AmpedTraining Blog
2008 July 13 | Comments Off
By Matt
In the aftermath of the last post I made, regarding Alwyn Cosgrove’s plagiarism of Lyle McDonald’s Ultimate Diet 2.0, there’s been two prevailing opinions.
One side feels that it’s despicable. The other side feels that it’s just undeserved hatin’, and people trolling for the sake of trolling.
Alwyn has since made a semi-public apology for not crediting Lyle, but in the process this has placed a nail in the coffin: he was given no permission to use Lyle’s work, and in light of other events the excuse of ‘conveniently forgetting’ the credit paragraph with the rest of the work is extremely flimsy.
But to those of you that feel it’s undeserved hatin’, I’m curious for the rationale.
The only excuse I’ve seen trotted out so far has revolved around character attacks on Lyle. It seems a lot of people resent Lyle; of course, most of these people aren’t bright and at some point have had their asses handed to them by him, so that’s no real surprise.
The troubling matter is that these folks somehow believe that Alywn’s admitted theft is somehow OK simply on the basis of not liking Lyle.
To those of you that feel that way: Are you stupid? Seriously, that’s a real question. I want you to look at yourself and honestly ask if you’re just dumb.
You can not like somebody all day long, that’s up to you. If you get all butt-hurt because you lose a debate, hey, that’s your character. It says volumes about you, but that’s another discussion.
The point is, you don’t justify theft based on the fact that you don’t like the victim. Simple as that.
To be bluntly honest, if you knew some of the behind the scenes background on this, and assuming you’re not one of these that can’t even understand how Alywn was in the wrong, you’d see things differently. I’ve hinted at some of this douchebaggery in previous posts here.
Point being, this is the tip of a substantially larger iceberg. As my drunken buddy Will Heffernan put it, Lyle didn’t invent fat loss, but the way he’s gone through the research and made it easily-digestible for the average person is pretty well unique, and almost everybody steals from him. The Body Recomposition forums have been a Guru hunting ground for years now, even if the plagiarism isn’t necessarily this blatant.
All of you out there that got high and mighty when you got Alwyn’s explanation, talking about judging before having all the facts, might do damn well to remember that it works both ways.
Going back to our knuckle-dragging friends, we see that any criticism of Alwyn must be unjustified, and Lyle’s just being an asshole. Nevermind that the guy’s had his material pilfered for years, without saying a word. The one time he actually does speak up about a very grievous case, and with someone that’s repeatedly taken material for profit, without so much as credit, he gets jumped on. Nevermind that Alwyn cut off ties with Lyle, for calling BS on his shaky interpretation of research (i.e., saying stupid things).
Explain to me exactly why we’re blaming the victim, again?
Just some food for thought for all of you out there that only see “hating”. You can bury your heads all you want, but it’s not “just hating” if it’s in the right. Yes, there are idiots that troll for the sake of trolling, but it’s a very blatant strawman argument to assume that any criticism of a guru or self-appointed expert is uncalled for.
Many of you single-minded types out there would do very well to remember this. Your heroes aren’t all they seem.
2008 July 10 | Comments Off
By Matt
I just read this over at Lyle McDonald’s blog.
Apparently Warp Speed Fat Loss, a new-ish product by Alwyn Cosgrove and Mike Roussell, shall we say liberally borrows from Lyle’s 2003 book The Ultimate Diet 2.0. By “liberally borrows from”, I mean “copied nearly word for word”.
Read the full story on Lyle’s blog
I’m not gonna comment any further, cause Lyle sums up most of it, but wow. That’s all I can say.
And yet, I’m sure there will be plenty of people writing this off or “giving them the benefit of the doubt” even now. Why? Because they’re big names?
How far does it have to go before you (meaning we) have enough of blatant, outright theft? This is the equivalent of a 4th grader stealing another kid’s book report, and it has about the same quality.
Yet we gladly support these people, give them money, and hold them in high regard. That speaks volumes, to me.
2008 April 5 | Comments Off
By Matt
In copyright law, there’s a concept known as “Fair Use”. The US Copyright Act (which can be found online at www.copyright.gov) states “purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright”. There are also other mitigating factors that are examined on a case by case basis.
So, using material for “reasonable purposes” is not against the law. What I’m doing here, criticizing and satirizing other copyrighted materials found on the Internet, is not a violation of copyright law. It falls under Fair Use.
Those of us that put ourselves out there as “experts” on the subject matter have an interesting dilemma. On the one hand, we benefit immensely from the free exchange of ideas. Most everything I know on exercise science has come from talking shop with people like me — guys and gals that enjoy the topic and like to hash it out. Not unlike any other hobby, really.
Free exchange of ideas is a good thing. But you knew there was a point to this rant, so here it is. There’s people out there, other like-minded experts, that have problems crediting their source materials.
Don’t get me wrong — this isn’t always intentional. In the fitness industry, it can be hard, sometimes impossible, to credit the source of any given statement. A lot of it is research based, or can be easily attributed to the coach that said it, but some of it is just basic lore that stretches back to God knows when.
The statement “standing on the shoulders of giants” couldn’t be more true in this field. At best I’m a journalist, taking the work that the real pioneers have done and putting it together.
No, that’s not what I’m bitching about either. What I’m talking about is the guys that have bought into their own celebrity. Guys that have let the ego and the e-fame rule them.
I’m not gonna name names, not publicly, although I really should. But, in many ways that’d be too easy. I’d be giving free publicity. I’m not gonna do that. Not yet, anyway.
I will, however, give two case studies. Consider these hypotheticals. You know, “hypotheticals”.
Case Study #1 – An online “fitness consultant” that works with physique-type competitors. Highly secretive, creating a mass appeal for his programs. In reality, most of them are taken directly from www.t-nation.com, but there’s no ethical problem in charging clients for this “service”.
This guy seems to change his mind on a regular basis. One minute he knows what’s up, then gets debated to a stand-still….and the new ideas end up in his programs the next month. They even end up in his articles.
It’s pretty obvious the material isn’t his, as he applies it very poorly and with no real thought put in.
This wouldn’t be so bad, except there’s no credit given, let alone any residuals paid for the use of those ideas. No, that’d mean he’d have to deflate his head and not get all the attention. Not gonna happen. This is the kind of quality we’re dealing with.
Case Study #2 – Well-known fitness celebrity. Similar to the guy above, but much more widely known. Writes a recent book, copying verbatim from the subject matter of another coach. Book is an instant hit; material taken from the other coach is uncredited. It’s presented with a different name, but the concept and use of this particular material, a protocol you might say, is identical.
You can make up your own mind on the ethics and whatever morality you feel is involved here.
Yes, there’s an element of open source that goes on in Internet posting. Blatant theft, however, is absolutely ridiculous. Apparently these individuals have no problem with this kind of “borrowing”, but I certainly do.
Personally, I see no problem in using the material of others. But if you’re going to blatantly rip it off, then use it to make profits, well….
Karma, she’s a bad bus driver.
