Plagiarism in the Highest Degree:

Literary Theft from a Master of the Art.

by Terry Foenander.

With the advent of the Internet, it has become increasingly clear that many persons, who are incapable of performing their own research or are unable, through lack of brain-power or some similar condition, to write articles, create decent web sites or are just plain lazy, will stoop to the lowest level to gain notoriety, by misappropriating the work of others.

There is one person, who is a member of the Brisbane branch of the American Civil War Round Table, who fits this description perfectly, and has, since early 2005, been obtaining details, and copies of the work of several researchers who were heavily involved, for some twenty years or more, in researching the biographical and military careers of American Civil War veterans who settled and died in Australia. This person will remain unnamed, but I shall refer to him as JG (to describe his personality), within the confines of this article.

In the early 1980's, contact was initiated with the late Roy Parker, of Sydney, Australia, in relation to the study of American Civil War veterans who had settled and died in Australia. Roy, together with the help of this author, Barry Crompton, of Melbourne, Bob Simpson, of Beechworth, in Victoria and several others who were partially involved in this project, managed to locate the names and data on several dozen of these veterans, buried in Australia. The work involved a massive amount of expenditure, both in terms of finances and time. This involved much perusal of records relating to births, marriages, deaths, shipping items, military and pension records, occupational data, newspaper entries, etc.

Military and pension records, as well as other similar data, were obtained through application forms, and payment for copies, from such repositories as the National Archives, the Naval Historical Center, and other similar sources, in the U.S., as well as sources within Australia and elsewhere. Although some of these items may be indicated as being "in the public domain," once they were purchased by the researcher, and came into that researcher's possession, they were thus considered as being the property of the payee, in other words, the researcher who had purchased the copies. At a later stage, if anyone requested copies of those same pages from the researcher, it was customary for the person making the request to seek permission to use such items from the researcher, who held the purchased copies. The National Archives, in a recent letter, has confirmed to this author that once these items were purchased by a researcher, and information used, in any form, in any article by said researcher, then it was no longer considered as being "in the public domain" and was thus covered by any copyright clauses relating to that article. Thus, any subsequent copyist who came along and used information from these articles, is obviously guilty of plagiarism, or to be more precise, "breach of copyright."

To get back on track, before we continue on the subject of such theft of data, the research was subsequently edited for easy reference, and published, in 2000, by Roy's daughter, Virginia Crocker, under the title, CIVIL WAR VETERANS IN AUSTRALIA. As with just about all published work, this volume includes one or more copyright notices clearly shown. Additionally there are a number of web sites, on the Internet, which include the research material of some of the original researchers, as well as web sites which have been given permission to use such material on the veterans buried in Australia. Thus, it should be amply clear to all intelligent persons, that such material is under copyright laws, and should not be used without the permission of the original researchers or members of their families. Unfortunately, there are those who consider themselves above the law, and indulge in activities that often do not conform to the makings of a civilised society. Such a person is JG.

In early 2005, he contacted some of the original researchers of the veterans, requesting copies of documents, photos, etc., on the veterans, some of which were provided to him, in good faith, in the belief that he was only using these for research purposes only. At no time was he ever given permission to use these items in any published form or for any monetary gain. It was also increasingly obvious that some of his statements, in e-mail messages, were bizarre, to say the least, and that he was also obtaining information on the veterans from other sources (though he kept insisting that he did not know anything about the veterans). It was only at a later stage that it was confirmed that he had been borrowing a copy of the volume, CIVIL WAR VETERANS IN AUSTRALIA, from another member of the Brisbane group, and already knew of the information on each veteran. Additionally, we had provided information on other veterans (both confirmed and unconfirmed), who were discovered after the publication of the volume. I myself had kept insisting to him that he purchase a copy of the volume from Virginia Crocker, and was unaware that he had already borrowed a copy to use to extract (or to put it precisely, misappropriate) information for his subsequent nefarious activities. At a later stage he did purchase a copy from Mrs. Crocker. Additionally Barry Crompton also sent this literary thief a large number of items, on CD ROM, relating to the veterans.

By mid-2005, after a web site suddenly appeared on the Internet, relating to the Civil War veterans buried in Australia, and with all the misappropriated material from the volume, our web sites, and other documentation that was sent, as copies to him, it became clear why the many requests for information from this person were sent to us. A request at his new site, for donations, showed the true nature of this person, and what he would do to gain financially from the work of others. No doubt he has indulged in such practises before. Additionally, he has tried to give the false impression, on at least two Internet message boards, that he has been involved in the research on the veterans since he first came to Australia, in 2000. However, the Brisbane branch of the Round Table have confirmed that he only became interested in these veterans in early 2005, after he attended a memorial service to one of the veterans buried in Toowong Cemetery.

He was immediately advised to remove this site, containing all our years of hard work, but tried to curry favor with the editor of the volume, by placing an advertisement for the volume, at his web site. It showed the degree of deception he was prepared to go through to keep doing what he was doing. Additionally, he tried to indicate, in a message to Mrs. Crocker, that he was doing all this to honor the memory of the veterans, and to set up a memorial for them. Some messages he had sent to me indicated what he was really up to, including an attempt (according to him) to improve on the biographies and military service details of the veterans, yet his own data, which included much taken from the volume, was replete with numerous errors and assumptions. Most of these errors were not even included in the volume, but JG managed to come up with these mistakes, all the same. Additionally, he started placing copies of documents on his web pages, despite the fact that the vast majority of these items had been sent to him, in good faith, by the original researchers. No permission had been given to him to use this material in any way, in published form, yet he took the initiative and used them anyway, stating that, because they were all obtained (a mistaken assumption) from governmental repositories, they were thus considered as being in the "public domain." However, he failed to realise that most, if not all of these documents, were purchased by the original researchers, from their own funds, and therefore were rightfully the property of each of the original researchers. JG tends to rely on donated material, and is far too stingy to expend his finances for such material. Laziness also seems to be in his characteristics, preferring to use our own written material, changing the statements slightly to try and evade detection, and numerous other forms of deceit. Furthermore, he tries to state that he has found a lot more new material on the veterans, yet, anyone who takes the trouble to check this "new" material, will clearly note that it is actually data, such as the histories of some of the vessels, obtained from published sources, on the Internet, and used word for word, from these sources (e.g. the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships). It was material that we already had, and just could not use in the volume, else the single volume would have turned out to be several volumes, instead.

In all my years of research on the Civil War, and on the veterans of that war, buried in Australia, I have never ever come upon a person as deceitful and dishonest as this particular charlatan. He has made numerous statements, to many individuals and societies or groups, which constantly show his true nature, as he tries to embellish his credentials. However, just a cursory check of his own web sites and other pieces of evidence, will show what he really is up to. A perfect example was the fact that he tried, after being refused permission by the original researchers of the veterans, to obtain the very same information from other sources, sources which had been allowed to use our data, under copyright conditions. One of these sources was the Internet web site, titled SIMPLY AUSTRALIA, which had some of our data on a few of the veterans. The administrator of this web site, Valda Low, unwittingly allowed JG to use our data, not knowing that he had been denied permission by us (she later, after finding out the truth about this person, asked for all the data to be removed from his web site, but, as is usual with JG, he removed the name of the source, but kept the data, anyway). In the process of contacting Valda Low, he had informed her and her research partner, John Godl, that he was a veteran of the Second World War, yet a check of JG's own biographical web site, on the Internet, shows his own statement that he was born in 1939. Someone made the caustic remark that perhaps he was in his cradle at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed, thus qualifying him as a veteran!!

To be continued.