See in Russian Below
It is known that at collection points for used containers, they pay a few cents for an empty bottle. But if the bottle is filled with some drink that is in demand, then its price increases sharply. For example, a bottle of beer costs hundreds of times more than an empty one, and a bottle of wine costs even more, with cognac – much more.
Why did I start the note with an empty bottle? I remember the 90s of the 20th century, when there was a mass migration of our compatriots to Israel, America and Western countries. Having settled in a new place, community members tried to create public organizations similar to those that functioned in the former Soviet Union.
One of such associations is the “Union of Bukharian-Jewish Writers, Poets and Journalists of the USA”. Creating an organization is just the beginning. More important is what this organization contains, the benefit it brings to the community as a whole, and to each member of the community.
At the initial moment, the organization functioned as the association “Poets’ Teahouse”, the chairman of which, until 2010, was the famous scientist, prof. Lev Manievich Yakubov.
With his death, the question of the leadership of the “Union of Bukharian-Jewish Writers, Poets and Journalists” arose. This organization, as is known, is a public community association and the leader, accordingly, must be elected democratically with the involvement of a wide range of interested parties. Imagine my surprise when, during the election of its chairman, there was a “smell” of the notorious obscurantism of Soviet times.
A well-known intriguer in the community, Rafik Nektalov, prepared 10-15 people loyal to him, gathered everyone in a small room and organized a pseudo-election of his person for this position. At this gathering (it can’t be called a meeting) neither information about the work done, nor a work plan for the future were announced and, accordingly, alternative candidates were not presented.
The author of this note accidentally came to this meeting and accordingly voted against, since he did not want to contribute to a positive solution to this obscurantism.
By and large, this organization has withered away and, apart from book presentations, does not hold any events. Although everyone knows that even the presentation is prepared by the authors themselves.
It should be noted that this lover of community public positions has appropriated for himself the position of coordinator, and editor of the newspaper, etc. Members of the community should be periodically elected and re-elected to all these positions. But in the Bukharian-Jewish community of New York, where the spirit of anti-democracy and archaism prevails, this rule has long been forgotten.
In these conditions, a simple solution to this issue suggests itself, namely, to print the name of the community public positions on signs and hang them around the neck of the lover of occupying them.
Under the new conditions, the essence of the “Union of Bukharian-Jewish Writers, Poets and Journalists of the USA” should look completely different, taking into account the realities of the new life. For example, having moved to a new place of residence, some members of the community began to engage in writing and journalism. Accordingly, for new authors, there was a need for basic knowledge in the field of copyright.
In the former USSR, a future creative person received this knowledge while studying in secondary and higher educational institutions or through special lectures that were organized by various public organizations, such as the “Knowledge” society.
In the new living conditions, it is more reasonable for the “Union of Bukharian-Jewish Writers, Poets and Journalists of the USA” to focus on educational activities in the field of copyright, namely, organizing lectures for aspiring writers, poets and journalists. Accordingly, it is necessary to invite knowledgeable specialists and pay for their work, and not spend community money on trips to Azerbaijan and Europe in search of supposedly lost members of the Bukharian Jewish community, about whom close relatives have long known through word of mouth.
Insufficient awareness in the field of copyright contributes to the feeding in the community, with the help of the same intriguer Rafik Nektalov, of slanderers and intriguers like himself. His latest fosterling, pseudo-scientist Imanuel Rybakov, who, like a brainless chicken, shits wherever he stops.
He bombs newspaper editorial offices, complaining that words and photographs from his book were stolen. With his low level of knowledge, he certainly does not know that literary genres are different.
In biographical literature, where facts are described that are purely informational in nature (dates of birth and death, occupation, positions held, etc.), they are not subject to copyright and their use is not plagiarism.
It is known that the rights of authors are regulated on the basis of: the “International Geneva Convention” of September 6, 1952 and the “Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works” of September 9, 1886, which was last amended on October 2, 1979. Currently, it has been ratified or acceded to by 196 states, including the United States of America.
These documents define, among other things, the term of protection of the author’s rights, which consists of the author’s lifespan plus 25 years after, according to the Geneva Convention; 50 years according to the Berne Convention; in the USA, this term in some cases reaches 70 years.
As soon as I had enough time, I decided to leaf through the so-called “masterpiece” of the literary work of the 21st century of the Bukharian-Jewish community, namely the book by Imanuel Rybakov: “The Merchant Class of Bukharian Jews”, New York, 2014.
In truth, once again you are convinced of the truth of the folk wisdom: “He sees a speck in someone else’s eye, but does not notice a log in his own.” Getting to know this book better, the reader will easily discover there, figuratively speaking, not just a “log”, but a whole “logging site”.
And even at a cursory glance, any person who is even slightly familiar with the copyright law will notice a significant amount of plagiarism in the text of this book and the author’s uncleanliness.
In accordance with the copyright law, when using direct quotes from other sources, these quotes must be put in quotation marks. This requirement is mandatory, otherwise, it qualifies as obvious plagiarism. In the same way, making changes or additions to an excerpt is plagiarism. Here are some facts about the book:
p. 13, lines 3-11 from bottom to top;
p. 53, lines 13-26, from top to bottom, and the author from where is stolen is not even indicated;
pp. 57-58 (p. 57, last 12 lines and p. 58, top 3 lines),
(These materials were copied from the book “Years, People, Facts”. Compiled by: M. Fazylov. Collection of articles and essays about the Bukharan Jews of Samarkand. Samarkand, 1999, respectively pp. 33, 34, 49-50, that is, stolen from the person whom he accuses of plagiarism. This is an original example when a scoundrel tries to turn everything upside down, that is, inside out. Isn’t it interesting?)
Next
Page 162 (Taken from the book by A. I. Dobromyslov: “Tashkent in the Past and Present”, 1912, pp. 391-392)
Pages 98-99, end and beginning of the page;
Page 105, top 18 lines
(Taken from the “Bulletin of the Jewish University” No. 11, Moscow 1996, M. Vekselman: “Jewish capital in the cotton ginning and oil industry of Central Asia: the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century. pp. 49, 52 and “Letters about Tashkent”, Aleksey Arapov: “The Russian cotton project in Turkestan. The beginning of the 20th century”, 2011)
Moreover, further reading the text reveals the author’s uncleanliness, where in order toincrease the volume of the book, several pages were printed from other sources. For example, pp. 116-119 and 158-162 are completely copied from the book by M. Vekselman (see pp. 50-54), etc. Although there is a rule that the transferred quotes should contain no more than 300 words.
If the reader is interested in identifying other, to put it mildly, mistakes in the above-mentioned book, then he can do it himself, since I did not want to waste my precious time on this nonsense.
A few words about the photographs, which Imanuel Rybakov also boasts about. It follows from the above provisions that the copyright to a photograph belongs only to the photographer who took the photograph, and not to the person in whose album the photograph is stored.
At present, some of our compatriots have old photographs in a single copy in their family albums, some of which are over 100 years old. If the author is unknown and there are no written orders from the photographer to transfer the rights to another person, then such photographs become public property. At the same time, photographs in a single copy represent material value, like paintings or other collectibles, the owner can sell it, exchange it, etc. But after this photograph gets into the media, it becomes public property.
At one time, when I was lecturing students on the subject of “Patent Science and Copyright Fundamentals”, in the topic on copyright for photographic products, I talked about “monkey photography”, which is often cited as an example in classical literature.
What is the essence? Many photographers have trained animals with them, most often these are monkeys. Imagine that the photographer points the camera lens at an object and gets distracted. At this time, the monkey presses the lever and a photograpis taken.
The question is who is the author of the photograph? The author is certainly the monkey. But humanity does not issue copyrights to animals. Therefore, the photograph immediately becomes public property.
Everything that is written above about copyright is a small piece of educational program that the “Union of Bukharan-Jewish Writers, Poets and Journalists of the USA” should be engaged in in order to raise the literacy level of some of our fellow tribesmen.
