I just finished reading a story about another NY Times reporter in trouble for plagiarising material in his stories and was wondering if anything had ever come of Multi Media International's plagiarism of ETS. If so, what has happened, and if not, do you think this might be a good time to push it with these two cases already in the media?

Hutch66,

This has raised my curiosity from time to time as well.

Hopefully ETS was able to gain some renumeration. Often times in these kinds of events there is a gag clause in the settlement, so Doug may not even really be able to discuss it privately, much less on an open forum though.

Comanche7

Unfortunately, we reached a dead end due to the expense of proceeding. MMI had admitted the plagiarism, made feeble excuses, promised to consider a financial settlement based on their profits. After months and months of avoiding our calls and emails they advised that the issue had poor sales and that they lost money. While I don't for one minute believe this slimeball, because the articles plagiarized were not registered (made financially difficult due to bias against online publications in the administration of the law) and because the cost of proceeding to a lawsuit was so high, we had little choice but to drop the effort. We have been contacted by numerous others who have had similar or other problems with MMI, but there is no rational way to combine resources to go after them. He seems to have made a career out of stealing others' work and his it down to the details. Such is life in the big time. You only get the justice you can afford, never forget that.

Doug hit the plagaristic nail on the head - you can get justice, IF you can afford it. He was lucky enough to even find a lawyer who was willing to take his case. Many, many, many lawyers will listen to your grievance politely, ask what you hope to recover, run the numbers in their head and then, just as politely, tell you that they can't help you but perhaps what's-his-name down the road can. The best way to deal with these cyber-plagarists is to not buy their stuff and give them bad recommendations at every opportunity.

Doug, When we said "The Pledge of Alligiance" while children in school, they never taught us the complete version, with four words left out. ".... with liberty and justice for all... who can afford it!" Even though we reside in the best country on the planet, Shakespear may have had something right about lawyers. dfabes

I'm embarassed to say that I actually bought one of the books in question when they came out (after 9/11, I got it as an impulse buy at the grocery checkout). Then a while later I found ETS. Needless to say I got "deja vu" right quick as I read the site. I just hate that you couldn't make them pay somehow, as it is BLATANT plagiarism!!! <img src="images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />