• Background/Summary:
Regarding the legal action begun last year in Italy against Edoardo Giusti and MariaClaudia Proietti (and their publisher, Franco/Angeli) for "their" book titled: "Fototerapia e Diario Clinico", this case has now been successfully settled without having to go to Court!
Below is the formal "Public Announcement Statement" agreed to (and signed) by all parties in the "Settlement Agreement" finalized on January 26, 2006, in order to end this case. There was also an "Apology Letter" signed by Giusti and Proietti -- and additional information will appear on this page, as it becomes legally permitted to do so:"Judy Weiser, author of the 1993 book PhotoTherapy Techniques: Exploring the Secrets of Personal Snapshots and Family Albums, announces that she has accepted payment from Eduardo Giusti and MariaClaudia Proietti to end her copyright claim against them (regarding their 1995 book FotoTerapia e Diario Clinico), in exchange for a Settlement Agreement which includes the removal of their book from any further publication, circulation, or sales -- as well as other conditions she is not permitted to divulge."
For background information, please click here (Italiano: qui) to be able to read a message on this subject that was posted to the "Discussion Group" page of this website, in early September, 2005 -- titled: "Legal action re: Plagiarism claim begun against Giusti & Proietti, and Court date set for October in Milan".
That message included the following two sentences, which were pre-approved by the Lawyers in the case:"On the basis of facts which I consider very reliable, I believe that the Giusti & Proietti book ("Fototerapia e Diario Clinico") is a plagiarism of my book ("PhotoTherapy Techniques: Exploring the Secrets of Personal Snapshots and Family Albums"). So I have engaged a Lawyer and commenced legal action. The writs were served in Italy in July, and the Court date has been set for October in Milan."
Additional background details (and sample pages from both books, in order to compare places which "appear" to match) can be found further down on this page below.
It is also important to note that not only do the two books' "Table of Contents" lists match for all techniques given, but also that, in the list of PhotoTherapy References given at the end of the Giusti & Proietti book, there is not one single publication listed there which does not also appear in the Bibliography of Weiser's earlier book; i.e. Giusti & Proietti added no additional listings to their book's Bibliography -- and thus appear to have also copied that Section of Weiser's book also...• Please see now the comparison pages lower down on this page. To compare the "similar" Chapter-titles in the two books, click here. For more information, contact Judy Weiser directly.
*Important please!
Should readers of this page find places (online, in stores, wherever) where this book is still being sold, please immediately contact Weiser with as much information as you can provide about that location, so that her Lawyers can "strongly invite" that book's immediate and total removal, because the Giusti and Proietti book will never again be sold...
Finally, readers of this page are urged to share this information with as many people as possible -- because Weiser is not legally permitted to put the above "Settlement Agreement Statement" anywhere else on the internet herself, other than on pages of this "PhotoTherapy Techniques" website.Therefore, she would really appreciate if those of you reading this message now, would try to "point" as many people as possible directly to this page! Thank you!!
back to "Book Page" of PhotoTherapy website
• The story of what happened -- and then some page comparisons (Note: To go directly to the page comparisons, and skip this story, please click here):
In the Autumn of 2004, I was told me about a "great" PhotoTherapy book published in Italian in 1995, titled "Fototerapia e Diario Clinico" -- which was described to me as being full of good information and containing numerous examples of several major techniques of PhotoTherapy, many case examples, as well as several long and thorough lists of exercises and questions to ask about photographs during client therapy sessions.
It sounded to me like the authors (Edoardo Giusti, a psychologist, and MariaClaudia Proietti, an analyst) had decided to create a book in the same structure framework as I had organized mine, which had been published two years prior to the Italian one (Note: page comparison of the two "Table of Contents" lists can be found here).
I ordered the book with great excitement. I am always interested in networking, and I was not concerned that other people might have perhaps arrived at similar ideas independently during the same years as my own ideas were forming (for example, Linda Berman's wonderful book "Beyond the Smile", published the same year as mine, is a good example of this kind of synchronicity -- and duplicates none of my book's contents).
As I am able to read Spanish, I could follow along in "Fototerapia e Diario Clinico" quite easily. However, within the first few minutes of reading it, I was horrified to discover that numerous long passages, lengthy lists of exercise questions, and even many examples (and I do mean page after page, not just a few occasional places!) appeared to me to have been "taken directly" from my own book (I cannot say "copied" here, because these excerpts were translated, of course!).
And thus began my long journey of hiring lawyers in Italy (who are experts in copyright law), having them file a lawsuit in Italy against the supposed authors (and their publisher), and the results of all this are given at the top of this page. Had this been just a couple of places in an otherwise original book, or something that could have happened accidentally, I would very likely not have pursued a lawsuit. However, after examining "their" book, it seemed to me that on the vast majority of the pages of "their" book, lengthy passages from pages in my own also appeared.
Rather than go into detail here, I simply have put a few sample pages below, so that readers of this webpage can see for yourselves by comparing page contents. I think no further discussion of these "similarities" are necessary, once the marked lines in the page-pictures of the Italian book are compared one by one, with the equivalent lines in the English on the page-pictures of the pages of mine.
The images below are just for having a quick look; like a snapshot of a page, they are difficult to read in detail. Therefore it might be easier to click on the link below each one, to download a small pdf of the same page -- which can be opened at full size or even printed out for doing side-by-side page comparisons.
For those of you unable to read Italian, I also have put a link under each Italian page below, to a direct "word for word" English translation of that page. The translations were all done by an Italian colleague* who was not told the reason why he was being asked to translate these pages until after he had finished and was paid him for his time.
The page-pictures below (Italian original book pages, my English original book pages, plus the typed English translation for each Italian page) form the core of the documents I initially submitted to the Lawyers in Italy, in order for them to grasp the magnitude of what appears to have happened and explain why I wanted to sue. Based on what they saw, they agreed to take the case.
The case was prepared in the first half of 2005; the writs were served in July; the case had a Court date set for early 2006. However, going to Court proved unnecessary, as a "Settlement Agreement" was signed on January 26, 2006 by all parties (and additionally, an "Apology Letter" signed by both Giusti and Proietti) -- both of which were discussed earlier above.
As mentioned earlier on this page, under the terms of the Agreement, I am not permitted to discuss any details about what it and their Apology Letter contain -- however I am legally permitted to state that both exist.
Below now are just a few sample pages to compare, which I believe can easily show why I had thought that intentional plagiarism had occurred. However, by not going to Court, of course no legal "finding" of plagiarism was ever assigned. And since their guilt was never proven in Court, I am not legally allowed to say that intentional plagiarism did happen -- although I am allowed to say that I sure thought that it did (or else I wouldn't have spent over a year of my life suing them).
For now, I think it suffices to use this terminology: "It appears to me that my 1993 book seems to have been "directly copied" in the book that Giusti and Proietti published two later.
However, I want to be very clear that:Intentional plagiarism of my book by Giusti and Proietti has not been proven in Court, and that since no finding of guilt has ever been assigned to either Giusti or Proietti, I remind readers that these two "authors" must still be viewed as being completely "innocent" of my claim.
• I leave this determination now solely to the minds of those who compare the page-pictures below for themselves.
In my own mind, however, there is no change from my original public announcement (posted on September 9, 2005, to the PhotoTherapy Discussion Group page of this website) which my Italian lawyers did approve as being legal to say in public:
"On the basis of facts which I consider very reliable, I believe that the 1995 Giusti & Proietti book ("Fototerapia e Diario Clinico") is a plagiarism of my 1993 book ("PhotoTherapy Techniques: Exploring the Secrets of Personal Snapshots and Family Albums").
• Please now see the comparison of the Chapters lists of the two books immediately below -- and then the page-pictures (with links to downloadable pdf versions) underneath that comparison:
back to "Book Page" of PhotoTherapy website
• Comparison of Chapter Titles Between the Two Books
includes the following Chapter Titles & numbers:
includes the following Chapter Titles & numbers:2-1. Le techniche della fototerapia 2. The Five Techniques of PhotoTherapy 2-2. Il processo proiettivo
3. The Projective Process: Using Photographic Images to Explore Client Perceptions, Values, and Expectations 2.1(3). Foto scelte dal cliente per autodescriversi e rappresentare se stesso (autoritratti) 4. Working with Self-Portraits: Understanding the Images Clients Make of Themselves 2.7. Le fotografie del cliente scattate da altre persone 5. Seeing other Perspectives: Examining Photographs of Clients Taken by Others 2.8. Metafore sulla ricostruzione della personalità: le fotografie fatte e raccolte dal cliente 6. Metaphors of Self-Construction: Reflecting on Photographs Taken or Collected by Clients 2-11. Fotosistemi: gli album di famiglia e le raccolte di foto autobiografiche 7. Photo-Systems: Reviewing Family Albums and Photo-Biographical Collections * To get the relevant Table of Contents pages from the Italian book, click here.
** To get the Table of Contents pages from Weiser's book, click here
• Page Comparisons:
There are several page-photo details below, allowing a specific comparison to be made between just one double page example selected from the 1995 Giusti & Proietti book, "Fototerapia e diario clinico" and the "parallel" text shown on "similar" pages that appear in Weiser's book, "PhotoTherapy Techniques", that was published two years earlier.
Please note that there is no claim that the Italian book actually intentionally plagiarized Weiser's book -- only that to Weiser, it seems that way, since there appears to be sufficient duplication that makes it difficult to believe any other perception...
It is also important to know that what appears below is only one example selected for this kind of illustration, from many other places throughout the Italian book where such a detailed comparison could just as easily be made.
What appears below (and please note that under each page-photo-example below, is a link to download that same picture as a pdf -- which can therefore be viewed large and/or printed out so that comparisons between an Italian page and an English page, can be done side-by-side):
1) Page 68 of the Giusti and Proetti book (a list of questions that can be asked about photographs -- which seems to closely match the list on Weiser's pages 184-185 -- see below) -- and under that list, though still on the same page appears the first paragraph of some text pages that begin the Section titled "Le fotografie del cliente scattate da altre persone" (in English: "Examining the Photographs of Clients Taken by Others" -- which is the exact same title of Weiser's Chapter 5, which begins on page 187 of her book) -- please click here to view the list of "matching" Chapter titles of her book with those in the Italian one.
2) Page 69 of the Giusti and Proetti book, which continues to "match" Weiser's paragraphs beginning at the start of her Chapter 5 (page 187) and ending its own "similar" Section toward the bottom of page 188.
In fact the paragraphs that run from the bottom third of Giusti and Proietti's page 68 and continue to the end of the last full paragraph on page 69, appear to repeat exactly the entire first two pages of Weiser's Chapter (pages 187-188 -- pictures of which are also shown below);
Both 1 and 2 above, are annotated in handwritten ink, so that each item can be individually "matched" with its counterpart on pages 187-188 of Weiser's book where each seems to appear in its English originals.
3) A typed English translation sample made (before this lawsuit was filed) from the first part of page 68 of the Italian book (the list that appears there), as just one illustrative example of how someone who was not yet informed about the allegations of plagiarism, would translate that text. For people who do not read Italian, it can provide illustration of how "similar" the wording on that entire list appears to be a "close match" with the list on Weiser's pages 184-5 (both are shown below).
4) Pages 184-185 from Weiser's book, which are her list showing questions that appear to be very "similar"...
5) And finally, pages 187-188 from Weiser's book, annotated to show where each part directly corresponds to its "twin" on the Italian pages (from bottom of Giusti/Proietti's page 68 and continuing to near the bottom of page 69).
For those not able to read both languages, please note that the translation of the Italian paragraphs (pages 68-69) can be downloaded as a pdf; however it is too long to place on this page as a page-photo -- and it should be pretty obvious by now that the "reverse translation" (those who want to read the Italian version of Weiser's two pages, can just read what appears on pages 68-69 in the Giusti/Proietti book itself (it's a very good translation!)...
For those who want even more examples of many other Giusti/Proietti pages, which seem to Weiser to nearly entirely duplicate the "strikingly similar" pages of her book, you are welcome to contact her for these (and their accompanying pdf's).
Please note that unfortunately, the page illustrations below are not isolated examples -- Weiser estimates that perhaps 80% to 90% of the Giusti and Proietti book (many more pages, and many more lists) seems to contain pages where very similar direct comparisons can be made...
back to "Book Page" of PhotoTherapy website
• Documents which illustrate the above statements:
• Page 68 and 69 of the Giusti and Proetti book:
1) Page 68 of Giusti/Proietti (a list of questions that can be asked about photographs):
To download a pdf version of this page above (so that it can be viewed larger or printed), please click here
2) Page 69 of Giusti/Proietti (a continuation of the text that began on page 68 after the list ends):
To download a pdf version of this page above (so that it can be viewed larger or printed), please click here
• 3) The typed English translation sample made (before this lawsuit was filed) from the first part of page 68 (the list):
To download a pdf version of this page above (so that it can be viewed larger or printed), please click here
• 4) Pages 184-185 from Weiser's book, which are her own list showing questions that appear to be very "similar" to the list on Giusti/Proietti's page 68:
a) Page 184 from Weiser (the first part of a list that appears to be very "similar" to the one on Giusti and Proietti's page 68):
To download a pdf version of this page above (so that it can be viewed larger or printed), please click here
b) Page 185 from Weiser (the continuation of the remainder of the list that appears to be very "similar" to the one on Giusti and Proietti's page 68):
To download a pdf version of this page above (so that it can be viewed larger or printed), please click here
• 5) And finally, pages 187-188 from Weiser's book (the first two pages of her book's Chapter 5: "Examining the Photographs of Clients Taken by Others"):
a) Page 187:
To download a pdf version of this page above (so that it can be viewed larger or printed), please click here
b) Page 188:
To download a pdf version of this page above (so that it can be viewed larger or printed), please click here
*Grateful thanks to Angelo Ingrao for his translation of this page
(and several other documents relating to this case)!
To read of a different Plagiarism case won by Weiser a few years ago against Rosy Martin in England, who also copied from her 1993 book "PhotoTherapy Techniques", please click here
To return to the "Book & Video" page of the "PhotoTherapy Techniques in Counseling and Therapy" website, please click here
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