This is obviously an insane thing do (most fields are small enough that you will expect at least one person from the original paper to at least read the plagiarized paper), but this seems untrue:
> As you must certainly know, stealing is wrong. It is especially problematic in scientific research. The peer-review process depends on the ethical behavior of reviewers.
That people get proper credit is less important in scientific research than elsewhere, not more. It's obviously bad incentives, but with science it's most important that the information is accurate and gets out. Doesn't sound like the guy made it less accurate by republishing it with his own name on it.
I also find the "open letter" tone here a bit annoying and petulant. If this guy admitted what he did, why publish this without mentioning his name, and with just general platitudes like this? No one is on the side of someone who does this.
EDIT: Maybe I was unclear here, my last paragraph was intended to to indicate that no one would be on the side of the plagiarizers, and that I didn't like the indirect "you can figure out who we are talking about" nature of the letter. I think it would have been more effective to write this as, "Recently our work was stolen by such-and-such, we think it was terrible, etc."
> As you must certainly know, stealing is wrong. It is especially problematic in scientific research. The peer-review process depends on the ethical behavior of reviewers.
That people get proper credit is less important in scientific research than elsewhere, not more. It's obviously bad incentives, but with science it's most important that the information is accurate and gets out. Doesn't sound like the guy made it less accurate by republishing it with his own name on it.
I also find the "open letter" tone here a bit annoying and petulant. If this guy admitted what he did, why publish this without mentioning his name, and with just general platitudes like this? No one is on the side of someone who does this.
EDIT: Maybe I was unclear here, my last paragraph was intended to to indicate that no one would be on the side of the plagiarizers, and that I didn't like the indirect "you can figure out who we are talking about" nature of the letter. I think it would have been more effective to write this as, "Recently our work was stolen by such-and-such, we think it was terrible, etc."