All this is pretty contreversial. Sure that is personal experience we are talking. But if it was only an informational book, and some compiled a list of 10 articles on a subject, that fit perfectly, that would be as interesting as being able to use 10 code libraries perfectly to make something perfect. Ok I’m babbling there ;-)^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H[...]

That would get your heart pounding I bet.

Ideas themselves are not copyrightable; only their unique expression is. I also don’t think it’s unethical to borrow ideas from various sources and re-organize them — to me that’s how we grow, by churning others’ ideas through our own consciousness, combining them with personal experience, and presenting new variations. For example, if you read something on this site which you consider to be a good idea, you’re totally free to share it with others in your own words. If you were to write an academic paper, it might be standard procedure to credit every source you can recall, but I don’t think that’s necessary (nor common) for less formal publication outlets. Nevertheless, if I want to present or review ideas from a single book that I feel is unique (at least unique in my experience), then I’ll name the source. I’ve done this in previous blog entries like “Levels of Consciousness” and in articles like “Clean Up That Mess.” But I don’t tend to do this if there are something like 10+ different sources, especially if I can’t even recall them all.

Copying dozens of paragraphs of text verbatim, however, is copyright infringement because then you aren’t just borrowing ideas but copying their unique expression. Even if you credit the source in that case, it’s still illegal to do so w/o permission. Fair use provides certain exceptions, but passing off someone’s exact text as your own isn’t one of them.

The “I have to/I choose to” and “I must finish/I must start” are from the chapter “how to talk to yourself”. “Replace Deprivation With Guaranteed Fun” is from the chapter “Guilt-free play, quality work”.

Now, I remember you saying you were reading a ridiculously large amount of books, so one way or another you probably just remembered those points and not the book they were from. But still, you present it as *your* content, though it is actually lifted from a book. This just shows how easy it is to make an error with this.

Again, the thing you’re experiencing now seems much more serious. Reminds me of a PhD collegue who literally saw a paper written by him in the proceedings of a conference with somebody else’s name on it. He did manage to keep the guy from presenting it, but in the end it was al hushed up and swept under the carpet to protect some sensitive professors’ reputations… I really hope you’ve got more luck with it.

Reinout

I wrote a freeware units conversion program and one of the functions in it was to convert between various scales of steel hardness. These scales do not have simple mathematical relationships and the conversions are done using empirical tables drawn up from experimental work. Anyway, I searched the internet and included about 20 of these scales.

After a few months I received an email from a manufacturer of hardness testing equipment very politely informing me that I had infringed their trademark by using their name to label one of the hardness scales. Largely because they started off so politely (but it was obvious they were carrying a big stick) we were able to work out a solution where (for no cost) they allowed me to continue using their name provided I acknowledged their trademark and explained the situation in the help function, plus I put a link into my program to their web page.

This was a nice win-win result. I have their data and blessing, and they get links from a program that gets about 120 downloads per day.

Perhaps you can get to a similar result? If the author retains your articles in his book, but explains that they are written by you and includes a link to your site he will have a better book than he could have written himself and you will get publicity (and some money if you agree on royalties). My advice is to start off politely, but use a lawyer to write the letter to make it clear you are carrying the big stick behind your back.

BTW, I hope you will classify me as a “clueless” and not a malicious plagiarizer!