My mind was blown.

After watching another episode of the (IMHO) fantastic show 'Vikings', I decided to google it to find out whether or not it has been renewed for a second season (it has ).
As I scanned the first page of 'News', I noticed an article titled "Vikings TV Show and Skyrim cultural depth" - so I clicked on it, excited, seeing as I previously participated in similar discussion on these here forums.

As I read this article - posted on IMG.com (insider media group) - I began to experience some profound deja vu. Nothing unusual, they just seem to have very similar ideas/suggestions to those possessed by myself as well as others I discussed it with.

It was only once I read "'Cyrodiil plus more snow' (an exaggeration, I'll admit)", that something REALLY clicked:........

......They may not be unique, but those are MY [censored] WORDS!

So I jumped on over to these lovely forums and dug up the thread entitled 'Vikings' - to confirm any similarity with my own post or if I was simply going insane.

Hot damn.... WORD FOR WORD.

The VAST bulk of the article - from the 3rd paragraph to the 11th (2nd last) - is made up of my entire post (without my introductory sentence).

Witness for yourself:

Original Post:
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1449720-vikings/page__fromsearch__1 (My post is #8 --- [Hammer of the Gods])

It is also worth noting 'Jimbabwe' (OP of thread) 's post as well as the short 1st reply from 'He-Who-Remains'. I hope you two get to see this as well .

IMG article (with plagiarized post):
http://www.insidermediagroup.com/vikings-tv-show-skyrim/

Adding more salt to the wound, they deviously replaced all my uses of the 1st person terms 'I' or 'my', with 'us', 'we', or 'our'.

Did I miss something? Is this website (IMG) or others known for freely posting the words and opinions of others without consent?

Either way, I was pretty stunned.

This is FLAT OUT PLAGIARISM ------------- translation: NOT COOL.

It's also interesting to note that the name of the 'author' or 'editor' of said article is nowhere to be found on the page (presumably labelled externally as 'IMG staff').

I am currently thinking about contacting them to find out WHAT THE [censored] IS UP?!, but I wanted to share it here with you guys first.

Want to know how much of this has anything to do with Skyrim?

0%

Sue the [censored] out of them

What a bizarre thing to do? I understand plagiarising an obscure article (dike move, but understandable) but this is simply bizarre.

Jeez. They could have at least made it less... obvious, you know?

A quick browse through the gaming section of that site and I can't say it paints a particularly pretty picture.

Stupid N'wahs!

Yep, I haven't checked yet but this http://www.insidermediagroup.com/skyrim-redguard-pirate-themed-dlc/ seems to be copied from these forums too. It follows the same format as the one in the OP, copy a witty remark for the amusing bolded bit, and pick and choose which posts to cut and paste.

I'd say all their articles are posts ripped off from forumers musings and witticisms butchered into an article.

Isn't all content posted on here property of Bethesda or somesuch? Seems like I remember some legal mumbo jumbo like that applying to forums like this.
Either way this is indeed bizarre, and something should be done. I would say contacting them to put your quote in an actual quote with credit would be best.


Wow, that post doesn't even make sense.
"The current imperial character."
. . . ?

comment on it and link the posts they coppied.

A new forum hobby, see if you can get one of your posts into an IMG article!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure everything we post on here belongs to Bethesda, if that is true what they've just done is incredibly stupid.

I am also shocked at the blatant word for word plagiarism. The fact that they didn't even make much of an effort to cover their tracks just ads insult to injury. And I seriously, seriously doubt this is the only case of it. I would first PM an admin and ask them about the situation. Then based on what they say I would contact the staff at the website. But if there is such widespread plagiarism I personally would contact a lawyer and get the site shut down, that is just ridiculous.

What a terrible copy/pasting...

I went and had a look through other sections of the site as well. There doesn't appear to be any articles attributed to authors or any some such going on here; at face value that suggests something dubious to me.


I think you would suggest something to that effect is true, yes.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1450870-future-dlc-suggestions-thread-10/page__st__120

Post 134 from this thread copied in this article
http://www.insidermediagroup.com/expansion-guilds-skyrim-dlc/

EDIT: It credits the poster in this one

If that is true, and Bethesda didn't authorize use of their forums for the purpose to create articles, Bethesda could sue sue sue the hell out of them.

PM Gstaff.

And this is just Skyrim related articles! Could you imagine how many different forums and blogs they rip off every day?!

Obviously it isn't happening in this case, but if you attribute properly (Quotes, links, names etc) then there is no issue. At best the plagerized content would be removed/site potentially shut down, though.

Remember the children of Skyrim looking alike thread?
http://www.insidermediagroup.com/children-races-skyrim-dlc/

They seem to credit posters in some of their articles, other than the one I linked there is http://www.insidermediagroup.com/cashgrab-skyrim-dlc-buy/ 'crediting' He-Who-Remains and and 0zzy (presumably without agreement).

I assume they are getting ad revenue from the site and are using our content to get hits.

They put forum names in a few, as authors rather than quotes, which isn't the same I'd imaginne.

I thought it was just a one time thing but this site seems more dubious than I thought.

Shut 'em down! Get 'em lawyer'd!

Yeah this is insane.
Hope GStaff read this thread and take actions in the matter.
Keep this up!

I just dropped him a notice.