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Is copying a form of flattery?
August 5, 2005
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Scott - DCSki Editor
August 1, 2005
Member since 10/10/1999 🔗
1,252 posts
Here on DCSki, we take great pride in producing original content. So I was a bit dismayed to learn another site had swiped our content without permission or credit.

Here is the content on DCSki.com, written by me, and published on November 14, 2004 (located at http://www.dcski.com/articles/view_article.php?article_id=746&mode=headlines):

Quote:

November 14, 2004 - Maryland's Wisp Resort will be selling a new Wisp Advantage Card for the 2004-2005 season, providing skiers and boarders with season-long savings. With the purchase of the Advantage Card, visitors will receive discounts up to 40% on lift tickets, rentals, lessons and snow tubing seven days a week including holidays. Every Advantage Card holder will also receive one free Wisp lift ticket valid opening day through December 24, 2004 and midweek non-holidays only from January 3 - March 28, 2005. Through December 1, every Advantage Card holder will also receive one free unrestricted lift ticket at either Colorado's Streamboat Springs or Utah's The Canyons. The Wisp Advantage Card is priced at $59 for adults, $39 for students, and $29 for children 12 and under.

Wisp will also celebrate its 49th birthday this season by rolling back prices of lift tickets, lessons and rentals to its opening day prices on December 12-13, 2004. On Sunday, December 12 and Monday, December 13, 2004, a two-day lift ticket will be $7 per person, a two-day equipment rental will be $7 per person, and a group ski or snowboard lesson will be $7 per person. A Saturday-Sunday-Monday lift ticket will be sold for $24 per person.

Once again, Wisp will offer its "Ski Free with a B" program for Fourth Grade students. Fourth Graders with a "B" average or higher can bring their report card to Guest Services to pick up a free 2004-2005 season pass.



Here is the content on skinc.com, published on December 7, 2004 (located at http://skinc.com/article.asp?id=50 ):

Quote:

Maryland's Wisp Resort will be selling a new Wisp Advantage Card for the 2004-2005 season, providing skiers and boarders with season-long savings. With the purchase of the Advantage Card, visitors will receive discounts up to 40% on lift tickets, rentals, lessons and snow tubing seven days a week including holidays. Every Advantage Card holder will also receive one free Wisp lift ticket valid opening day through December 24, 2004 and midweek non-holidays only from January 3 - March 28, 2005. Through December 1, every Advantage Card holder will also receive one free unrestricted lift ticket at either Colorado's Streamboat Springs or Utah's The Canyons. The Wisp Advantage Card is priced at $59 for adults, $39 for students, and $29 for children 12 and under.

Wisp will also celebrate its 49th birthday this season by rolling back prices of lift tickets, lessons and rentals to its opening day prices on December 12-13, 2004. On Sunday, December 12 and Monday, December 13, 2004, a two-day lift ticket will be $7 per person, a two-day equipment rental will be $7 per person, and a group ski or snowboard lesson will be $7 per person. A

Saturday-Sunday-Monday lift ticket will be sold for $24 per person.



It looks like this was copied and pasted verbatim, but even the copy and paste was a poor job, because an extra linefeed was added in the second paragraph!

Many of the "What's New" articles are based on press releases from resorts, so some similarity is expected -- just not quite that much similarity. As always, I appreciate folks alerting me to instances of copyright infringement, since DCSki's writers spend a lot of time researching stories and producing original content.
jimmy
August 1, 2005
Member since 03/5/2004 🔗
2,650 posts
Scott, Had they given the true author credit for the article it's flattery, since they didn't is it not capital "P"?

Here they give credit AND make some flattering remarks re: our forum, nice
gatkinso
August 2, 2005
Member since 01/25/2002 🔗
316 posts
Well, the copyright notice is pretty obvious at the bottom of your page. I would be tempted to take the matter up with them!
Scott - DCSki Editor
August 2, 2005
Member since 10/10/1999 🔗
1,252 posts
It's a clear case of plagiarism. I've notified the site operator of the issue but so far haven't received a response. Sorry to vent.. This type of thing just makes me upset.

And now that I look at SkiNC's page further, I see that many of the paragraphs in their Snowshoe entry of that page are also directly swiped, word for word, from DCSki. As well as Canaan Valley, Bryce, and the Homestead. Not cool.
bawalker
August 3, 2005
Member since 12/1/2003 🔗
1,547 posts
Scott - Would that blame fall on the SkiNC owner, or do they have 'staff' that do articles and stories for the site that posted it?
gatkinso
August 3, 2005
Member since 01/25/2002 🔗
316 posts
Add some Javascript to disable the left button - or better yet override the event handler to have it pop up a window with DCSki's Copyright notice in it.
snowcone
August 3, 2005
Member since 09/27/2002 🔗
589 posts
I pulled the following from WHOIS ...

Registrant:
AppNet Designs (mike@appnet.com)
AppNet Designs
9649 US Hwy 105 South Suite 4
Banner Elk, NC 28604
US
828-963-7286

Administrative, Technical, Billing Contact:
Michael Doble (mike@appnet.com)
AppNet.com
9649 US Hwy 105 South Suite 4
Banner Elk, NC 28604
US
828-963-7286

And the Netcraft Hosting history is here ...
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://www.skinc.com

Additional info here ... http://appnet.com/our_portfolio.htm ... it seems to me that the site is in-house. In other words, it looks like you are dealing with a company that is into ripping off DCSki prose and I expect their other ski/board websites might be built in a similar fashion.

Is there anything we, as your members, can do to help you out in this? Call, complain etc.?
jimmy
August 3, 2005
Member since 03/5/2004 🔗
2,650 posts
Quote:

It's a clear case of plagiarism. I've notified the site operator of the issue but so far haven't received a response. Sorry to vent.. This type of thing just makes me upset.



Scott, I guess the internet can be a dirty place. Maybe we can take this approach; snowcone knows where they live. First we get a spy in NC.....i don't trust thet fishnski guy, maybe andy will do it. Anyway, once we have some intel, we'll get lbotta to plan an airstrike on the plagarist, we could even hijack a metro car and run the dcski infantry down to do some bannner elk hunting. Did you know that the Secretary of the State of West Virginia once decalred war on the Commonwealth of Kentucky? DCski vs ncski?

Seriously, this is like someone broke into your house and stole from you. Least the GAPERS could do is take it off their home page or give some credit.
Roy
August 5, 2005
Member since 01/11/2000 🔗
609 posts
I've got a friend that lives in that area and is constantly on the NCSki sight. I've always said it was a rip off but didn't know it was at this extreme.

Scott, the content you have on the resorts, etc., is it words you created or is it from press releases for the resorts?

I think DCSkier's should peruse the NCSki sight to look for articles that we know were written by our people. If things had to go further, this might be the stronger case builder.

BTW, I'm not a lawyer I'm just thinking out loud. Surely there has to be a lawyer out there that could give some advice.
gatkinso
August 5, 2005
Member since 01/25/2002 🔗
316 posts
Go to the Wayback machine and pull their past articles.
Scott - DCSki Editor
August 5, 2005
Member since 10/10/1999 🔗
1,252 posts
I've been in touch with the operator of SkiNC and he ensures me he is looking into the problem and will take appropriate steps, and make sure it doesn't happen again.

I never republish press releases verbatim. Many of the stories on "What's New" are based on press releases, but I always take the content and rewrite it in my own style while adding any extra insight I can (such as comparing changes to past years, etc.) I would expect similar stories to appear on ski web sites that are based on the same press release, but when the stories are word-for-word identical for multiple paragraphs, it's obvious plagiarism occurred.

We've caught other sites swiping DCSki's content in the past. For example, a real estate company stole one of Jarrett's articles a couple years ago. If someone asks for permission to republish a story, I don't think I've ever said no (and in the case of DCSki Columnists, I defer the decision to them), but a lot of folks don't understand that you can't just grab a story from a copyrighted web site and use it any way you choose.

I appreciate the support and apologize for venting. If anyone does come across anything on other sites that smells like DCSki content, please let me know.

Ski and Tell

Snowcat got your tongue?

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