Question: Why do researchers steal work?

Answer: Who knows....

Why am I asking this question?

I’m asking, as I had another article stolen, plagarised, and published by another researcher….I found out a few days ago, just before Christmas, when I uploaded an article that I co-authored with a colleague in Romania ... .and I saw that an article that I'd written, published and uploaded onto Academia.edu...a few weeks ago published in The Tech Magazine (ISSN 2753-9054) published by the Institute for Science and Technology. Academia.edu, actually recommended to me an article which I’d written and I'd uploaded a few weeks ago, which was been processed by generative AI and republished under another person’s name!

Fortunately, it’s no longer one line as the article was removed by Academia.edu as the CEO of the Institute of Science and Technology confirmed that the only article which was valid, was mine published in the magazine, not the plagarised one.

So, let’s why are academic articles being stolen? Desperation? The need to more published articles on one’s CV? Well, in a sense, it's a complement as it indicates that my work is worth stealing. But I've learned from speaking with friends and colleagues that this habit of “accumulating” publications is normal. Many have had articles/work stolen by others, and repurposed or republished by the name of the person who stole it.

The previous time it was an archaeologist (not a legal researcher as in the last article) who took a piece of work which I’d submitted for publication on a well-known website (whose name I don't wish to use use here which celebrates women who are considered 'pioneering in their fields'). I'd written and submitted a piece on a Canadian geologist but the archaeologist who'd picked up my submission, via the submission email, edited it and published the piece in her name and that of another person, who I don't know on the website.

It was earie to read my own sentences “in print” ie published online on this 'website'. So, I asked a good friend of mine, at another university, to check it for plagiarism. She used Turnitin which revealed the published piece online had a plagarism score of 86%. I politely asked this archaeologist, whose name was one of the two names attached to the published piece to remove either the piece from the website or add my name (as it was my text according to Turnitin). She refused.

So, I sought legal counsel to tackle the problem as simply being polite and asking for my work back, didn’t work. Unfortunately, this researcher, appears to have become angry as she wrote on Twitter that I'd written to ask her to take my own work from the website and that I'd sought legal counsel to get it back. It meant that I ended up being subjected to a Twitter storm (now X) lasting a few days…as other researchers on clearly were supporting her post, on Twitter (now X) that I wasn’t allowed to seek advice from legal counsel to have my work back.

What was wierd was I was asked, by one of her research team colleagues, to apologise to her and her friends in the research team, for 'being horrible' on a zoom call. I said, no. I didn’t see why I had to apologise to for asking my work back…as I’m at a loss why I needed to apologise for asking for my work, which she’d published in her name.

I did seek legal counsel as I couldn’t believe the wierd situation that I found myself in and they were horrified at the request to come to what labelled a “kangaroo court on zoom” and for the Twitter storm and verbal harassment by many researchers online. I know from what was said, by her colleagues online, that I wasn’t supposed to ask for my work back. I discovered that I wasn’t “supposed to ask for my work to be returned as one is labelled “horrible”. It is clear that those researchers on Twitter believed that “it is ok to steal and plagarise other people’s work. If it wasn’t, they’d not have spent their time being so abusive.

Legal counsel, when I asked them, told me, that some researchers steal and plagarise the work of other researchers because they are desperate to show that they've written lots of articles. These people steal hoping that no-one will react for the shame of having had their work stolen.

I did contact this researcher’s university department and I was told that she couldn’t have stolen, plagarised, and republished my work. All I can conclude is that she thinks that she's justified in stealing the work of other people as no-one has told her that her behaviour was unprofessional. Legal counsel were surprised at the department didn’t do anything and said that I was likely to have work stolen again. (Grim news…)

What can be concluded?

So, stealing academic publications is ‘normal’ and just what happens these days. It can be speculated that those who steal are desperate for an academic position, a publication record, and so on. Perhaps I should take this stealing problem as an indication that my work is worth stealing. In reality, I think that the people who steal are performative and second rate. I just didn't do this work for others to take, and benefit from it.

So complaining this time, got my work returned! :)