Re: Plagiarism Story Part V

Robins,

Am I making all of this up? Yes. Everyday I write just a little bit
more. I try to figure out what to say, how to say it and what to leave
until later. I have no outline...just an outflowing of recollections,
anecdotes  and  miscellaneous information, but all backed up with
written documentation of all kinds.

Part V of the story resumes with anecdotal examples to prove the
general  charge against Ben concerning plagiarism within the Cultivar
Group portion of the discussion. The evidence within the Book of Sports
will be much more comprehensive and detailed...requiring more time and
space.

Ben "proposed" as his own original idea, eleven cultivar groups which
are clones  with at least four sports.He explained that his proposed
cultivar groups met the ICNCP Code by being similar in origin e.g.
having different sports from a single parent. This sounds somewhat
familiar to the words I have used..."sports which are derived from a
common progenitor". I didn't even know that the ICNCP had rules that I
was supposed to follow. I wrote the Clans and Artist's Palette articles
BEFORE the new ICNCP rules were written, published or activated. My
concern was not about rules. I was simply developing information about
sports and putting it into a form useful to AHS mambers. Ben's objective
was to USE the new rules to his advantage and use existing information
for his obvious benefit...recognition as a hosta authority by
publishing. His mistake in this undertaking was using information of
others without acknowledgment or permission.

Ask Alex Summers about this. Ben copied all of Alex's Wheel sports,
either from  the three articles mentioned previously in Journal 26.2
without attribution or from the Artist's Palette article and presented
them without permission or citation. Ben Zonnerveld "proposed" them as
"his" Cultivar Groups (Golden Nuggets). He should have checked with Alex
first. He didn't get permission, he didn't cite source of information,
he included a Mildred Seaver seedling (H.Sea Gold Star...which Alex
named for Mildred, BTW), and inserted two H. Blue Nuggets into the group
instead of one.This was all news to Alex...also news to me as I placed
these sports on their Wheels with Alex's permission. And I didn't put on
the mistakes made by Ben.

The Wheels sports of Alex Summers and all  information about them were
Alex's property. Ben stole such information about them from Alex, added
to them, made mistakes, then claimed the group of sports as Ben
Zonneveld's Proposed Cultivar Group(Golden Nugget). Something is very
wrong here. Is my description incorrect? If so, please advise me where I
am wrong. 

I believe that the thing wrong  is that Ben believes that anything once
published becomes the property of anyone who wishes to use it. THIS IS
A GROSS MISUNDERSTANDING (GM). This GM is somewhat further confounded by
the post which Ben sent to Hosta Fans on January 29, 1998. This was
about the time that Ben returned from his attendance at the Winter
Scientific Meeting with a fistfull of data on new hosta sports which he
probably wanted to put in his Book but was not sure if he should. He
expressed such frustrations in at least two posts. I quote his post on
copyright so that you can help decipher it. I had trouble.

"Dear Hosta Fans,
I found the following on copyright maybe it interests some

Although non-succulent, it is important that we make conclusions in this
discussion, so that the copywrite issue is clear, since obviously
excessive use of the material sent is unlawful.
The opinions and statements may be used in two ways:

a) as quotes used to support or deny the author's views or otherwize
provide a platform for a discussion. Such quotes are usually short
statements, one or two liners;

b) as independently self-sufficient paragraphs or chapters, pictures,
graphs, photos etc.

I believe that everything written and made public is subjected to
copyright automatically. Although a discusion, the mailing list is
archived.
As Carlos has stated:
>Unless granted to a publisher, copyright remains with the author. The >"group" is not generating this material. The individual authors in the >group are the creators. In your context, I'd consider
> permission not only an obligation but a duty. 
And unless the athor defines the copyright in some other way: full
prohibition of further use, free further use  of the material etc...
But also "fair use" is defined:
>The "fair use" exemption to copyright law was created to allow 
>things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author
In my opinion, a) is subjected to the "fair use" exemption and requires
no permission, however for b) quoting obtaining permission is obligatory
from the copywrite owner, the author or the publisher and this may be
applied to the Cacti etc mailing list quite 
easily. In both cases, citing the source is a duty. Citing out-of-date
data is a problem of the one who is citing and who may receive well 
deserved  criticism for not updating the sources.
This is a common sense rule and complies with the law. If accepted, it
could be sent to every new subscriber and archived.

Ben J.M. Zonnerveld..."
........................................

Now did you get that? Ben is all in favor in the case of using chapters,
paragraphs, pictures, graphs, etc. to require permission of the owner of
same ( the creators) before use. And in any case CITING THE SOURCE IS A
DUTY. There you have it ladies and gentlemen. Ben advocates following
the rules of copyright ( which are almost the same as avoiding
plagiary), but does not practice it.     

Through all, Ben still remains an enigma.

Jim Hawes

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