h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Please have a look at the conversation F57153?thread=244929. Angelfeet wrote an entry on the Professionals over a year ago and has recently submitted it to the Writing Workshop. A Google search showed that an identical article exists on the website of a German couple, hidden in green text on a green background so that it is not easily visible. Angelfeet claims that he/she wrote the article and these people have stolen it. Nevertheless, some h2g2 official has hidden Angelfeet's article (for infringement of copyright).

Can this be sorted out? Can we take Angelfeet's word for it that he/she did in fact write the article?

Hi there.

Gnomon has very kindly asked you to have a look at my article and consider my plea for clemency over the charge of plagiarism. I'd like to add that I do have my original draft of the article as a Word document, so I can send that to you. The file is dated 5th December 2001 originally, with another date in May 2002 which was when my PC attempted hari kiri and had do be resuscitated by Computing Support along the corridor.

I'm fairly sure I showed the article to deackie (a former ACE and someone I've known for at least ten years) before I posted it on h2g2, so I can ask her to vouch for me (though not today as she's at college and I can't contact her until Monday as I'm away from tomorrow until then).

I've e-mailed the people whose site is using my work and asked them to contact me regarding this matter. I do hope things can be sorted out, I'm fretting now.

Thanks.

We're looking into this, Angelfeet, but don't panic, I'm sure something can be sorted out.

Jims

Thanks.

I shall try deep, calming breathing, alternating with periods of gibbering under my desk.

The fact(?) this German couple's site has demonstrably ripped off the TV programme music from somewhere is also circumstantial evidence in Angelfeet's favour. They are unlikely to have obtained permission or a copyright licence from the composer, Laurie Johnson, or the publishers, Bucks Music Ltd and 1980 Standard Music Ltd.

Angelfeet's entry has now been re-instated. Thanks, Jim!

Thanks everybody! You are stars and I'm glad to have met you all!

Not that I favour 'Big Brother' tactics, SEF, but the publishers of my '24' book also publish the DVDs of the Professionals in the UK. Was it wrong of me to direct them to this German website, d'ya think?

Oops, what a shame...

Now let's see what we can do to help Angelfeet guide this entry through the muddy waters of Peer Review, eh?

The words "cat", "among" and "pigeons" spring to mind...

What have I started?!

I should say I wasn't involved in getting this unhidden, I'm just here from an Editorial point of view.

Well, that and a geeky 'I love old TV' point of view

Modern TV just isn't as good as classic stuff like that.

I had a reply from the person running that German site:

----
Terribly sorry to cause you problems.

If you checked out the site you will have noticed that I used your text
as
"invisible" text to give my starting page something the search engine
robots
could identify as Professionals-related.

In the Link-Section I made a proper link to your article instead of
reproducing the text on my site.

I´m not running a fan-site, but just used The Professionals as a visual
theme for my private homepage, which is still under construction.

If this is a problem for you just send me a quick mail and I´ll
exchange the
invisible text with something else.
----

I told them not to worry as things were sorted out now. I've calmed down since this morning!

Phew - well done, Angelfeet.

Don't do this at home, kids! They should be using Meta tags, not invisible text, to let the search engines know about their page.