Wizard help with intellectual integrity

This is actually a very serious question as I have found my inability to deal with this problem has been a massive problem for me in my life.

It has to do with intellectual integrity and the casual way that people simply steal results that are developed at great expenditure of time and energy. I caught an article on The Truth Behind Slot Machine Payouts where this woman casually quotes the result from your survey of casino slots November 2001-February 2002. She also makes very little effort to understand the meaning or purpose of the survey. Here is her quote:

From recent figures, the casino nearest to offering loose slots in Las Vegas is Palms resort, which has an average games payout percentage of 93.42%. However, this figure includes all the slots machines available in the casino resort and therefore can't pinpoint any loose slots in particular, which leaves the player pretty much where they began; with no idea of differentiating which slots are loose, or indeed, which are tight.

She doesn't overtly claim to have derived the result herself, but she may makes no effort to acknowledge the source, and is subsequently credited for the result in other places. I simply recognized the result because I remember that The Palms was the highest ranked casino from the survey.

I have made some terrible life mistakes because of my overpowering anger at people who casually steal results that took years of work to derive. Government managers are some of the worst people in the world (I know you used to be a civil servant).

How do you deal with it? If someone gets rich off your results, or is just trying to capitalize on your efforts, how aggressive are you in dealing with it?

I have a MS in applied mathematics, and when I left government a woman was appointed to a high ranking SONAR management position. When we met her, and began talking about the design, she commented that she couldn't remember if large bandwidths were associated with high frequencies or low frequencies. Maybe that doesn't resonate as much with some people but as far as I am concerned that is 7th grade introduction to science principals. My mouth must have dropped open because she immediately went on the defensive and said that she was a manager and not an engineer, and in order for her to do the job we had to hire a competent lead engineer to work for her.

I literally want to punch people out when I hear them say I'm a realist as justification for some half baked theory that they heard from their brother. I am increasingly amazed at how successful these people can be in life.

I agree, this phenomenon can be really depressing. Intellectual property of all kinds is being devalued by the Internet, and I'm concerned that too many people are being conditioned to believe anything you can't hold in your hand -- a song, a news article, an analysis -- should be free.

The woman here, though, isn't worth getting worked up about. Her writing is very amateurish and she's clearly not getting rich from this. What she did doesn't quite rise to stealing or plagiarism; it's just bad form. Frankly, I don't think she's smart enough to know that a writer ought to give credit for a statistic.

In my experience, it was the people with the amateurish writing and half baked concepts that make a lot of the money in this world.

Listen to the news sometimes and write down how many sentences actually say something solid. They tend to report that critics don't think the program is worth the money. I mean no major project has ever not had critics, and they primarily object to the expense. The reporter could be grunting for all the information he's conveyed.

TV news, agree.

It will be a sad day when there are no more print reporters because people aren't willing to pay for news.
What will TV anchors and bloggers do then when they can't steal from the real reporters?

As far as something I can relate to, I used to freely try to help the companies I worked for with various ideas, perhaps they were modest contributions. But after seeing how many ambitious people there are out there who try to use your ideas as their own, looking to enhance their careers, I have tried to shut that down.

I have come to realize that most "bosses" really feel that they are entitled to steal. I have one hilarious story, but I will spare you as you would really need to know the people to appreciate it.

Quote: odiousgambit

I have come to realize that most "bosses" really feel that they are entitled to steal.

I had a chance to work with some really brilliant people. Some that won Guggenheim genius awards, and others that were advisors to the White House. One guy received a knighthood for his work. Some of them are shockingly laid back and effusive in their thanks to anyone who worked with them.

Then you have a "boss" who thinks his half baked opinion is brilliant. Or you struggle for hours to present you data in such a way that it leads inevitably to a conclusion, only to have the boss tell you how smart he is because he can look at the presentation and leap to a decision point.

You can copy and paste just about any sentence from my Odds site into a search engine and find about a dozen sites that copied my entire article on a game with no attribution at all. This is especially true of the main pages on the most popular games. People write to me all the time reporting that they found my content stolen on some other site.

At first it really burned me up. I would write to the guilty sites and demand they remove the content. The usual responses were:

1. No response at all.
2. Refusal to do so, because they paid some guy to provide content for the site.
3. Request, without apology, to site my site as the source. If I went this route such attribution was usually in a very small font, and/or did not appear in the same page as the stolen material.

It has happened so many times for so long I've become numb to it. Most guilty parties are just worthless banner farms that are not worth raising my blood pressure over. However, legitimate land casinos do it too. If anybody knows a lawyer who works cheap, let me know. I'd like to start a letter writing campaign to go after some of these thieves.

Regarding the slot machine article mentioned, it was so bad I wouldn't know where to begin my criticism. In all fairness, it is fairly well known that the Palms was named as the casino with the loosest slots by some unknown independent source. Few know it was me. Even the Palms didn't site me directly, but quoted the Las Vegas Advisor in a very tiny font.

In any ordered list someone will be at the top and someone will be at the bottom.
When some government statistics were issued about tars in tobacco smoke showing that all brands were pretty much the same, the company that was lowest on the list trumpeted the research because of that coveted last place on the list.

Slot machines and looseness? Heck ain't nobody gonna advertise that their slots are tight! Doesn't mean that its worth it to walk across the street for "looser" slots. Up until several months ago, The Tuscany Resort site advertised that the odds were in the player's favor!

One man recently attended a symposium and the speaker was using purloined graphics.

One map company once printed a map with an imaginary town in the middle of nowhere. The town was the Spanish word for thief. When another map company issued a map as their own, the court battle over royalties didn't last long. Unfortunately its hard to do something like that with tabular numerical data.

I have a different take on this situation.

I think anyone who works in the internet industry has an issue with their intellectual property being stolen and used elsewhere without credit. I know that when we went to University, our sources of information were the limited supply of books and printed material we had at the library. Today, students go on line and get all of the material. They are taught in university and high school to quote their sources. But today, these requirements to quote sources go out the window by most employers. People are rewarded for collating information quickly and presenting it in a logical, simple to understand, manner. And it is usually quite easy to find information, on anything, on the internet.

When you are working and have an employer, anything that you do for the company can and should benefit others within the company. Of course you should be recognized for your achievement, but there are plenty of workplaces that don't. I think that rather than be angry, you should recognize the triggers that make you angry and work on resolving those so that you are less reactive when these things happen to you. You said it yourself: "I have made some terrible life mistakes because of my overpowering anger at people who casually steal results that took years of work to derive". If you didn't have the anger, then you may have made better decisions in life that inevitably may have helped your career. I understand where you are coming from: the more invested in your work, the more emotionally involved you will be when the product of your life is used in a way you disagree with.

For me, the goal of any intellectual property owner should be to protect their information and get paid for what they are producing up front, taking in a premium from whoever pays you for the fact that your information will get stolen.

Frank, you produce some awesome charts and graphs and do a very nice analysis of the gaming industry, and I wouldn't be surprised if those charts aren't quoted elsewhere or appear on someone else's page with your name removed from the print. What you have to do is be recognized for that and paid well for that piece of work... then you won't care what happens to it afterwards.

Most importantly I think that if recognition is important to you, you need to find an employer or set yourself up in way where you feel recognized for the work that you do. Some people just want a paycheck and don't care what happens to their product. Some people don't mind the fact that their work gets published without recognition. But you work in an industry where your work is likely to be copied and reused without your permission, and you've got to find a way to be at peace with that.

Quote: odiousgambit

As far as something I can relate to, I used to freely try to help the companies I worked for with various ideas, perhaps they were modest contributions. But after seeing how many ambitious people there are out there who try to use your ideas as their own, looking to enhance their careers, I have tried to shut that down.

I have come to realize that most "bosses" really feel that they are entitled to steal. I have one hilarious story, but I will spare you as you would really need to know the people to appreciate it.

I maybe should write a blog (or book) on this because so many hot buttons get pushed. I could not let the bosses comment go by unchallednged though. Having been the owner of my own small business('s) for 35 years and have varied from no employees to 50 employees and every level in between. I have had employees help themselves to everything from toilet paper and coffee to much larger items, customer lists and intellectual property such as spreadsheets and operating systems developed by myself not fellow employees or themselves. The usual excuse was allways that they were owed or entitled since they had provided some unrecognized or unpayed service to the company. Having said that of the several hundred people that worked for me I only harbour any lasting resentment against 2 or 3 and the majority of them probably didn't ever take anything of substance from me or my companies.

I am sure that the percentage of 'stealing bosses' is similar when you actually look at it Odious (Peter Principle excepted). That is enough of my rant for now but I can find many lines in this thread to start another one.

Quote: kenarman

I maybe should write a blog (or book) on this because so many hot buttons get pushed. I could not let the bosses comment go by unchallednged though. Having been the owner of my own small business('s) for 35 years and have varied from no employees to 50 employees and every level in between. I have had employees help themselves to everything from toilet paper and coffee to much larger items, customer lists and intellectual property such as spreadsheets and operating systems developed by myself not fellow employees or themselves. The usual excuse was allways that they were owed or entitled since they had provided some unrecognized or unpayed service to the company. Having said that of the several hundred people that worked for me I only harbour any lasting resentment against 2 or 3 and the majority of them probably didn't ever take anything of substance from me or my companies.

My brother is more like you. He had about 30 employees at one time and $10 million in business, and is down to trying to make rent every month and take care of his two stepchildren and new wife. He had a VP run off with six employees and customer lists and all a lot of intellectual property. He did win the court case eventually, but the result was not financially satisfying.

The stealing boss that I was thinking of was stealing recognition and credit. The one that I hated fired me for saying that my schedule was not quick enough for him and that I was out of control. When the actual schedule took 10 times longer than he imagined it should take, he was not punished in any way.

Quote: kenarman

I am sure that the percentage of 'stealing bosses' is similar when you actually look at it Odious (Peter Principle excepted). That is enough of my rant for now but I can find many lines in this thread to start another one.

just to clarify, the boss I have in mind is more of the middle manager type, I'm generally lower on the totem pole and this will be my "boss". Thus the need to steal your ideas to advance the career.

Wizard,

I know of a referral. How can I contact you directly, as I don't see your e-mail address or any way to private message you?

You can reach me through the "contact" tab. Thanks in advance.

Quote: Wizard

If anybody knows a lawyer who works cheap, let me know.

Ah hah! There's the nub. With lawyers, as with many other things, you get what you pay for!

Quote: CrappedOut

Ah hah! There's the nub. With lawyers, as with many other things, you get what you pay for!

I don't need Johnny Cochran to send out a bunch of nearly identical cease and desist letters. Any rookie fresh out of law school and hungry for work will do.