethical.
Do we want quality badges and text to speech honor going to copy and paste authors through algorithm. The Quality badge and text to speech must be reseved for original content knols and authors IMHO.
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We have a similar situation to Randy. K in that there is ZERO display of who Sara really is. This in my mind makes up over 50% of my reasons to be suspicious.
Alex, thanks for you help, how many Knols did you see were "attributed to Mahalo in both plain English ..."? I have not found any mention of Mahalo in plain English yet.
Is Sara real? She has written no comments and no reviews. No bio no summary page. Another ghost?
Also, it appears that a Sara does originate articles on Mahalo. Is it the same Sara? Is she just copying her original article in to the Knol Library? More checking out needed with benefit of the doubt favoring Sara until proven. I will also ask for a please explain from Sara on her popular Knols.
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Krishan, I am in no way supporting Sara. I agree wholeheartedly with you that action should be taken against "her". Just expressing the fact that we can not pursue the copyright violations. We need another way, perhaps present this case to Knol Help and let them take due action?
Peter, She is definitely one of those authors who is everywhere, in terms of pageviews and Knols, but nowhere, in terms of identification or comments. However, I doubt she represents Mahalo, they would be much more open about who they are and not just selecting a few cases to present on Knol. Adding to that, one of the knols Sara copies, How to Get Medical Marijuana Card, the original author on Mahalo has been banned. I doubt if she represented Mahalo she would link to an article like that as well. Finally the articles she chooses on Mahalo come from many different authors, she can't possibly have written them all on Mahalo.
She is a ghost shielding whoever is behind her from problems. Anyone know if she has Adsense active on her knols? We could possibly oppose her on those grounds.
Now, I think all her How To's from Mahalo do have attribution. For instance, How to Make Curry Powder http://knol.google.c
Contributed to Mahalo.com by Liz Casler.
Scanning her other knols, HT Bleach Hair, HT Read Music, HT Cut Household expenses, HT Make Lemonade, HT Make Chocolate Cookies, HT Write a Resignation Letter, HT Read Food Labels, HT Go Green In Your Kitchen, all have similar attribution methods. I think its safe to say all her knols are covered this way.
So whats next, alert Knol Help? By the way is there a way I can more directly communicate with you guys. Or do you wish to keep these investigations public. My email is Alec.Radford[AT]gmai
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I popped a question on the Mahalo site and this is the first response so far:
"I checked a couple of the Knols she made and they appear to be completely copied from Mahalo.com.
Usually it is OK to quote other other websites but it is considered to be inappropriate to completely copy pages from other websites.
The Mahalo Terms of Service state under Proprietary Rights
"You own your Content. We claim no intellectual property rights over the Content you provide to the Services through your Mahalo Account. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours."
http://www.mahalo.co
So I guess the people who created these Mahalo pages could claim intellectual property rights and ask her to remove these Knols.
Source(s):
http://www.mahalo.co
I agree that she is not Mahalo. She had Adsense enabled but not on all her Knols. I will flag Knol-Help simply to alert them to the fact that we may have another top ranked plagiarizer. We all remember Randy K. The best we can do is track down the original authors and have them complain + alert the Knol community. The steps we have outlined above should be explored. Thanks for putting in the 'hard-yards' with us Alex.
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The gray areas that come up for Sara should be answered by her. Has anyone commented to her to elicit a response? if she's non-responsive, it strengthens recommendation we make to Knol Help. My take is that she's an inactive Knol writer. Let me know or just go ahead and ask her, diplomatically.
Alec, thank you for noting the lack of originality in her work. You've also identified a chief characteristic to be avoided at Knol, and possibly an indicator of pirated material.
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Spiros Kakos
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Help promote this Plagiarism Reporting Knol - Add it as a Favorite!
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