VRay - THE COMPLETE (plagiarized) GUIDE

[Jeff Mottle]

I hate to sling mud, but stuff like this just plain rubs me the wrong way. When I first heard about the release of Francesco Legrenzi's V-Ray book a few years ago I was eager to see the book, but I had been told by others that a lot of the imagery in the book was being used without any permission. Something I firmly do not agree with. Most had been ripped off from the internet. As a result I opted not to review the book on CGA, and I promptly forgot about it. Today I was passed more information further corroborating the earlier information I received. This time even more damning. It seems that vast portions of this book have been flat our plagiarized from student papers at Smith College in the US. One of the professors has already confirmed the content belongs to one of his past students.

 

In the attached link you'll find the information about BSP from one of the students: http://maven.smith.edu/~mcharley/bsp/

 

In the attached JPG you'll see some of the original text from that website on the white background and photos of the book on the gray background. Keep in mind this book was originally written in Italian and then translated back to English, thus some differences, but it's abundantly evident it was plagiarized. The sentence structures and analogies are virtually identical in many places. I can only wonder how much more of this book was stolen from others.

 

I post this as I don't believe that this type of professional ethics, or rather lack thereof, should be rewarded (read: don't support this behavior) by people in our industry so I wanted to bring this to light.

Edited February 24, 2011 by Jeff Mottle

[cupsster]

that's bad.. If statements are true that man should apologize and send earned money to that student if whole book was rip off. Otherwise percentage share! And BAN!

[Jason Matthews]

WOW! I can't stand people who don't have an original bone in their body. This person should be brought up on criminal charges. I bet he didn't even give credit to any sources. Thanks for showing us this.

[Dave Buckley]

This statement in the book made me chuckle a bit after seeing this thread

 

"The author is available to owners of rights who he has not been able to contact for matters concerning involuntary omissions or mistakes in the citations of the sources of the written and illustrated content herein.

All rights reserved. No part of this book can be reproduced, memorized in file systems or transmitted in any form or or by any means; electronic,mechanical, photocopied, recorded or other, without the previous written authorization of the author.

The author of this volume has carried out the preparation of the book . . ." (Legrenzi, 2010: 5)

 

Just though I'd better reference my quote too before infringing any copyright laws.

 

Please remove the thread if it's illegal for me to quote this too.

[David Arbogast]

Very disappointing, but much appreciated, news. I had purchased the PDF from him, which I thought was pretty rotten quality because it looks like a bad scan, but now it looks like a really bad scam. With this news I am very inclined to drop the PDF in the recycle bin.

 

Thank you for keeping us informed Jeff.

 

David

[Devin Johnston]

That's pretty amazing, he didn't even bother to change the order of the sentences. Everyone should torrent his book!

[Raffaello.S.]

I think We should wait also some explanation from the other side...

[Devin Johnston]

I'd welcome that but I doubt he'd even try.

[Gianpiero Monopoli]

Jeff,

I just wrote on the italian forum your thread about the vray guide by Francesco Legrenzi. Most of the people on it think that you and me should have written a pm or an email to the author explaining the situation and not open a public discussion because it's a sort of gossip thing.

I do not agree with that and I hope that this situation will be claryfied as soon as possible especially because the 3d italian community deserve respect for all the artists that every day make nice images into a difficult market as we actually have.

Regards,

[caesar]

Hi guys, just wanted to add my 5 cents. My name is Sergey Vasilev and I thought I should mention that my work is being used without my permission. The very first image in the book (interior image on page 8) is mine. The image itself is very old, but still I don’t appreciate seeing it there. The very least he could have done was give me credit. Original image attached.

Edited February 28, 2011 by caesar

[Jeff Mottle]

Jeff,

I just wrote on the italian forum your thread about the vray guide by Francesco Legrenzi. Most of the people on it think that you and me should have written a pm or an email to the author explaining the situation and not open a public discussion because it's a sort of gossip thing.

 

Yeah I read that thread before they closed it. Looks like a bunch of his fanboys posting in there. They can think what they like, but the fact remains someone within our own industry thinks it's OK to steal other people's work and use it to make money without even giving credit. As Sergey just posted they even used his work without credit. I think that's appalling.

 

Anyone who thinks they can get away with garbage like this should not have the privilege of having it dealt with behind closed doors so it can be swept under the rug. After reading that thread and seeing some of those people bring my own ethics into question, I'm now even more compelled to ensure EVERY original copyright owner of content in that book is contacted and notified. I have no vested interest in doing so, despite what some in that thread have said, other than just being personally disgusted by what has been revealed thus far. So far there are now two confirmed cases of usage of materials without permission.

[Gianpiero Monopoli]

Jeff,

yes they closed the thread because the news was pretty much uncomfortable for all the community. I tried to have a civil discussion about the situation but for someone it looks like there's something personal on that and some dodgy economical interests behind the thread.

I know that you haven't any interests to do this but just your ethical beliefs, all of us know your reputation and I think that this such of behavior must be stigmatized.

About Sergey, I feel so bad for you mate and what I can express is just my solidarity as an artist because as italian I feel really upset.

Regards,

[OscauivsOscauivs]

I believe that the Internet is to use, works like a large library available to everyone. It is important to cite the source.

[Brian Smith]

Unbelievable stuff. I’d be willing to bet that most artists and authors would be happy, if not flattered, that their name was published somewhere in a book like this. They’d probably be surprised that they weren’t asked, but they’d probably just be thrilled to see their name in print. As someone that has devoted over 10,000 hours to writing and publishing over the last several years, I’ve probably spent hundreds of hours just making contact with artists to ask permission to use their imagery, and in rare cases, their writing. I remember when Jeff wrote his Color Management chapter for one of our books a few years ago, he had 5 or 6 images that he was trying to get permission to use. We went back and forth with each other for weeks asking ‘Did you find the artist yet? We’re you able to track them down? Did you try looking here?’ It’s a PITA sometimes, but you gotta do it. Period! Reputation is everything in business. It’s one thing to use someone else’s work. It’s far worse in my opinion to not even give them the credit, because if you at least put someone else’s name on the material, you’re in no way misleading people to think that it’s your original work.

 

The sad thing is, this book is full of so many thousands of great renderings (if only for reference purposes) made by the author, he didn’t need to add other people's work and certainly not the history of CG, which is illegal beyond belief. It would be a great book just from the renderings he made. These other issues just ruin it for me.

[Jeff Mottle]

I believe that the Internet is to use, works like a large library available to everyone. It is important to cite the source.

 

Actually that's not how copyright law works in North America and Europe. You can't just use work in a commercial publication because you cited the owner. (Although in this case that was not even done) Copyright in most cases is assumed without any prior filing and lasts for the life of the author + 50-70 years. You must obtain explicit permission to use others works. Unlike cited references for an academic paper, which is more in line with what you are saying, the same does not apply when you are making money from the work unless that work has in its body a note to the contrary.

[Jeff Mottle]

As an aside I know of a number of companies in this industry who have been sued for using images in their renderings as entourage artwork without permission. They were sued for ten of thousands of dollars. The same could be done in this case if someone decides they want to try to recoup the losses they feel they have incurred due to the copyright breach.