Well, the website of this journal (which publishes conferenc proceedings, probably in connection with predatory conferences) looks fishy to me. It is not unlikely that they needed contributions to fill their conference proceedings and just took them where they found them.

More generally speaking, there are a few possibilities:

- If the publisher who published your article first is the same as the publisher who published your article a second time and you signed away your copyright (gave it to the publisher), then there is little you can do except complaining with the journal editors' Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

- If the second publisher is different, and you signed away the copyright to the first publisher, I would complain to them because it is now their role to enforce the copyright.

- If your first article was open access under some public license, there is little you can do beyond what you did already. I would still try the Committee on Publication Ethics. you could also try and sue them at acourt in Azerbaijan, but somehow I don't think this is aviable option.

There's no call for alarm. First, try to understand whether the journal is an open access. Second, identify its publisher, and probably their allies, I mean their network. Third, try to find out whether the journal belongs to Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ). Fourth, you know there's a movement for open access. Even though at present, only 18% of the journals are open but the remaining are subscription journals, probably the journal that published your work has a collaborative agreement with a publisher or another journal, which is superior to it, and if published your work, there would be a larger coverage than can the single journal.

In effect, no need to worry about it.

Murtala, I do think there is reason to be alarmed. Whatever the causes, this is now a case of forced self-plagiarism, which is unethical. Furthermore, publishing something without even notifying the author is unethical, too.

Thank you, Prof. Jochen Glaser, my situation is the second case. And yes, my paper is open accessed.

And yes, I try to contact them through various ways Mr. Murtala Ismail Adakawa

(1) I tried to contact them by email, both editor and personal email, but they just ignored me

(2) I try to contact them through Facebook

(3) I try to contact them over the account on ResearchGate too

(4) I found Azerbaijan University on Facebook, which put a commercial for them, and contacted the university over Whatsapp. They even answer me that the University does not exist

No matter what I do, they simply do not respond... I kinda give up hope and think I should just let it be. It's good to know that many others got the same problem as I do.

Dear Prof. Jochen Glaser. I think the journal must have shared with him a document to sign upon which he responded prior to agreeing that his manuscript be included in the journal. Even though a lot of researchers expressed worries that the legal language or terminology is difficult to comprehend especially for early career researchers, in a single puzzle, the language can result in someone signing what he/she doesn't intend to sign. I think the attention of the researcher has to be drawn to this fact: Has he ever signed an agreement with the journal that published his manuscript? Probably, from the contents and context of the text in the agreement, there's a portion dedicated to such statement unknown to the author. Furthermore, sometimes, the author is eager to see his/her investigation published, they don't ask professors or versatile scholars about the implications inherent in the agreement text.

Dear Nguyen Phurong,

Mostly, open access (OA) journals have the copyright of the published article. By implications, this means that, even though you are the author of your work, they are the custodians of its continuity, sustainability, responsibility, accountability, in most cases. There's a debate on whose responsibility for the continuity of digital information resource online: author, publisher, journal, institutions, etc.? According to most scholars, it's the publisher or journal and the author is at liberty to self-archive the published work on social networks like ResearchGate, Google Scholar, to mention but a few.

Therefore, it's just in line with some legal provisions that empower journals or publishers to hydrolyze or break the complex legal structure of closed access to open access. Please bear this point in mind.

Best wishes.

Dear Mr. Murtala Ismail Adakawa. The IMCRA does not ask me to sign anything. They just published it without telling me. I just became aware of the paper because another of my papers (not this one) received a plagiarism alert, as I used a portion of my old work in writing a new one.

Dear Mr. Murtala Ismail Adakawa

Does this mean there is nothing I can do now?

Dear Nguyễn Phương Could you give the details of your (original) paper? The only paper I found with you as author is in Vietnamese. As far as I can see this paper and the paper on the IMCRA site are not related (figures are different etc.).

Best regards.

Hello Nguyễn Phương

I agree with Jochen Glaser that this appears very unethical. And thank you further clarifying your situation.

I think the interpretation by Murtala Ismail Adakawa of how this all came about is correct, also.

I think there is actually little you can do now if they have chosen to ignore you in your attempts to contact them. You can try going to their physical place but I am unsure if this will achieve anything further.

Thank you everyone, for your suggestions. As they are completely ignoring me. And I am really tired of this continuous tracking for them and being ignored again.

We are working with the publisher to clear things up and make a choice of either revising our version or just letting it be. And yes, I think I will just give up and move on. On the bright side, they gave me free publicity, although it is an unknown and untrustworthy source.

However, if anyone has found any way to contact them and got a response. Please let me know. I won't mind annoying and spamming them for the next several years.

I appreciate your help!

Dear Nguyễn Phương ,

Thanks for uploading the paper that is published in “Res Militaris” and which is duplicated by another journal. I am afraid that part of the source of the problem is the journal “Res Militaris” I think that you are the victim of a journal that shows all characteristics of a hijacked journal or equally worse that has been taken over by a questionable management. I suspect that the website https://resmilitaris.net is the cloned version of what used to be a genuine and legit journal or is now handled by people with questionable intentions.

The red flags are:

-The journal is originally from France https://portal.issn.org/resource/ISSN/2265-6294 while nowadays there seems to be no connection with France anymore

-According to the ‘Scopus content coverage’, which can be checked here https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/21100908447 , they published a staggering increase of more than 50-fold more papers in 2022 (this is often a reason for discontinuation in Scopus) Update: 16-1-2023 They are now discontinued (see enclosed file).

-Disturbing comments can be read here (in the comment section) https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=21100908447&tip=sid&exact=no

-Contact info is vague and mostly likely mentions a virtual office address

-Indexing info at the bottom of the page here https://resmilitaris.net/about-us/ mentions for example DRJI a notorious example of so-called misleading metrics (https://beallslist.net/misleading-metrics/ ) often used by predatory journals

-Also, the mentioning of the DOAJ logo is fake because they are no member

-They are mentioned here https://oresjournals.info and the last couple of years I came across them whenever I searched for journal info (when there were all sorts of issues)

The journal that basically stole your paper is not free of issues either

https://imcra-az.org/uploads/public_files/2022-05/22-sei.pdf :

-Looking at https://imcra-az.org I see in their indexing info another notorious example of a misleading metric named CiteFactor (and DRJI …)

-They ‘normally’ charge 300 USD fee https://imcra-az.org/publication-fee.html

-I found quite easily numerous examples of other papers initially published in other journals:

Example https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=54463 and https://imcra-az.org/uploads/public_files/2022-05/science-education-and-innovations-in-the-context-of-modern-problems-2020-2-22-28.pdf

Example https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=33658 and https://imcra-az.org/uploads/public_files/2022-05/science-education-and-innovations-in-the-context-of-modern-problems-2020-2-52-65.pdf

Example https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=67269 and https://imcra-az.org/uploads/public_files/2022-05/science-education-and-innovations-in-the-context-of-modern-problems-2020-2-108-129.pdf

Example https://johuns.net/index.php/publishing/131.pdf and https://imcra-az.org/uploads/public_files/2022-05/irina.pdf

I am afraid that the people behind all this are so clearly fraudulent that any normal action (like request to retract etc.) will indeed be in vain. Sad that these things happen and are possible.

Best regards.

The act of publishing without your permission is actually stealing . But Nguyễn Phương , what are your damages?

They provide you with free advertising and promotion. I agree that they are doing it for their benefit.  I would not spend a lot of time  on fighting. The only problem I see is that the citation could be to their journal vs the place that you want.   I hope and believe that it can be fixed to some extent.  Let me tell you about my situation. My books were published by all kinds of publishers/websites.  First I fight it. For example, the University of Florida published my book and without permission the book violating my copyright.

They even bought  isbn  number for my book.   These over 1000 publishers are actually promoting my books.  While I lost some money selling my own books,  the time spent fighting with them will be a greater loss.  I am not sure that you could sell your paper, but you got advertisement has some value.   You have to know that promoting books is very hard and important.