Bitcoin Forum

“It seems that I ever saw this kind of Whitepaper before”. Have you ever encountered such situation? We figured out there are more and more plagiaristic Whitepaper existed since launching ICO projects becomes popular. We found some examples of plagiaristic Whitepaper.

What do you think about the white paper plagiarism?

1. Title Page Plagiarism

STC vs ICR Same font, same version, same logo with different color
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*pTvs9ywVsTDWb7K3Y2gcBg.png

ABT vs ACT Similar logo, same slogan
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*ne9m3Kg0LwIG3n7JAsboWA.jpeg

MTK vs CLR Same content type
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*v6UEsHvdI-CMxrv5aWFgaQ.jpeg

2. Table of Contents Plagiarism

PRTS vs SCI Same content
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*g7l01IR7rnC1b5k6BFEZ6g.png

VSM vs COI Same content except deleting few chapters & replacing some project information
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*gA5m0ecx4tG97nEdQ1TfOw.png

AID vs MTE Same content with different sequence
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*AHdSY27NyRD9TnTcwSzXzw.png

3. Content Plagiarism

STC vs ICR Copy content except picture, we could see that ICR Whitepaper shows blank picture when they couldn’t copy the STC’s picture.
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*TPPzQrT_mmvTiuMzPHahSw.png

AID vs MTE Same introduction of Platform except replacing project name and deleting inserted picture.
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*uPIXWyumcuHey-tNFnFaVw.png

BTC vs SUS Same abstract with same title
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*Yt1tf2aOjab98bwKR65dtA.png

I have a few thoughts.

1. It's not good to copy

2. the reality is, nobody cares...

Whitepaper plagiarism is a sure sign of a scam project. Any project worth any amount of money would be able to write their own whitepaper without having to steal from others. There is no excuse. If you find any, you should open a new thread in the Scam Accusations board (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0) to bring it to the attention to the rest of community.

Why do you think that no one cares?
The project side hopes to help investors understand the project, understand the problem, solve the problem and make a decision through the white paper.

If the white paper of the project is plagiarism, Investors should carefully consider...
The project side also needs to pay attention.

We just showed some interesting cases, In fact, the textual similarity of plagiarism in these projects is key.
Such as, According to the data of ratingtoken, MTK vs CLR : the text similarity XCLR_(ClearCoin):68.78%, OCTANE_(Octaneum):2.53%.

http://ww1.sinaimg.cn/large/604902cdgy1fv8x38sdglj20lj0auwfb.jpg

Correct view. We will do that of course.
Both investors and project parties should pay attention to the plagiarism of white papers.
We will support white paper testing on a technical level.

Copyright is irrelevant.

Writing a whitepaper is the easiest part about setting up a new project. Building a working product and having a sound business plan is much more complex. If the team can't even write a whitepaper without having to steal from others, they have zero hope of managing a successful business.

A plagiarized whitepaper is an indication of an incompetent team, and you would do well to stay well away.

I dont think you understood the topic being talked about or you dont know how ICOs work. Whitepaper, Yellowpaper and the Technical Whitepaper are the prospectus that the ICO team wants the investor to read so that they know about the project. If that been copied from somewhere else then it immediately raises red flags. One would be stupid to invest in such an ICO; its not be called an ICO anymore - its a scamming fund.

Incompetence would come into question if the team actually existed. ;)

One possible excuse for plagiarism, they have hire someone to write it for them and they didn't know that the one they hire just copied it somewhere else. It is s a valid excuse? I don't think so. If they don't have any reason to scam then they should get someone competent or at least try to check everything because releasing their whitepaper.

If they have the same white paper, then they are the same coins, and why should care about the coin plagiarism andnow about the whitepaper. For example, you think BTC and BCH should have a different whitepaper? They only have a different block size, but is the same thing.

But at end coins are open source, any one can take a coin, create a genesis block and launch his coin, take the idea from internet and post it on the same internet, that's why we see now days all those alts and icos.

many projecst are focused on more important things than on their whitepaper, many ico concepts are basically the same so they save time copy a similar whitepaper, change some terms and then focus on designing the whitepaper.

there are also scammers among them that cant do anything and dont copy to save time and ressources, but copy to get something done in the first place.

i mean jes many are academic people that can create a Detailed 10000 pages whitepaper that is individual and has to be read through carefully, but do you really want that?

instead of some standardised meme whitepaper that you already know?

the issues cryptoprojects face are similar,

and project developers need ressources so they can hire and hold teammembers so the team is capapble solving those issues.

talking detailed about the 10.000 details of issues a project can have can be a very burden for the small founder teams, that want to grow, that need to obtain ressources.

perfectionism on the whitepaper standards might lead to an environment similar to that of the banking cartels, where projects have very huge issues to start and get momentum, obtaining ressources and build something they are seeking to build

regards

Plagiarism automatically involves copyright violation; and the remedies are financially stringent for the offenders. If it's an ICO, then their entire corpus amount raised in the ICO can be seized by law, and additional penalties imposed on the team, including perhaps the advisors.

With so much to lose, why would a genuine promoter indulge in copying? Therefore, the likelihood is that it's a scam setup from the very outset, wherein the cheats who launch it have no expectations beyond ripping off innocent and ignorant retail investors of a few hundred quid at a time. These scammers may be making at best a few thousand quid per scam; but with so many scam sites that they launch at once, they could pocket a cool hundred thousand quid or more across all their scam sites. And, since their gains per site are too insignificant, nobody pursues them for copyright violations.

Will Satoshi Nakamoto pursue a charge of copyright infringement against that last mentioned ICO which copied the abstract of his original paper verbatim?!

Have encountered lots of it but tracing up which is copied or being copied would be hard if you just read up few numbers of whitepapers. Plagiarism is always be a bad thing yet there would be no originality or just simply copy others work just for the sole purpose of scamming.If a team cant make their own then most of the time they are building up an another shitcoin in the market.
There no way we can stop these things because projects will pop out just like mushrooms continuing on copying WP anytime if they do like to.

If you work in a profession that's closely linked to content creation, then you know the temptation to take someone else's idea and claim it as your own. That's the definition of plagiarism, although it's usually only used in the creative arts. All true artists (writers, painters, etc.) have no tolerance of this.

But take a look at all the freelance marketeers and content writers online. The bulk of them produce plagiarised work, or work just ever so slightly modified to pass copyscape, but with next to no original content.

Sure, some people care. But I've worked for too long with too many people to think that people think it's a big deal. I've seen Big Four consultants do presentations with stuff copy pasted from all over the internet. I've seen CEOs submitting content for publication, and when informed they've plagiarised they can even react with shock... "But it's only 2 lines! Everything else is original!"

One possible excuse for plagiarism, they have hire someone to write it for them and they didn't know that the one they hire just copied it somewhere else. It is s a valid excuse? I don't think so. If they don't have any reason to scam then they should get someone competent or at least try to check everything because releasing their whitepaper.
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Yes, it is possible. Now some ICO projects only want more investors, and do not want to do a good project seriously. If writing a white paper is just a task to prepare for an ICO, such this project also needs to be questioned.

I personally appreciate well written whitepapers because I know the team really put an effort in creating it. Whitepaper is a really good way to know if the project will really deliver its promise.
So, it's always a shame to read a copy-pasted, plagiarized whitepaper.

For me, not coming up with an original wp for a project is like an indicator that I cannot trust the project. They should never assume that people do not read the wp anymore because it's too long. :(

Why would no one care for plagiarized contents of whitepapers?

It's like you are stealing the blue print of a company from the same industry that you want to build up. This is an issue to most of the ICO investors but its very unethical if whitepapers are being copied. I'm not an ICO investor but I see on how the community reacted with it but since most of them are the same type of tokens, there's a resemblance but if its totally copied question the team. And as time goes by when the issue lie lows, it will be forgotten.

of course This is the case, but these coins is not universal.  The white paper is also a dimension for everyone to read.
The high text similarity of the white paper  is also reflecting some phenomena, and there are many white papers with high similarity.
The rightmost number is the text similarity of the white paper.
http://ww1.sinaimg.cn/large/604902cdgy1fvduije7idj20m307ojs0.jpg

Because people are stupid. I would wager that >90% of people throwing their money away at scam ICOs don't bother to read the whitepaper. They just see an ANN thread promising to quadruple their money in a month or something equally outrageous and their greed drowns out what little sense they have. Having said that, I bet that there's an awful lot of people who haven't read Satoshi's original papers either.

That's how it goes, the hope that they would get more money from investing in ICOs and that what ICO means to them.

Whitepapers, roadmaps and other composition for an ICO isn't really a thing to them as long as it is "promising" profit they would go for it.

Copying  someone else intellectual work to promote your project without referencing them is an irresponsible act that has been taking too far and it is also a criminal offense. Any project that cannot put their own idea on paper for investors to read without plagiarism someone else's work is an outright scam project because in the long run they might not have the capacity to run and manage the project.

At least it makes it pretty easy to recognize them as scams. Though I think there are still too many people who would fall for that.
The whitepapers you've listed aren't really the best examples of whitepapers though. I think I wouldn't even invest in the original projects they came from.

And that's what they really do, to hire someone to write their whitepaper. Its not just a task, its a whitepaper, it was meant to show your project to any potential investors, then why don't they themselves wrote it so that they can present it clearly?

@eternalgloom - let's look at the bright side, we can spot them from afar, if they plagiarized other projects whitepaper then obviously a fraudster and scammer and not to be trusted by our hard earn money.

Nothing good about plagiarism in reality but feel nothing on project that does that. If people involved in creating crypto project, can't write whitepaper and are almost copying it, then what they can offer to people? In good case it will be copy shit of anything and in worse, it will be a scam. Always worths to have an attention on everything while reviewing any project.

I did actually saw 2 projects with stolen WP. How should we trust such a project if its team is lying already in the begining?

Report the projects in the Scam Accusations Board (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0). They will serve as a warning to the community, and generally will be picked up by DT members and the offending profiles tagged with negative trust.

There's a good post here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5004397) with some advice on spotting scam projects and how to format your report if you need some guidance.

A legit ICO will never make themselves guilty of White paper plagiarism. It is the lazy scammers that are doing this and they are tainting the whole ICO scene with their laziness. A legit project will take the time to put something original on the table and they will never copy someone else's work.

As an investor, I will look for originality in their presentation and something that will set them apart from other ICO's. Why would you market your product or service with someone else's work?

A lot of people do not know how to do this and they get help from people who use basic ICO templates or copies from other people's work and inadvertently makes themselves guilty of plagiarism.  :o

White papers on the market will have similarities more or less.
But we also found that the white papers of some projects are original.
So, the white paper that could have been original, why copy it?
We tested more than 4,000 white papers through technology. White papers with similarities have many smart contract security vulnerabilities

ACE (TokenStars ACE)  vs ACAD (Academy)
According to the data of ratingtoken, the text similarity DAR_(Darcrus): 98.53%.
http://ww1.sinaimg.cn/large/604902cdly1fvo36n460dj20qs0emgn1.jpg


MER (Mercury) vs DAR (Darcrus)
According to the data of ratingtoken, the text similarity DAR_(Darcrus):100%.
http://ww1.sinaimg.cn/large/604902cdly1fvo36y2q4ij20pk0e2wfr.jpg

Because investors only focus on profit, but they don’t take the initiative to distinguish.

Can you give an example?

 This article  (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-45640236)came out today, confirming in some ways what I've always thought: that getting someone else to write your paper and claiming it as your own, is a form of plagiarism.

If universities think that offence is bannable, stolen or plagiarised whitepapers should brand the project as fraudulent, if not at the very least dishonest.

Essay mills, whitepaper writers, sure, legitimate businesses but they shouldn't be used to write papers for a project. A poorly written paper but containing the actual ideas and thoughts of the project are still preferable to me, than an obvious marketing shill straight off the essay mill.

@OP benchmark WP? Bitcoin? ;)

If you are investing in a project that has copied the whitepaper of another project then that is a scam but I don't think that having someone write the whitepaper is plagiarism as they are being paid for it and given the content to write on so that makes it the property of the person who paid for the white paper to be written. If it was copied from another project then that is plagiarism

Most people will not realise if it is copied from someone else, unless there is prominent posting on a scam accusation thread and it catches the attention of google. If these guys can't be bothered to create their own whitepaper then I wouldn't bother to invest, there are plenty of others to choose from

WP copying is really normal :)). There are so many new ICO projects too lazy to create their own new WPs so they often steal WP of other ICO projects then they'll fix it just a little bit to make it fit with their project. LOL. For me, I often check WP then if I know it's just a copied one then I'll stay away from these projects.

Scam! Scam!! Scam!!!  ,that is the ring of a bell in my head whenever I  see such copycats.Scammers lack patience,so they copy existing  work. White papers are like the constitution of the project, if it is plagiarized,i wonder how such lazy/scam team can deliver on the their promises product.I will be weary of such projects

Didn’t wall street journal find 271 plagiarised documents out of 1400-1500 ico related documents and whitepapers? In my opinion investors should look at other indicators in addition to just the white paper. I would bet most people don’t even read them in the first place which perpetuates this plagiarism problem.
Novel idea  : put whitepapers on blockchain

It is incredible but I have find out that many people do not really care if the white paper has been plagiarized, which is something amazing to me because if I was thinking about investing in a project and I find out that the project had done something like that I will immediately take off that project of my list of possible investments and yet I cannot figure out why people do not care about such a thing because it is a very clear sign that the project is a scam.

As any type of plagiarism should be harshly punished, in college if you copy someone else's work you were suspended for the semester and if it was something really serious you were expelled, remember that plagiarism is a little less than theft, but it is still the theft of someone else's intellectual property.

Projects who plagiarist other projects definitely have dont have the intention of making their project a success and it is probably a scam. If they really wamt their project to be a succes they will invest time in creating a good whitepaper and will not just copy other's whitepaper's content.

They don't have any competence to run the project, basically if they are copying the whitepaper and that means they can't even create their own product. whitepaper will give a lot of insight about your idea to create such a useful product dude. in fact that even a big company just like can't even create a whitepaper and the developer has confirmed i they are taking another platform's whitepaper called filecoin.

Normal? Are you out of your mind or just posting to add to the cesspool of shitposts to get your weekly quota of post counts done? Copying a Whitepaper is plagiarism at its fullest and its a sign that the ICO team is a group of scammers and there is no team at all.

There is a lot of difference between cheating in an exam and copying a whitepaper. Do you even understand what the whitepaper is for? It the written explanation of the project and what the team aims to provide to the consumers. If a person copies in an exam - they are cheating not the examiner but themselves. But in ICOs or even startups, a copied whitepaper is an immediate red flag.

Some simply plan to deceive the investor in this way. They simply can not come up with something new or alternative and take the created, tested. I think these projects should be closed immediately after the appearance.

well, actually there is not too much we can do about the plagiarism on the white paper. but for me, if a project and a team is not good enough to do their own white paper right, they are not going to have my money since i would say they are likely more a scam

Plagiarism is a criminal act, no different from stealing from others. We must prevent it.
Many scam ICO's are plagiarizing the other's legit ICO and made many investors scammed by them.
Any kind of plagiarism should be punish because it can give other peoples problems.

Since not all people willing to read a whitepaper. It makes that kind of plagiarism get missed and some people ended up getting scammed by a copy pasted project, and makes those people regret what they had investing.

Do we have any precedent of punishing any plagiat in crypto?
where it`s claim be opened? in which court?

This is the indicator that a project is not worth to be invested in.

I agree with the spirit of this, but if we take into account that there have been incredible scams that have made people lose tens of millions of dollars and yet those people have not set a foot on jail then it is very unlikely that some heavy repercussion is going to fall to those people that use plagiarism to try to make their project more legitimate to the eyes of other people.

Honestly if someone copied a whitepaer I don't think that a  lot of people would notice since no one really reads the whitepaper anyway. If you want to know how little people care about the whitepaper just read for some of the projects, you will find so many typos and grammatical errors but no one would be pointing it out because no one reads them

This is mainly because the market is too hot. What kind of projects can raise funds. So there are a lot of scammers. When the market is in a downturn, there are very few such situations, and the fundraising is not enough. There is no plagiarism.

A project that simply copies a whitepaper can only be a scam.
If i discovered something like this, my trust in a project would be gone.
Who can not write his own whitepaper, certainly can not lead a successful project.

If you see this thing with the new copied one,  it means that this project might be a scam or a shit ICO. I also noticed that thing before and I am aware of it but i know there so many people here are still victim of this so it is a good post for everyone especially for those greed investor.

Some ICOs do not write their WPs own, they pay for it to be done by third party.
For me it is a red flag if find out their WP is plagiarism.

Scams are getting cheaper, that's all.
Scammers used to getting a lot of money fall for their scam in past so they could afford better construction of Whitepaper. With the rise of number of people and projects scamming and a general awareness in investors about a good and bad project, scams are getting really cheaper.

I know this is the case, in the past when I was more interested in investing in icos I always read the whitepapers and I was surprised by the amount of errors that I found, then I took the time to report the errors and yet the developers did not care enough about them to update the whitepaper, so not only the investors do not care even the developers did not care about it.

I'm not surprised at all that white paper copying takes place. People want easy money and as long as there are stupid newcomers who are sure that after entering the exchange any shit coin will grow in price, until then there will be a Scam. Use your head,before make any investments decisions.

There are certain rules for drafting technical documentation. Therefore, it's difficult to require a variety of White Paper. More often, it's written in a pattern. And as a rule, it is rarely that enybody reads WP. It happens that the White Paper is perfect, but the project turns out to be scamm.

This is the truth, there are too many investors in the market that do not see the difference between bitcoin and other coins and they think that if bitcoin grew that much then a small coin can eventually become as big and we know that is not the case but people think that and eventually they pay the mistake of thinking that bitcoin is just like any other coin.

The only thing that it reflects the way why ICO managers copy the whitepapers of others is that, they are not legit and original. Meaning to say that, they intend to create misleading content and in short, they aim to Scam in someways. White paper is very important for every ICO since it is the reflection of ICOS project and aim.

To be honest Some of us not really care about what the contents of whitepapper, or sometimes we are to lazy to read that things. It is just become usual things on ICO project, the whitepapper content & the technology are just the same with the other projects. So many scamer arround us, just be careful & make deep research with the project that we wanna make investment on it.

plagiarism is a copyright violation and it can go in terms of laws that exist in the real world. When it encountered this kind of whitepaper will then this certainly is a big scam would certainly be detrimental. more people are beginning to want to get results easily and one with plagiarism whitepaper and this thing is embarrassing.