Plagiarism Watch

As www.streetgangs.com has become more popular and the most popular web site on the topic, many other websites have used it as a model and have actually stole information from this site to enhance other sites. Plagiarism is a serious matter and illegal. Most web host providers will delete pages that violate the itellectual property of another person. All the information on this site is protected by copyrights and cannot be replicated anywhere. The list below is a sample of those site that have violated copyrights in some form.

1. December 21, 2003,www.gripe4rkids.org, this site has use the easy copy & paste fuction and integrated portions of my writings with that of others. When this is done, the original author should be credited, which they did not do. This is blatant plagiarism.

   Update: 12/23/03,A seargent from the NYPD sent me this message with regard to my claims. "It is my understanding that you are complaining that the material in the Gang History Section which details the history of the Bloods in Los Angeles has been directly copied from your material as listed in your site at streetgangs.com. As I have reviewed the information posted on the GRIPE site and the information on your site, I have no other choice but to apologize for any unintended plagarism that occurred. In order to rectify the situation, I will immediately remove the information written or credit you with the section of gang history you have obviously written."

2. December 21, 2003,www.damusandrips.com, the author of this site was actually a community forum member of www.streetgangs.com for nearly 2 months when he decided to integrate new items on his site directly from mine. He immulated my message board in a real way. Take a look at his forum and view mine and notice some of the topics. He created strings on his board from mine that include, "Gang Questions and Informations," "Banned Members," "Gangster Movies," and "Gangs, Hooligans." Those strings can be compared to my topics that are "Gang Questions," "Gangster Movies (i just changed the name of this string)," and "Gangs in Europe."

   There are some direct plagiarism on his part, he has posted copyrighted information from my forum on his site, and began to recruit members from my forum to his. His page on the Eight Tray Gangster Crips is a direct theft of mine and he has began to create other links using my original model. He did mention me on his Rollin 60s page but only after I identified his plagirism. He also mentions me on a few pages as if I approved of him using my info on his page.

   The author is Nemesi (nemesi_@libero.it) who lives in Italy. His page on the Black P Stone Blood gang take directs quotes from my Black Stone page. He even mentions the little known "AMJ" relationship between the Athens, Miller, and Junges that is something I first mentioned. Although he cites several persons, inlcuding William Shaw's book (who cites me) none of those places mention "AMJ."

3. December 22, 2003, www.beaconschool.org/~lwoods/History.html: This page took direct quotes from my history page and never made an refence to the original author. Even though the author is in the 11th grade they should learn about doing proper references of orignal authors.

4. December 23, 2003 California Law Enforcement : The entire section on Black Gangs was taken from my page word-for-word. They must of cut and paste the text of my web site into this article. The author Michael Hooper, PhD from the California Department of Justice never properly cited the author of Streetgangs.com for that passage. The passage below appears in Dr. Hooper's paper.

   African-Americans have a 75-year history of street gang involvement in Los Angeles. During the 1920s and .30s some of the African-American gangs that were active in Los .......other cities have also copied Los Angeles gang culture.

5. December 23, 2003, http://davadnai.users.omniglobal.net/crips.html: The Texas Prison Gang Page has plagiarized my entire section on LA Gang history. The author of this page used the email address davadnais@omniglobal.net

6. December 23, 2003, http://www.deathrowrecords.de: A foreign site.

7. December 23, 2003, http://www.uky.edu/~ksmill2/ganghandout.htm

8. December 23, 2003, http://www.llcc.cc.il.us :WHAT IS THIS!!!! This site is on the server of Lincoln Land Community College and this is the ultimate theft. They copied my images, my format and used my same links. This must have been a school project but the problem with this is that this site increases my bandwidth usage and I get charged for excessive bandwith usage simetimes. The links are pointing to my server; this is called "hotlinking" and it is wrong. <

   UPDATE: January 7, 2003- This person has denied any use of my site. This is their recent email

   From: "Gail Truitt"
   Subject: Your stuff on my website
   Date: Wed 01/07/04 02:00 PM

   I have two of your web addresses listed on my web site for my juvenile delinquency course. I do not have any of your information embedded in my web.

   Gail Truitt

   Lincoln Land Community College

   Shepherd Road Springfield, IL 62794

9. December 23, 2003, "http://www.geocities.com/ajtfinal/crips.htm: This person has copied my list of gang from my site to his. This person even has my typos in his site. This is a free web site on Yahoo's server. They also hijacked another one of my pages here. The copyright department (copyright@yahoo-inc.com) has been notified, but they move exrtemely slow. Contact them to express your concerns.

10. January 15, 2004, http://sameervasta.tripod.com/time.html, Dont know these people but a time line written by Tyler Abbott and Ellery Bledsoe used my writing and photos.

THE CORRECT WAY

1. December 23, 2003,http://perso.wanadoo.fr/westsidaz/gangs.shtml: This site took information directly from my site, but at the bottom of the page they posted a copyright that inidcated STREETGANGS.COM was the author. Good Job for the authors of this site.
2. December 23, 2003, Tupac's Life Timeline : I am one of the first sites on the interent to chronicle Tupac's murder and subsequent events to Tupac's murder. Another web designer decided to do something similar and even though I do not own the rights to Tupac's story, this person cited my work with respects to my research.

3. December 23, 2003,http://www.tbob.net/skitsgangs.html, T. Bob Tubb used photos that I shot. Normally, unauthorized use of my photos are prohibited, but he cited my web site.

4. December 23, 2003, http://www.jzcool.net/writing/streetgangs.htm, James Zitzman is the perfect model to follow when doing a research paper and relying on other sources to complete the project. At the end of his paper, he properly cited the sources, something that internet thieves never do. Good work James.

5. December 23, 2003, http://employees.oneonta.edu/bealt/sheridan.htm : Well written paper by Michael Sheridan of State University of New York who properly cited my work at the end of the page.