Image source:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/418553359089456418/
All I can say is I am sorry. When I first started on steemit I was unsure of how legit it was and was posting anything and everything I could think of. I posted a bunch of paintings that I was inspired by for one of my own paintings. I posted my painting along with all of the others and pretended they were mine.
The real artist is Steven Schuman. He is insanely talented and I was wrong to ever share his work without his name. I want to apologize to the community for posting work that wasn't mine. I see how serious it is and will never do such a thing again. I honestly didn't think anything of it at the time, I was wrong for that.
I had other posts that were not mine, on days that I couldn't think of anything. I should have just not listed at all instead of using pictures that were not mine. I was stupid for doing this and I went against everything I have learned as a designer. I was so caught up in being popular on here that I stopped thinking clearly.
Please do not upvote this post. It does not deserve anything. If you will, comment and we can discuss any thoughts you have about all of it. I am sorry steemit community. I promise to be 100% truthful from here on out.
May I suggest you take all your rewards and burn them by boosting your apology.
Would not be inviting the original author to Steemit and sending the rewards to him a better solution?
Firstly despite what @jpiper20 has done I commend him for apologising. This always takes guts and we have all done stupid things.
Further I think it would be better to give the rewards from the original post to the actual creator as @katyakov suggests rather than burning them on promotion.
This would be a win-win.
The most effective use of a bad situation is to turn it into something positive.
I like this idea as well. I'm just blown away by these new revelations because I just started following @jpiper20 like a day ago and was like "Cool, he is into wake surfing and is really going hard at making content." Hopefully we can turn this into a positive.
I second this. Don't just burn the money. Give it back to the plagiarized authors or community in some way. Doing it this way will also have more of a positive effect between all people involved too.
He doesn't have any SBD but in the comments of my post I asked him if he would forward whatever rewards he got from plagiarism of Steve's art to the artist in whichever form Steve would like, and invite him to Steemit as well.
Great, so you already had this idea! It could be a good continuation of the story. If @jpiper20 makes a post about his communications with the author and (hopefully!) him joining Steemit, this will be not only a good case for the platform, but probably an interesting read, so a good way for @jpiper20 to earn rewards in a proper way and get back his reputation. Just an idea )
And I agreed to do so.
Good suggestion :D
like most theifs by the time it comes to getting the stuff back it has already gone.
Thank you for owning up to it. I know you post your own videos and illustrations so I hope you continue to post your original stuff and be a valuable member of Steemit.
edit: It's ok to share other people's stuff (with consideration to copyright) as long as you're not explicitly or implicitly claiming as your own.
I think it's good to note, here and in general, that copyright and plagiarism don't always overlap. An old poem without a copyright could be plagiarized if you call it your own. And a shared photograph giving credit to the original author could be copyright infringement if they don't approve of its use. I'm sure you already knew this @pfunk. It was more for the general discussion on the two things that sometimes get linked together.
Right, thanks for making the distinction.
I will. I love steemit and I feel so bad for what i did. Can you guys please stop attackingg me? I could lose my job over something like this and realize how stupid I was. I am so sorry.
If the works are yours no one will attack. If you are inspired by a source share it, cite it, and they'll have nothing to attack you about. :)
I will. Thank you guys for still having me on here. I will turn this all around.
While I think its great that people are forgiving, as everyone deserves another chance, I find it much worse that someone who has already stollen so much through deliberate deception might now make more just like that.
The ONLY reason this confession and apology came to be is because of being PROVEN guilty. Not because of conscience or good faith.
This guy has a higher reputation than me, someone who feeds 40,000 free meals a year and is under constant public scrutiny. He has transfered Steem out of the system and spent it. Now he gets to ride that high reputation built upon deception to make more Steem and spend it.
As I said I think its awesome people here are so forgiving and I believe everyone deserves another chance but having such a high reputation after it was built on lies is very discouraging especially for someone like me.
No. I will up vote something like this. We all make mistakes. Owning up to it, and learning from it is the decent thing to do.
You should feel free to post things that inspire you, just state who they are and tell us how they inspired you. If you can get those people to come to steemit and share that is even better.
Owning up takes courage. Steem on!
Yeah, I forgot to say in my comment here that it's ok to share other people's stuff (with consideration to copyright) as long as you're not explicitly or implicitly claiming as your own.
I appreciate that. I lost myself trying to gain followers on here and it got the best of me.
I won't upvote this as per your request, but I did pay to promote it.
While your behavior may be disappointing, I am glad to see that you are owning your actions and appear to value this unique platform enough to begin undoing the damage those actions have caused.
If you can provide an example for others of how to correct wrong behavior, maybe some good can come out of this. Volunteering some time to steemcleaners and offering to compensate the artists you ripped off would make a good start.
This is probably the most appropriate reaction to the incident.
Upvoted and hoping to see original and interesting content in future!
A good start would be to take the time to spell 'plagiarize' correctly.
Dude, come on.Not necessary at all... I upvote you JUST because I want this and my response at the top.
I get it. Because of how important steemit becomes to us, we catch ourselves doing something shitty. Sometimes, you get caught doing the same thing others are doing... but it's still different.
This is a big issue because the site is monetary in nature and as such there are attempts to bleed the money out of the system. @jpiper20 was excited by some success, and chasing growth, even though the results are the same,(he made a few bucks) the motives were not.
You know what the difference is?
He won't vanish
So... for you to post that tells me you either read his entire post and couldn't get past the word, or you saw the word... immediately saw something douchey you could say and said it. I am inclined to think the second.
In another post, he has already agreed to contact the author, offer up the rewards of the post in a manner suitable to the author, and invite him to join us here possibly as well.
I am fine with him. Honestly I never cared for the art stuff he put up too much anyway, so I never did much with it. I like his other posts, where he's talked about his summers or his hidden swimming hole. I don't think anyone will beat himself up more than he is thinking about it tonight. I would much rather he consider it done, have a good night sleep and come back with more of that.
Thank you Cleve. I hope you will still follow me on my future journeys.
I am here. No worries. I get why it's a thing.... but nail a guy to the fucking cross or what?!?!
Seriously, what is a reasonable punishment for this? Offering up the rewards received to content creator and having to work to regain some trust, or public flogging downtown steemitville!!!
Be fine with him, I don't care. Call my reply douchey - also fine, that's your opinion. Just to be clear: you're OK with the plagiarist and not OK with my simple observation that he spelled the key word in his apology wrong. That's how you want to roll, OK with me.
I actually find it hilarious that the uproar comes over my comment and not the person who achieved steemit stardom with unattributed works.
Oh and I wouldn't exactly say I 'nailed him to the cross' - melodrama much?
Did you know what he meant to say? Some people have skills in other places. Spelling is not always one of them. Let's not alienate people on that. Communication is about conveying thoughts. If you didn't know what he was trying to say then that is one thing. If you did then these comments are best left in a classroom where your job is to teach people how to spell. :P I've never met anyone perfect at spelling. Even so... many of us misspell words we know how to spell when we are passionate and typing fast. I call it fat fingering something. :)
Yeah, no need to pile on.
He corrected the spelling and his post is better for it. It is interesting to me how seriously people are taking this. I actually didn't say one negative thing about this individual - just pointed out the key word at issue was misspelled.
And you're right - I misspell words all the time when I'm wound up - I guess the difference is someone pointing it out wouldn't bother me in the least.
@geocurt, I'd say that you're still a bit early to the game to be chiming in and slamming someone with a much higher reputation than yourself. A bit of advice from me to you...this comment wasn't a good idea.
Oh gee - I didn't realize I had to be here for awhile before I could comment.
Slamming? Pretty melodramatic characterization.
Higher reputation? In what sense? What was that reputation built on? If you're suggesting that a person who admittedly has passed off other people's work as his own has a higher reputation than someone who hasn't, well then this system is broken anyway. My reputation has nothing to do with a number on this website - has to do with how I conduct myself.
And by the way - I'm entitled to my opinion. Words matter and the misspelling of the key word in the entire post speaks to the level of care taken.
As others have stated, an apology is the right response. Only time will tell if it's sincere.
In spite of this I'm still angry. Angry that I've worked hard for the past two months posting original content, some of which has taken days to produce and yet you have a higher reputation: 67 vs my 63.
What am I supposed to do? Should I downvote you out of spite so your reputation score is lowered? Should I mute you for eternity so you no longer exist in my view of steemit?
I honestly expected your reputation score to be damaged by this. You're lucky that it hasn't. Others have lost reputation for much less.
Way to take that shit on the chin like a man!
This is going to be an interesting test case to see if the community here can be forgiving. I'm estimating we can let bygones be bygones in the face of apparent contriteness. I don't think it's the community's responsibility to determine whether somebody is really sorry or if they're just sorry they got caught. The real test comes in the ongoing behavior. If the plagiarism ceases then I for one welcome you to the fold. Everybody deserves a fresh start.
As this platform proceeds the social norms need to be fleshed out. Forgiveness seems to me to be a given since everybody has the capacity to mess up. We wouldn't want our own feet held to the fire for every dishonest thing big or small.
Where more thought must be taken is the issue of ill-gotten gains. A plagiarist can be rewarded lavishly before reforming their ways. That puts them ahead of others who took a more honest approach to posting. Is it earned?
As a community I would like to see us come to a decision about what ought to be done. Nothing? Do we urge the person to contribute a portion of their plagiarized gains to a charity? How about offering it to @robinhoodwhale or @curie or any number of other worthwhile projects striving to pay it forward?
I won't lie, bro...I was shocked when I logged on and saw all of this, but I know that you are incredibly talented and you seem like you have learned from your mistakes. I look forward to more of your original content! You still have all of my support!
I got so caught up in building a following that I just wanted to keep everyone on their toes and ran out of time to keep producing artwork. I am posting tomorrow a full apology and a new introduction. I hope I haven't lost your trust and hope that you will continue to follow me.
Dude, I totally understand! You haven't lost me, I'm still here.
I look forward to your posts tomorrow and I truly love your artwork. You sir, are commendable and I am super proud of you. Everything happens for a reason and I feel like you have found your calling. Love you and your content, bro! Keep your head up high and push forward!
Much love for that.
And the same back to ya!
To be honest man I was super shocked and actually pretty upset to hear about all this. I've been following you for almost the entire time I've been on steemit and saw you go from relatively nothing to where you are now. I was pretty active for a while with the anti plagiarism folks on here and never even assumed to check one of your posts because of the way you presented yourself, which really feels like a deception now. You've got the balls to own up to your mistake though and take it like a man, instead of striking out and making some fight, good on you for that, it's what will keep me as a follower of you. Thanks for owning up and thanks for apologizing, I really hope this doesn't affect your offline life (tbh I don't think it will and I wouldn't worry too much about that) and I am glad to hear your over it now. Keep posting about you man, my favourites of yours are always seeing the cool things you get up to!
Thank you for that. It means a lot that you guys will still continue to follow me. I promise to be 100% truthful from here on out and continue to help our community grow.
It's all about how you are handling this man. You're owning up, and doing the right thing, in the right way too, that takes guts and its respectable :)
This is a great perspective. IMHO The community should listen primarily to the injured parties on this matter. That would be the deceived and the plagiarized. With that I'm going to withhold my opinion to let the direct victims speak their minds as to what course of action is appropriate.
After all the plagiarism drama I think we all have learned and developed community standards since our first posts. I remember I linked a youtube video that I just wanted people to know about to have the information. I didn't intend to trick anyone into thinking it was mine or anything. In the future I know I'll be diligent in being super clear about listing the sources of any content.
Respect. I've posted a couple times on my journey to understanding what copyright, fair use, and plagiarism mean to me and the community. I love that you're putting the community first and you want to signal to them you are a cooperative, trustworthy actor who has made mistakes (as we all have). That's right in line with my thoughts on the subject, and it's really encouraging for me to see it played out here for real. Keep growing and learning and you will gather supporters who respect you and your journey.
Bravo @jpiper20
Mistakes were made but I admire that you're taking responsibility and ownership of it. Not too many people would do that, so I really commend you on your character. @katyakov and @thecryptofiend made excellent suggestions. Your public apology has truly touched me and I have to admit, I'm now a fan.
Thank you and I promise not to disappoint you.
Never noticed your stuff before I read this. Hmm, I am going to follow you. Sure, I am glad that you got caught. That said, it is all good when a person learns from mistakes. This life is a place of trial and error. One thing I know is that I have done far worse than this a few times over in my past.
Thank you and I promise to share with you, the truth.
I hope your story goes some way to stopping this in the future; what you have done is the worst type of plagiarism, because you genuinely are an artist.
If I see someone rip another's work off and they are trying to pass themselves off as this amazing writer/artist, I hate it, but understand where they're coming from.
Another artist, who understands the trials, tribulations and struggles artists go through; well, that's just the lowest of the low. You have ruined your reputation, was it worth ruining for a few hundred/thousand dollars, or whatever you made?
I very much doubt it, your apology goes some way to healing the damage, but not all the way; after all, the only reason you made this post, is because you got caught, not because you felt guilty.
I am flagging this post for two reasons. First, it is because even the $0.80 you've made from it, burns me up. Secondly, I feel this post might make you look humble and apologetic to some. I have already seen a "way to man up..." comment.
However you are not manning up, you are simply trying to cover your arse, because you were caught. Make the apology on @pfunk's post and be done with it, you deserve no praise whatsoever for this forced confession.
I really hope this serves as a warning to others, reputation is worth more than money.
Cg
This is EXACTLY how I feel and while I think its great that people are forgiving I find it much worse that someone who has already stollen so much might now make more just like that.
The ONLY reason this confession and apology came to be is because of being PROVEN guilty. Not because of conscience or good faith.
This guy has a higher reputation than me, someone who feeds 40,000 free meals a year and is under constant public scrutiny.
I understand how you must be feeling at the moment, and I am very pleased that you have chosen to be honest.
I think that the response of the steemit community has been amazing, with the amount of forgiveness they have offered you.
I just now clicked to follow you, because of this apology and confession.
May you be blessed in your future here, so long as you remain honest.
Very cool of you to admit this and be up front and open about it. A rare thing indeed. I have had much creative works "borrowed" from me throughout my life and it is always a terrible feeling when it happens. Being popular is not the goal, creating original content is more important to both your own journey and especially to the overall "health" of the steemit community.
We need highly original content on here to bolster our strength of comparative competition against other platforms seeking viewers. Good, original content contribution is difficult but well worth the effort. I wish you the best in your journey!
I really appreciate this apology. I think it took a lot of guts to post it. We all make mistakes. Always good when we can learn from our mistakes and change for the better.
He needs to apologize to everyone in order to be considered for not being major flagged, everytime he posts something from now on, through the steemit abuse channels! Etc. Or he will be chetah baned! This is the reason for his apology. You can acept it or not. My reputation is at level 51 for a long time with no flags , no plagerizing. As most of you know its very hard as it is to get a high reputation level! And its not fair to those of us that try hard and see he has a level 67 after plagerizing. Im very careful now to add image credit s and links to my stories that require them. So where is the justice! It took me 3 weeks to move up 1 rep! With many posts at 30 or 40 upvotes. ! Im not impressed at all! Especially since i followed him and upvoted regularly for him as well! I really hope you turn this around for yourself, and be 100 percent lagit from now on! I will forgive you this one time, since you sincerely repented, and apologized!
FOOL ME ONCE , SHAME ON YOU , FOOL ME TWICE, SHAME ON ME!
Check this post out from jpiper20 where he got flagged 13 times , for the second time in one day! And he denied 4 or 5times doing it! And that it is his original work! See for yourself, im just saying! https://steemit.com/life/@jpiper20/new-illustration-lion
@jpiper20
I suggest you liquid the profits you made and send them via paypal or some other means to the artist. Heck, make a page with the name's artist and dump them there, informing the artist for the existence of that account. Do the same for every single person you did rip off.
Heck we even might get him to join afterall.
Hey man, I'm glad to read this post.
I hope you stick with what you say and go on to do great on here.
While you may have done wrong admitting your mistake and making moves towards rectifying the situation is all a man can ask for really.
Good luck jpiper20. I can't wait to see more of your original stuff. You got talent.
I commend you for taking responsibility but do you think it's fair that you can apologise and continue with a 67 reputation? Surely some of that reputation came from upvotes on your plagiarised posts. What do you think is the best way to remedy that?
I hope that this will be a lesson learned for you and you can go forward with integrity. I appreciate your apology and I forgive you.
Hi @jpiper20, I stopped back to let you know that this post was one of my favourite reads today and was included in my Steemit Ramble. You can read my comments on it here.
Apologies accepted. We all make mistake.
I came late to the community and was not around when this went down. I just now saw this in my feed. Your post, the comments and the powerful themes all touched this newbies heart! Very compelling experience you all shared, I honor all of your voices and feelings, so very authentic. Badass <3
This post has been linked to from another place on Steem.
Sept 28 - Steemit Ramble - Notes on My Favourite Reads by @shadowspub
STEEMIT ME VUELA NUEVAMENTE LA CABEZA! Plagio, Arrepentimiento y Perdón by @traducciones
STEEMIT BLOWS MY MIND AGAIN! - Plagiarism, Repentance, and Forgiveness by @papa-pepper
Plagiarism on Steemit. A Look at @jpiper20 by @pfunk
STEEM WHISTLEBLOWER: High Reputation Account Caught Plagiarizing! by @klye
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