Of late, I came across some publications in which the authors used pirated photographs (obtained from secondary sources) very cleverly without any acknowledgement, as if these were shot by the authors themselves! I would like to know whether such photo-piracy amounts to plagiarism.
Borrowing from University of Oxford Website:
Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement. All published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under this definition. Plagiarism may be intentional or reckless, or unintentional.
Photographic piracy is more than plagiarism, it is copyright infringement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement) and usually leads to legal actions (compensation claims) and even legal prosecution, whereas "ordinary" plagiarism (copying parts of a text without citing the source) leads only to academic sanctions but usually not to legal ones.
Dear Tapas Chakrabarty ,
I think copying photographs would be considered as plagiarism if they were being presented as someone's own work as part of an academic publication.
Dear Tapas Chakrabarty
most definitely. There is a reasons why websites like the Copyrights Clearance Center exist. Intentional copyright infringement can get really expensive, really quickly.
Best
Marcel
Indeed it is case of plagiarism.
Kindly see the following book review.
A blatant case of plagiarism: S. S. Negi’s “Handbook of fir and spruce trees of the world”: Handbook of fir and spruce trees of the world, by S. S. Negi. Taxon 46(2):159-162.1997.
The author took some images from a another author's books and published inverted photos to make everyone feel that the photographs were taken by him !
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356377643_Misinterpretations_and_plagiarism_in_a_publication_about_Himalayan_Impatiens_polemics_with_the_paper_of_Singh_RK_et_al_2021
This paper is also based on false Materials and methods and pirated photographs:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323687463_Material_culture_of_the_ethnic_aboriginal_Jarawa_folk_in_Andaman_Islands_India
Another example of plagiarism and photographic piracy:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310898154_Ethnobotanical_studies_of_the_dwindling_aboriginal_Jarawa_tribe_in_Andaman_Islands_India
Tapas Chakrabarty many thanks for addressing this problem! We were unable to add paper dealing with Himalayan Impatiens to this discussion before publication of our polemic.
In the case of "Misinterpretations..." even worse than photopiracy is fabrication of documentation and false claims.
Unfortunately for our opponents I well remember pictures of I. violoides from efloraofindia, as these are only (two of total three) pictures of this species available on internet. This is also very bad behavior, as author of these pictures passed away and can't fought back.
We were unable to contact authors of copyrighted pictures to make them aware of stealing their pictures. But cropping image of I. balfourii (The Flora of Pakistan, https:// pakflora.com/pkflora/pakflora/findspp. php?spp=Impatiens%20balfourii, used as Figure 4, bottom right) to remove copyright mark or cutting two pieces, used as Fig. 9G and 9H in "Misinterpretations..." from one picture (https://plinthetal.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/impatiens.jpg) was absolute shock for me.
I welcome all interested persons to visit: Article Misinterpretations and plagiarism in a publication about Him...
@Wojciech please look at the other two links posted by me. They all are shameless people and they will do it again.
Tapas Chakrabarty how is it possible? As far as I know reports sent to Director of BSI are not publicly available, if not published.
By the way, could you post some of your stolen pictures and point which ones in these "publications" are pirated?
Wojciech Adamowski in fact the field reports including photographs submitted by me and my co-workers to the Director, BSI were handed over the particular person (who did plagiarism) for compilation of the Consolidated Report which was finally passed on to the Andaman and Nicobar Admistation, Port Blair (who arranged the field studies following a Court case) for further necessary action. This was a classified document that time. As soon as the same was declassified by Govt. of India, the same person (who compiled the Consolidated Report), added the name of another person (who prepared the photographic plates) and published the cream of our studies in their own names. I had verbally informed the authorities of BSI but no action was taken.
I have now exposed their duplicity and plagiarism in the following publication:
Book Ethnobotany of the Jarawa tribe of Andaman Islands, India (w...
authors used pirated photographs (obtained from secondary sources) very cleverly without any acknowledgement, as if these were shot by the authors themselves!...............Sir, How you can justify this statement? authors may forget to mention the source of images or owner of the photographs in the acknowledgements. Did authors claim those photographs were shot by them? if yes, then I agree with you.
After joining Kolkata office I taken leave (went to home) for nearly 3 weeks. After coming back to office I came across the piracy issue related to my paper.
Yes, as a lead author of Impatiens paper I done a mistake that I have not check the source of some images send by some of my friends from western Himalayan region. While working on this article I requested some of my friends for images of Impatiens as I have to chose good closeup images of impatiens flowers.
Who sent you images? Can you name them ? And is it your first publication ? Don't you know the basic norms of journal publication? What a lame excuse for face saving? Shame!
I included some images send by my friends from western Himalayan region in my article, as knowing that images are there, not aware of the real source. As the article was lengthy I paid more attention on typification, merging, field observations by me and other authors, protologues, type and other herbarium specimens, and live specimens seen by me and coauthors. My friends of western Himalaya are working in small towns colleges, good field workers but not aware of broad spectrum of plagiarism and photographic piracy. Today I called them and told about these issue, they told that they are not knowing that the images taken from net also comes under piracy. They told that data and images stolen from published literature comes under plagiarism and photographic piracy. Then I clarified images taken from net also comes under this in a broad sense.
As I am the lead author of the article, it's my mistake and for that in coming article I will write apologies for this.
Further, as per best of my knowledge all the typification are correct as per the rules of code. If any mistake is/are let me know, we will correct it in coming article.
Merging of species are absolutely correct and proper justification are given in the article, one should read carefully in between the lines or line by line.
Yes it is correct that the authors whose species are merged will not agree with our work. It's there opinion/wish etc.
@ Saroj Kumar Kasaju
It is not my first publication and I know the ethics and basic norms of publications. What you think, that we have done this knowingly. This is the cyber era and the published articles are available online in many forms. Me and coauthors are uploading articles online or providing the doi/link. Anybody can caught the stolen/pirated things.
In many of my and coauthor/s publication you can see that if we use the images of others we have given acknowledgement/s.
Recently, in one article published in Feddes Journal we acknowledge you for your images (taken by Dipankar from you).
We will not loose anything if we add few lines in acknowledgements section for images or help.
I am not giving excuse for face saving. Yes I done a mistake I admitting it. I apologise for my mistake and carelessness. In coming article we will published our apologies.
I read the article https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356377643_Misinterpretations_and_plagiarism_in_a_publication_about_Himalayan_Impatiens_polemics_with_the_paper_of_Singh_RK_et_al_2021
Thanks to Gogoi et al. for providing the source of images, which I have not given.
Further the scientific language/temperament of the authors are superb.
From a region northeast India nearly 25 new species of impatiens within less than a decade by Gogoi et al. Great!
Earlier Kerala is the mines of new species, now northeast India become the hub. I am not saying that novelty cannot be found in northeast India, but this much? . We have also find some novelties from NE india.
If in one diverse genus Impatiens, this much novelties can be found by Gogoi et al. then others diverse genera of Angiosperm how much new species can be created..............
I can't calculate and tolerate as I am lumper.
I am also weak in maths.
At last I will say ....... in my next article on Impatiens of Himalaya I will again merged all the reinstated species with more justifications. If possible microscopic and molecular evidences can also be added. This time I will give the source of images.
One more thing I am not the botanist who depend only on government/department for conducting field tours. I can roam many regions of India by own, by the help friends and by many more ways. When there is a will there .............
Book on Indian Impatiens by my team........ But time taking work...
as we are slow worker.....
Thanks Tapas Sir for your question. I learn a lot from this and will learn in future also.
Leave aside photographs. Even using idea of others comes under plagiarism
Photographs are also data, particularly when taken by a person associated with plant identification or any other taxonomic work. A person in field work invest a lot of hard work to obtain good photographs very similar to a plant collector toiling hard to obtain good representative specimen (more so when it is interesting species). I, as a teacher and guide, always ask students not to use others images in their work. Even in their seminar presentations I ask them to mention source and acknowledge it.
Copying data is plagiarism, so copying photographs must be considered plagiarism.
Rajeev Kumar Singh : I do not want to use harsh and unpleasant words for your lame excuses. Non of your reply satisfies me . All points are an eyewash. Why do not you disclose the names of persons who provided you with the photographs and you simply accepted without the names photographs? Go through the opnion of other members and feel some shame. I am not going to entertain any of your reply anymore!
Thank you all members supporting against the plagiarism !
It is clearly a plagiarism. Not acknowledging the source is greater crime.
Rajeev Kumar Singh lame excuses! There was time (six months) to publish erratum, with acknowledgements - we were able to prepare our polemics in this time, despite field work. If anyone has doubts, please compare picture from The Flora of Pakistan page, https:// pakflora.com/pkflora/pakflora/findspp. php?spp=Impatiens%20balfourii and Fig. 4 bottom right in Singh et al. 2021. There is no excuse for using copyrighted picture and this could be really costly...
Wojciech Adamowski
Don't worry I know the Indian law about the images found in google images, not published in book or online journal.
What I have to do I will do the best for my careless and mistake.
I will also come will my polemics soon....
We have not stolen or copied any kind of research work of others from published book/s and journal/s or online published books and journals.
From my field of research - entomology, often high-quality photographs are published in atlases (for this, expensive digital cameras are used) that not everything can do. Therefore, we always write the authorship of a particular photo. If the authorship is indicated in the publication, this is not plagiarism, otherwise - yes. Google has tools for checking images for plagiarism, although they are not perfect.
Regards, Sergey
Hi Dr Tapas Chakrabarty . I agree with
Dr Dharmendra Singh Rawat &
Dr Subir Bandyopadhyay
Thank you .
I found a big data piracy in a paper published by three Scientists in an Indian journal published in January 2022.
