Thieves

One of the less pleasant aspects of my work is plagiarism.  Any number of people, often neo-Nazis, plagiarize my material.

An interesting recent example is Ostara Publications, a scurulous Britsh outfit that has stolen a lot of my material, offering it in various publications available on amazon.com, among other places.

When I wrote them asking to “cease and desist,” I got the following fascinating responses:

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your email.

We are unaware of which website to which you refer, but whatever it may be, please be assured that we have taken nothing from it and used our own paid-for translators in Germany.

Kind regards
Richard Williams
Senior Editor

When I responded that is was highly improbably that their “paid for’ translator in Germany would translate things exactly as I did, I got this response:

Dear Sir,

Thank you for the quick response.

We must however confirm that all our Third Reich-era translated works -- which, we point out, are far more extensive than the two items you mention -- have been acquired and prepared by ourselves, and that nothing has been taken from your website.

For example, we note, upon looking at your website, that our translation of the series of "Unser Hitler" speeches contains all the texts, whereas your website's collection is incomplete.

You will therefore appreciate that we cannot remove our legitimate work from sale.

Yours sincerely,
Richard Williams
Senior Editor

I pointed out that the missing speech in my translations of Goebbels’s “Unser Hitler” speeches was in fact published in one of my books.  I have yet to receive a response.

What is astonishing is the sheer idiocy of the claim that their supposed translator in Germany would translate things in exactly the way I did.

Well, I’ll post more as things develop.