More re issue of online books and papers available for download

The Google Alerts service pointed me to a paper on a website which offers books and papers for download free of charge. I know the author of the paper that the Alert service highlighted (Mikey Brass) so I emailed him to find out whether this copyrighted material was being offered with his permission and knowledge. He was justifiably cheesed off that they had hijacked his work without asking him. He has contacted them and given them 24 hours to take the link down before pursuing the ematter further. It seems that there are a number of websites making copyrighted publications available without their authors' knowledge.

I thought that it was worth highlighting that this problem exisits and appears to be growing, and that if you want to know whether a publication is legitimate or not it is worth getting hold of the publisher or author. This is particularly important if, like me, you are thinking of sending the link to other people or featuring it on a website of your own.

Electronic formats make it all too easy to take over other people's work in order to enhance a website. Obviously I should be the last one to throw stones here, but although it's a fine line between what I do and what sites that hijack whole documents do (which I see as the simple theft of someone's material) I think that the distinction is an important one. It has bothered me for a long time. I am trying to provide a service without any financial motive. I don't, for example, accept the frequent offers of payment for putting up adverts, as tempting as it is, because I see it as making money out of other people's work. I am horribly sensitive about the importance of directing visitors to the original story rather than copying the whole thing out in the blog. Using other people's material on one's own website is a matter of responsibility and respect. I've made some mistakes but I really believe that taking whole documents without the consent of the source is a very dirty trick. Anyway, enough of the rant, I just thought I'd raise the issue.

As it happens, Mikey has made the paper available for download, free of charge, but only from his own Antiquity of Man website. Here it is if you're interested, with thanks to Mikey:
The Nature of Urbanism in Ancient Egypt by Michael Brass.

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