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Showing posts with label intellectual property. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intellectual property. Show all posts

Freelance Camp: Intellectual Property

I recently spoke with one of my favourite people Minna Van. Minna also known as @thenetworkhub is behind  The Network Hub a co-working space in downtown Vancouver. The hub is always full of interesting people: creatives, programmers, coders and educators to name a few. When Minna asked if I would like to speak at Vancouver's first Freelance Camp I was honoured and excited. Co-organizer @CathyBrowne describes it like this: "Freelance Camp appeals to anyone who has an entrepreneurial spirit and is working on their own, but wants to get input from other people and learn from other people at the same time." As someone who works largely on their own as a freelancer and within a large institution as an employee I know that I will benefit from the event and look forward to meeting you there.

I have been speaking for more than a year now and truly enjoy sharing what I have learned. My first big talk was at BarCamp Vancouver speaking about social media and education. One thing I recently realized is that speaking for free is not always a great thing. I will continue to speak for free to local or educational groups and at events like Freelance Camp, but researching, developing and building a 1 or 2 hour presentation takes time, lots of it. I recently completed two talks: "Understanding Social Media for your Small Business" for MPIBC and "Brave New Worlds: Social Media in the Classroom and in the Field" for the BEAC via a webinar to Toronto. I now talk about many different elements of digital culture and new media. I like it and it's fun. I asked Minna what I should talk about to provide insights and direct benefit to the audience.

Minna asked me to speak about intellectual property theft online and what to do about it when it happens. I recently had and blogged about an experience having my intellectual property stolen. To me stealing doesn't happen until someone uses my creation to try and profit without credit to me. I am happy to share for the purposes of education, but I am not happy when someone takes that spirit for granted and tries to profit from it. Please read the original story or proceed without context ;)

After I blogged about the theft and filed a copyright complaint with Slideshare; the offender, who I had warned twice previously by leaving a comment on the presentation, began contacting me via email. He was contacting me because Slideshare had suspended his account and ultimately deleted his entire document collection. He also tried to add me to LinkedIn and Facebook. I politely declined, but I wanted to share the email thread with you dear readers as the friends who I sent the emails to thought it was too good to keep locked up. So for your reading pleasure here is the email thread in the order it was received:
On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 5:42 AM, Ali Hadi wrote:

Dear Kemped Monds

You've some misunderstanding, let me clear you that presentation readjusted with new visual effects just for training purpose not for selling purpose. It's my humble request to understand the value of information "sharing", I just offered people to learn about "big three" attend workshop $100 that doesn't mean selling the presentation. Hope you'll understand and remove all your negative comments which is very bad word of mouth for me.

It's my request to understand the benefits of information, although I did mistake without your permission revise the presentation and change all visual effects. "SORRY for that"

Regards,
Ali

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 6:08 AM, Ali Hadi wrote:

I just talked again to my web-developer who did it, I mean who design this presentation for me and he accepted he did it just for training purpose not for selling purpose. So try to understand we didn't sell your presentation just change visual effects and content to create hype n traffic for our FREE workshop.

Hope you understand our situation, we believe in sharing not in theft or misuse of material.

Thanks,
Ali

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 6:27 AM, Kemp Edmonds wrote:

Resolution will come when every slide I created has my name on it. Until then I will continue with my complaint. I now understand what your team did on your end. You must know that as a "Social Media Company" using other's work without crediting or refering to them is a major mistake

If the presentation is altered to credit me for the content and my name appears at the bottom of each slide and in the first slide as the author I will be satisfied. I also believe in sharing but there is a right way (with permission and attribution and not for financial gain unless u pay the creator) and a wrong way to sharing this kind of information.

Thank you for finally contacting me personally and I hope you take the time to resolve this as I have requested. Deleting my comments and hiding the presentation was cowardly.

Kemp Edmonds

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 6:32 AM, Ali Hadi wrote:

OK, I promise with you! I'll embed original link of your presentation and courtsey by your name on each slide "Kemp Edmond".

I'm again very very SORRY on behalf of my team, hope we'll both take positive benefits from networking and learn from  each other, I know your positive man and understand my situation.

My slideshare account blocked and my all real professional work blocked, plz do me a favor send email to Rashmi and Jonathan [Jonathan and Rashimi are the principals at Slideshare] to restore my account, I will be thankful to you.

Best Regards,
Ali

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 6:42 AM, Kemp Edmonds wrote:

It's Kemp Edmonds.

I am positive and this is a learning experience mostly for you and your company. Pakistan may be on the other side of the world but the global village is tiny and I will NOT be contacting Jonathan or Rashimi. You may send them a copy of our correspondence and have them contact me to verify my wishes but this must go through the proper process. Had you acted more quickly to contact me I would not have taken the time to file the complaint.

I hope this has been a learning experience for yourself and your employees.

I am sorry for the inconvenience and negative press or word of mouth you may receive from this experience and the subsequent consequences from Slideshare but that is the price you have to pay for allowing your employees to publish the work of others as your own and allowing them to publish online under your name.

The world will become increasingly small in the years to come and learning what not to do now is a valuable lesson.

Sincerely,
Kemp Edmonds

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 6:50 PM, Ali Hadi wrote:

Dear Brother!

I'm completely agree with you but I lost my 85 slides, most of my best work which I have done in last one year. Don't know slideshare team restore my data because last time my system reinstalled and I lost of presentations and projects, please do me favor to email or fax again to Rashmi to recover my data although I have sent your text through facebook inbox to Rashmi and finding again Jonathan ID online.

We'll work together in future on many projects and ideas, I'm sure we'll do much better..I myself believe in sharing and good human relationship.

I really appreciate your kind support and your positive action!

Have a great day ahead

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 6:53 PM, Kemp Edmonds wrote:

Your data is safe and currently under review by SlideShare they did not delete your content but they may review other presentations for plagiarism. This has already been enough of a hassle for me so I will not be initiating any action to aid you. You must be the one to deal with the consequences of your actions and if that means losing all of your presentations then I am truly sad for you, but it is not my job to fix your mistake.

I would apologize here but this is your bed and you must sleep in it and learn from it.

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 7:00 PM, Ali Hadi wrote:

Thanks again! Hope you'll remove from your blog and website the word you use about my name and company.. plzzzzzzzzzzzz remove it. I will be grateful to you, Always at your service with mind set...my friend.

Good Luck in your every endeavor.
Ali
I hope you enjoyed reading the back and forth. In the interest of sharing knowledge and staying true to my request the presentation was re-uploaded by Ali Hadi complete with my name on each slide. That presentation has since been removed. If you would like a challenge check out Ali's 16 current presentations and find more stolen intellectual property. I will be awarding a FREE ticket to Freelance Camp to the person who sends me the most glaring example of IP theft. Please contact me with your find.

Please join me and many other Freelancing professionals May 29th at the Network Hub for an amazing day of discussion, sharing and learning in downtown Vancouver.

This is what I love about events like Freelance Camp and BarCamp:
Speakers are chosen democratically

Intellectual Property and Social Media: What is stealing?

Stealing is exactly what Ali Hadi of "Pakistan's First Social Media Company" Proactive Brand Solutions or Proactive Interactive did. Read on for the full story (UPDATE: Ali has requested the removal of the word 'stealing'. What other word could I use?). Last night I had a nice dinner with my family and was describing the video I made last week to my mother who calls me regularly to help her find emails or turn on the TV without turning off the cable box. She asked me if people have to pay for the short video lesson.

I spent the next five minutes unsuccessfully trying to explain the importance of offering information for free on the web. It came down to my personal belief that we can educate the world through the web by providing access to information. She really got me thinking about how I am valuing my intellectual property.

Should I work to create a pay wall? Should the New York Times? Should Wikipedia charge for the information they provide? Doesn't making someone pay ensure they value what they receive in the transaction? What happens to my video once I publish it online for all to see, share, download, show and use?

This story all came to a head today when I took a look at one of my presentations which has been stolen and re purposed without any credit to me. I have embedded the two presentations below, first mine then the other with a crappier layout but the same content. I first noticed it a few months ago through a Google Alert I have setup for my name. At the time I didn't mind and thought that it was flattering. I didn't notice that he was trying to sell the presentation for $100.




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When I first noticed a few months ago I didn't really mind. I posted a comment mentioning my dismay on the presentation. That comment was deleted. Today I added another comment referring to the stolen presentation but I don't expect it to remain on the slide deck too much longer. 
The worst thing that he has done is offer the presentation for $100 on the last slide in the presentation (UPDATE: in an email he explained that $100 was for a workshop about the "Three Musketeers"). I put it out to my Twitter community to assess the situation. This was a great use of Twitter and the community gave me an idea of what others thought of the situation. They were honest and forthcoming with their opinions:
Intellectual property in the Internet age has become something very different from what it was. The problem comes when there is no attribution and a desire to profit from the work of others. I subscribe to Creative Commons Licensing allowing anyone to use my work for free, with attribution as long as it is not for profit. Creative Commons allows creators to declare how others can use their creations. Alistair makes a good point in the second last comment above: "You should use this as an opportunity to teach people that things on the 'net means anyone can get/use it." Alistair is right that is the point. I often call it "Public Permanence" once it's out there it becomes publicly permanent.

I wouldn't care except this person has used my creation in a manner that is against all of the unwritten rules: for-profit, no attribution and without permission. That's the rub though isn't it. There are no rules to the Internet, just yet. They are being established by stories like this and prosecution that is creating precedents around intellectual property, ownership and privacy. What do you think I should do now? What would you do? Is there any point in doing anything?

UPDATE: Thank you for your comments and creating enough noise around this that the presentation has been pulled. I wouldn't be surprised if most of his 'presentations' were lifted from someone else.

I know bits and pieces of my presentation came from reading the internet. That's where most great information comes from these days. I took the time to rewrite, reorganize and add information for my purposes. This is a line that continues to grey and will surely be the topic of a future post. When does creation stop and plagarism start? When it's exactly the same.

These days we are all learning and increasing our collective intelligence together. The problem comes when some of us try and take advantage of that sharing spirit for financial or professional gain.