Global Security, Privacy, & Risk Management

Published Articles: – “Geopolitical Context of Piracy” February 24, 2012

UPDATE:  The company that published the articles contacted Heather and has agreed to pull the articles off their website.  This is good news and shows that the copany is interested in ensuring their readers get original work from the original author.   In an interesting twist, the company representative stated that, when asked, the party who submitted the articles stated “unequivocally” that it was their work.  Considering that the company pulled the articles, Heather has a PhD and background in defense, and political economy, and has published over 100 articles, scores of whitepapers, research briefs and other material as well as possessing the original whitepaper from which it was taken, I think the readers are savvy enough to know the actual author of the work.  It certainly seems unlikely that a person who has never published a single article or other document would embark on something as complex as: “the Geopolitical Context of Piracy” for their first foray into writing.

Two years ago my wife, Dr. Heather Mark wrote a whitepaper on the Geopolitical Context of Piracy that has since been broken into its component sections and published verbatim as 4 different articles without any form of attribution to her.  She was contacted by the organization that published the articles today to ask about her work and attribution.  To assuage any concerns that it is indeed her sole work and not anybody else’s work here is a copy of the whitepaper. “Understanding Modern Piracy; Geopolitical and Regulatory Considerations”….the first section is titled: “Geopolitical Considerations”, the next section is titled: “Current Anti-Piracy Efforts”.  Heather is a brilliant person and a tremendous righter writer (thanks to Heather’ brother Bill for pointing this out;).  There are times that I certainly would like to “borrow” her work and claim it as my own.  I would certainly appear smarter and more informed than I actually am.  As professional writers (yup, we actually get paid to write;) it is disturbing when someone uses your work without attribution.

Kudos to the company for maintaining the integrity of its service and evaluating the content and writers.