What can I do when some people stole my master thesis work and published it as their own work?
Google scholar suggested a paper for me to read, I opened it and boom it was my master thesis work. My work was based on Arabic language but they claim their work is based on Telugu language. Even they did not bother to change the title. they just switched the Arabic to Telugu. Not only that, they even did not bother to change the experiment results numbers or the figures. They copy/pasted everything with small minor noticeable changes. I tried to contact the journal but I could not find any contact details for the editor. What should I do now?
Link to my master thesis:https://dspace.aus.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11073/7503/35.232-2014.09%20Soha%20Galalaldin%20Ahmed.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Link to the journal paper:http://www.j-asc.com/gallery/18-august-2018.pdf
Any guidance would be highly appreciated.
Update
I have contacted the journal's editor and as expected, no reply. I have also contacted Google via the link provided by Stig Hemmer and they have thankfully removed the links to the papers from Google search results after asking me to identify the exact content that I claim infringe upon my copyright.
Update 2
When I contacted the journal editor, I have sent a carbon-copy to the papers' authors to let them know I am aware of their plagiarisms. Nobody replied until Google removed their papers from the search result and put the following statement instead.
In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at LumenDatabase.org.
Then, one author contacted me claiming that his student stole my work without his knowledge and that he would take the right measure to ensure pulling the two papers from the journal.
I hope this gives hope to anyone who has been a victim of plagiarism. You should not give up and you should stand up for your self and your work and God will assist you.
Thank you for all your comments, pieces of advice, and direction. I would not have been able to protect my right without the StackExchange community guidance.
3 Answers
I have this one paper that has already gotten copied and submitted to some spam journals 5+ times. It literally happens multiple times per year (it has a catchy title that seems to appeal to a certain class of plagiarizers). I also usually learn about this through a Google Scholar alert.
The first two times it happened, I tried exactly the steps recommended by other answers. I contacted the authors (no reply ever), raised a stink with the journals (no reply ever), and contacted IEEE (the copyright holder of my original paper). IEEE indeed did react that they will look into it after quite some time, but nothing ever came out of it.
My lesson learned was that these things are basically impossible to fight. The authors or journals could not care less about ethical integrity, and for IEEE the measurable damage of one of their papers being "reprinted" in a different title and with slightly different words in an obscure scam journal that nobody ever reads is not large enough so that they would make an effort hunting down who is legally behind these shopfront journals.
The good news is that it is also completely irrelevant to you. I can assure you that your scientific contribution will not in any way be lessened by this paper existing, nobody will read the other paper (because nobody reads these "journals", period). For future promotions etc., the existence of this paper will not be in any way an issue for you. Science as a whole suffers (to a degree that we could argue about), but the fact that it happened to be your paper that they copied (as opposed to a paper by me, or somebody else) makes no difference at all.
I suspect that @xLeitix is correct that fighting this is futile, but would like to suggest another strategy if you want to try:
Google Scholar
The reason you saw this article was that Google Scholar picked it up. Other people will also get the same notification and some of them might be fooled. I am worried that somebody actually interested in Telugu might get misinformed.
My suggestion is telling Google about this. They want Google Scholar to be as accurate as possible and might at least stop giving references to this journal.
Anybody can publish anything on the Web, but if Google doesn't link it, nobody will read it.
I was unable to find a contact address for Google Scholar directly, but Google has a general contact page for stopping copyright violations which should be close enough.
Here is a link to a page about that
Contact the journal editor with complete details. If at all possible, have your advisor do the same thing, making a complaint on your behalf. An official from your university could also make a complaint.
Sometimes very similar things can occur from parallel research, but that seems to not be the case here.
But having someone else in authority back you up can help.
If the affiliation of the other person is listed, perhaps a complaint from your institution to theirs would be appropriate also.
Have a similar question?
Ask the community →