Plagiarism Alert! DarkSide Magazine and DVD World Magazine Stealing Huge Amounts of Content Online.

Posted by Todd Brown at 12:00pm.

Posted in Film News .

All I can say about this is DAMN ...

DarkSide Magazine and DVD World Magazine, both edited by Allan Bryce, have been caught out for a simply MASSIVE amount of plagiarism spanning years. It appears that they’ve been lifting online film reviews at least since 2003 and re-printing them as their own work, without bylines and without permission from the original authors. Who have they stolen from? It’s not a complete list but among the victims:

Dark Horizons, CHUD, Midnight Eye, NixFlix, DVD Talk, DVD Times, Digital Bits, IO Film, IGN, Bloody Disgusting, Dread Central, The New York Times, DVD Maniacs, DVD File and DVD Drive In.

Dark Side doesn’t maintain a review archive online so I have no way of checking to see if we’ve been hit, but it’s certainly something for any writers working online to be aware of.

To people who subscribe to the magazine, here’s my advice: cancel your subscription now. These people are profiting from other people’s work.

For full details check the Latarnia Forums here.

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Reader Comments

logboy 05/27/2005 @ 12:28pm

theres loads to pick up from the link, including a mention of a piece from 2000 from dvdmaniacs being ripped and the writer being offered a job (which he seems to have accepted, at least for a while) in return for the “mistake” or “oversight"… i am amazed they not only continued to apparently rip stories, but that they increased the practice following the dvd boom over the last 5 years, and stole from major publications like the washington post (apparently).
logboy 05/27/2005 @ 12:32pm

oh, and it seems that the way to check a match between an online review and the magazine is to google a keyword from a piece in the mag and look for a related hit.

also, the mag seems to be claiming one or maybe more writers are responsible for this, but the mag does seem to use ghost-writer type names, and ultimately the editor / publisher can be held to account. now, the major publications clearly have massive legal powers - hope they use them if theyre victims too. maybe this UK mag intentionally chose american sources and is hoping obscure internet copyright laws cover them?…
Nomad 05/27/2005 @ 3:25pm

While i’m almost positive that copyright on original content is a universal mandate on ownership, the owner would have a bitch of a time suing, as they would have to get legal services in the country of the accused and go there to see it through. Best bet is to prove the instances publiclly and put the wankers out of business. Getting damages will be very difficult.
logboy 05/28/2005 @ 1:46am

i dont think its being viewed as a damages issue - plus there are major publications involved, so they have the legal clout and possibly the desire to deal with this. setting an example is important to them…
jasper sharp 05/28/2005 @ 7:52am

Thanks very much for making us aware of this - seems like we got off quite lightly, with only one review plagiarised, and not one of mine either. I don’t whether to feel happy or slightly put out by that
Anyway, you can sure we will be adding our voices to the chorus of disapproval.
Steve Green 07/13/2005 @ 11:03am

I’ve managed to get a tiny bit of coverage in the UK Press Gazette (the house magazine of UK journalism), but urge all who are interested to bookmark Mirek’s continuing investigations and cause as much of a fuss as you can. Otherwise, it’s likely Stray Cat (the publishers) will get their wish and walk away from this pretty much unscathed.
Sean 09/27/2006 @ 9:42pm

While I’m against plagiarism of anykind, claimants need to offer more than just name of sites. This magazine has been around longer than most of these horror sites. You’ll have to provide exact reviews. I’ve never had a problem with the magazine.