Plagiarism on the Internet

Once upon a time, Freyashawk devoted a good portion of her life to the usually unpaid task of writing Strategy Guides for games.  These Guides were published first on IGN and then on her own sites.   IGN often compensated her with free games, but not much else.  The real reward was the appreciation of her readers.

Recently, while on a cruise and having little ability to use the internet except for brief moments, I began to play Harvest Moon, 'A New Beginning' seriously.   I thought I would look for a guide for the game.  Imagine my surprise and disgust when the Guide at Gamefaqs contained the text of my entire Guide for the game VERBATIM!  No credit given to Freyashawk whatsoever.

Freyashawk has a very distinct writing style, created partly in order to discourage plagiarism of this sort.  Evidently, shamelessness reigns on Gamefaqs.  This is not the first time a guide of mine has been stolen in its entirety and published verbatim on that site.  I did go through legal channels once to have a stolen guide removed, but it was a long, arduous process.

Anyway, SHAME ON YOU, Gamefaqs!  And shame upon every individual who steals the intellectual work of another.

We do the work in order to assist other players and make the game more enjoyable for every one, but it is discouraging when people steal information.  Giving credit to he author would be sufficient.

I was going to update the guide for 'A New Beginning' but why should I go to the trouble now when the information will be stolen by some one else?  Writing any good comprehensive guide for a game can take months.    The effort should be appreciated.

Meanwhile, a good friend (who always was a fan of my game guides) sent me a copy of the new Animal Crossing game for the 3DS.  I had intended to write a guide for THAT game, but again, why should I bother in the circumstances?

The entertainment/gaming sites have taken their own step to eliminate the need to pay or acknowledge the work of guide writers by creating Wikis for games instead of publishing individual guides.  In fact, I was asked by IGN to take charge of some of the Harvest Moon Wikis.  I refused.  I cannot think of anything less satisfying and more frustrating than the job of overseeing and making contributions to a Wiki.  It would be similar to a job of overseeing and attempting to control a classroom filled with juvenile delinquents. 

A Wiki is different from a Guide in a couple of ways.  Almost any one can make an addition or change to the material.  The reason why some one has to manage the site is in order to go through the material constantly to weed out false or faulty information, as well as totally inappropriate rude or obscene entries.  As previously indicated, I cannot imagine anything less satisfying than that.

Why am I publishing this post here?  Many of the players of Family Farm Seaside play the original Family Farm as well.  There are moderators on the Fairplay Farming Neighbours Site who create and publish mini-guides for almost every aspect of the game, including all the Missions and Quests.  That is one of the reasons I am not publishing Quests and Missions information on the little Family Farm site I created for the original Facebook game.  Why duplicate excellent work?  I may ask for permission, however, to publish the documents on my own site, giving full credit to the individuals who wrote them originally.  I have seen complaints on the site to the effect that people have copied the information entirely without permission and without crediting the source.  Such behaviour ultimately will lead to disillusionment for the person who works tirelessly on behalf of fans to create timely, comprehensive guides.

I therefore urge every one not only to demonstrate a little grateitude when they find a site with good information about a game they like and to make certain that any copying of the information has the permission of the author and gives full credit to that author.