Response from Deitel in regards to tuts posted by memyshukis

The response from Dietel and Dietel:

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Hi Lyne,

Thanks for pointing this out to us. You are correct that this is our code. In addition, it appears that this person has taken our description of the code and paraphrased it.

Please remove this material from your Web site immediately. The code on both of the links you provided is definitely our code from either the 2nd or 3rd edition of our book "Internet & World Wide Web How to Program". It is posted on your site without permission and without a copyright notice of any kind that attributes the material to us.

Please also look for any other posts from this person and forward links to me so that we can check for other plagiarised materials.

The person who posted this claims to work for us as a "freelancer." We do not have "freelancers" working for Deitel who are allowed to use our name. The only time a person from outside our company is permitted to present content under our name is when they are under contract to teach a professional seminar for us. In that case, they are to represent themselves as Deitel ONLY when teaching the course.

If someone wants to use our material in any way (other than teaching from the book in a course where all the students have their own copy of the book), they are required to request explicit permission from our publisher (Prentice Hall) to do so, since our publisher holds the copyrights.

The person who posted this claims to have worked on our Web site. If that is the case, this could possibly be a former employee. However, former employees are not permitted to use our materials in this manner either.

Can you tell us the name of the person who posted this material? If it is a former employee, we can attempt to contact them directly.

MARCIA: Please have your folks scour this site for other possible materials that are posted without permission and have them removed immediately.

Please confirm when these materials have been removed.

Paul

Paul J. Deitel, CEO
Deitel & Associates, Inc.

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I can't give over a name and won't give over an email address (it's inappropriate IMO). memyshukis, I suggest you speak with them in the future before posting any material that may have been published. The impression I get from Deitel is that this material wasn't created by you and was a form of plagiarism (I have yet to see anything that suggests otherwise).

I have removed the "tutorials" in question. If others have questions for me, you can ask here or via PM.

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The person who posted this claims to work for us as a "freelancer." We do not have "freelancers" working for Deitel who are allowed to use our name. The only time a person from outside our company is permitted to present content under our name is when they are under contract to teach a professional seminar for us. In that case, they are to represent themselves as Deitel ONLY when teaching the course.

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Even if he was a freelancer at one time, I seriously doubt he is now. If he was a full on employee of the company, I seriously doubt he is one now either. If he was neither, and Deitel finds out who he is, I sense a lawsuit. Posting proprietary information and violating copyright laws is a serious issue.

MsM:

I'm kind of curious as to why you contacted Dietel and Dietel. I read the thread and, first off thought it a bad example of how to use an array.

Second, until memyshukis stated that he worked for Dietel, I question if it's plagiarism.

I mean I copy code all the time, why reinvent the wheel? Of course I usually rem the code with 'Ripped from www.codeguru.com or whatever. I mean an array isn't inteluctial property.



Just curious

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I'm kind of curious as to why you contacted Dietel and Dietel

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I contacted Dietel and Dietel because memyshukis said he was a freelancer for them. It was the easiest way to get confirmation as to whether this was true or not.

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Second, until memyshukis stated that he worked for Dietel, I question if it's plagiarism.

I mean I copy code all the time, why reinvent the wheel? Of course I usually rem the code with 'Ripped from www.codeguru.com or whatever. I mean an array isn't inteluctial property.

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As to the code, even if you download their code, there's a little box at the bottom that gives proper credit. He was posting it as his own, with no reference as to it's true source. If he had given proper credit I wouldn't have necessarily questioned it.

Additionally, the idea of an array isn't plagiarism. That's common usage (I think). It's the fact that the code itself was word-for-word from the book and the supporting text was nearly word-for-word (small adjustments were made by removing a word or two). Since I'm a little more convinced that it wasn't his work, then it leads me to believe it's more of a plagiarist activity than not.

MsM:

Thanks for the clarification.

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He was posting it as his own, with no reference as to it's true source. If he had given proper credit I wouldn't have necessarily questioned it.

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A big No-No and a dumb idea.

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and the supporting text was nearly word-for-word

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I never did understand why some fell the need to say look at this cool bit of code I wrote rather than check out this cool piece of code I found.

As a former illustrator...I've had several pieces or parts of pieces stolen over the years...and the the general rule is...

If it's not your own original work then you should credit the person who's work it really is!


The exception to this is when the originator is unknown or the work is now part of the public domain...but even then though you cannot pass it off as your own!


Obviously...we are going to use other people's work on a regular basis without giving credit to the artist or author...eg. you're not going to credit the artist/designer of the tee-shirt " **** Happens " when you use the same expression....because it's a given that no one is going to think you said it first!

If you're going to borrow/steal someone else's work then either credit the source or, if the source is unknown, don't pass it off as your own!

MsMittens,

Is it possible for me to take a look at the "tuts" in question?

Unfortunately not any more. I deleted them as per the request of the publisher. If you want you can see the information from pages 912-918 (IIRC) of Internet & World Wide Web How to Program.