Sunday, May 9, 2010

The Tragic Saga of FilmXTRATOM



A few days ago, JoBlo's Twitter account (@joblo) called out an online blogger known as Tom S Perkins (@FilmXTRATOM) for straight-up stealing 85% of his video review of Iron Man 2 from their write-up by JimmyO (the corresponding FilmXTRA video has been removed).

Using cutting-edge technology known as Google, I identified the rest of his review (which sounded equally professional) as having come from Den of Geek, and others noted that snippets of his Alice in Wonderland review also came from JoBlo.

After a few hours of collective internet hatred heading his way, Perkins finally signed onto his account in order to thoroughly deny that he'd done any wrong (here, here, and here), before finally caving early the next day (here).

It is worth noting at this point that Hey U Guys, which sponsored/ran Tom's videos for some period of time, almost immediately disassociated themselves from him via their Twitter (@heyuguysblog). Since this is something that is essentially developing and spreading, I've seen a lot of people just finding out about this demanding to know their position, but they've already made it clear. You can read their announcement here, here, here, and here.

This is when, suspiciously, the video reviews from 2010 vanished from his YouTube channel (here), along with any comments identifying the plagiarism on his page or on any videos. Perkins' previously-promised apology letter failed to materialize, and people I follow were suspicious that Tom wasn't ready to fess up to all of his crimes after all. In the interest of public service, I thusly have gone through every one of Tom's videos to find the plagiarism in question.

Pineapple Express
Review in FilmXTRA #9 taken from Empire (unidentified writer)

Righteous Kill
Review in FilmXTRA #11 taken from NewsBlaze (Prairie Miller)

Tropic Thunder
Phrase "more explosions than Krakatoa" in FilmXTRA #12 taken from Mansized (Chris Laverty). Can't access the full review to see if more was taken, Mansized is password protected...?

Death Race (2008)
Review in FilmXTRA #13 taken from The Movie Blog (John Campea)

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
Review in FilmXTRA #15 taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Mirrors
Review in FilmXTRA #18 taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Burn After Reading
Review in FilmXTRA #19 taken from Daily Mirror (David Edwards) and View London (Matthew Turner)

Ghost Town
Review in FilmXTRA #22 taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Eagle Eye
Review in FilmXTRA #22 taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Quantum of Solace
Review in FilmXTRA #23 taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Pride and Glory
Review in FilmXTRA #26 taken from View London (Matthew Turner). Plot summary seems to be taken from official press release.

Max Payne
Review in FilmXTRA #27 taken from View Oxford (Matthew Turner)

Note: In FilmXTRA #29 he starts passing off the classic "Invisibles" screen caps as a segment he created. Clever!

Body of Lies
Review in FilmXTRA #30 taken from View Hamilton (Matthew Turner, he's stalking you!)

Changeling
Review in Film XTRA #31 taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Lakeview Terrace
Review in FilmXTRA #33 taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
Review in FilmXTRA #34 taken from View London (Matthew Turner) and Bloody-Disgusting (Brad Miska)

Transporter 3
Review in FilmXTRA #35 taken from View London (Matthew Turner) and Empire Online (Chris Hewitt)

The Spirit
Review in FilmXTRA #38 taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Twilight
Review in FilmXTRA #39 taken from View Auckland (Matthew Turner)

Role Models
Review in FilmXTRA #40 taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Seven Pounds
Review in FilmXTRA #41 taken from Mirror.co.uk (Mark Adams)

Frost/Nixon
Review in FilmXTRA #41 taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Defiance
Review in FilmXTRA #42 taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Review in FilmXTRA #43 taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

In addition, there is also this review over at Blogger News Network, which has a passage quite similar to the one I Googled.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Review in FilmXTRA #44 taken from View Auckland (Matthew Turner)

Watchmen
Review in FilmXTRA #45 taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Duplicity
Review in FilmXTRA #47 taken from View Auckland (Matthew Turner)

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Review in FilmXTRA #49 taken from View Hamilton (Matthew Turner)

Star Trek (2009)
Review in FilmXTRA #50 (Part 2) taken from IGN UK (Orlando Parfitt) and View London (Matthew Turner)

Fast & Furious
Review in FilmXTRA #51 taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Terminator: Salvation
Review in FilmXTRA #54 taken from View Auckland (Matthew Turner)

The Hangover
Review here taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Night at the Museum 2: Battle For the Smithsonian
Review in FilmXTRA #56 taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Review in FilmXTRA #57 taken from Collider (Matt Goldberg) and undoubtedly one other source, which, despite repeated Googling, I could not find.

BrĂ¼no
Review here taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Moon
Review here taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Public Enemies
Review here taken from View London (Matthew Turner) and Daily Mail (Chris Tookey)

The Hurt Locker
Review here taken from View Auckland (Matthew Turner) and STL Today (Calvin Wilson)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Review here taken from View London (Matthew Turner) and Total Film (Jonathan Crocker)

I Love You, Man
Review here taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Review here taken from View London (Matthew Turner), SFX (Andrew Osmond), and probably at least one more I couldn't identify.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Review here taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

The International
Review here taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

Inglourious Basterds
Review here taken from JoBlo (Chris Bumbray) and (yes, really, as far as I can tell) IMDb user laurylou-1, plus potentially others I couldn't identify

The Time Traveler's Wife
Review here taken from JoBlo (Chris Bumbray)

Funny People
Review here taken from View London (Matthew Turner)

District 9
Review here taken from View London (Matthew Turner) and JoBlo (Chris Bumbray)

Dorian Gray
Review here taken from Shadows on the Wall (Rich Cline) and View London (Matthew Turner)

Gamer
Review here taken from View London (Matthew Turner), SFX (James White), and Mark Reviews Movies (Mark Dujsik)

Surrogates
Review here taken from View London (Matthew Turner) and JoBlo (Jenna Busch)

The Invention of Lying
Review here taken from JoBlo (Chris Bumbray) and possibly somewhere else

Up
Review here taken from JoBlo (Chris Bumbray) and possibly somewhere else

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Review here taken from JoBlo (Chris Bumbray) and possibly somewhere else

Zombieland
Review here taken from JoBlo (Brian Kelley) and possibly somewhere else

The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Review here taken from View London (Matthew Turner) and IGN UK (Chris Tilly)

9
Review here taken from JoBlo (JimmyO) and possibly somewhere else

The Men Who Stare at Goats
Review here taken from View London (Matthew Turner) and possibly somewhere else

Harry Brown
Review here taken from Little White Lies (Josh Winning)

The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Review here, oddly enough, doesn't appear to be taken from anywhere, or at least, the internet is too flooded with Twilight crap for Google to find it.

Paranormal Activity
Review here taken from View Auckland (Matthew Turner) and JoBlo (JimmyO)

Law Abiding Citizen
Review here taken from JoBlo (Chris Bumbray) and possibly somewhere else

The Box
Review here taken from JoBlo (Chris Bumbray) and possibly somewhere else

Avatar
Review here taken from JoBlo (Jenna Busch) and possibly somewhere else

Sherlock Holmes
Review here taken from JoBlo (Chris Bumbray)

This has already taken more time than I could have possibly imagined, so I'm not going to scrutinize his channel, but previously, I did determine that he was doing the same on his live podcasts, with the most recent podcast making for a perfect example.

EDIT (05/09/10 6:00PM): I got a little heat from the charming Scott Weinberg of Cinematical (@scottEweinberg) for running the list, and I see his point (it is kind of like ganging up on him, and I have to completely admit to having already made two days worth of jokes at his expense on Twitter), but the true purpose of the list is to a) alert people whose work might have been stolen (which some fellow Twitterers indicate that it has), and b) make sure Tom confesses to everything he's done. There have been indications (based on the leisurely pace Tom is dealing with this, and the rate at which he deletes accusations of plagiarism from his YouTube channel and videos) that he had some thoughts about trying to fess up to some but not all of the theft. It also seems pretty clear that the guy had found ways to make money off of his hackism, via a merchandise shop and Google advertising, and he was being invited to premieres in the UK.

The silly thing, I think, is the whole idea of plagiarism itself. I write about movies because I love writing about movies. The point is to express my thoughts on them, which is something I'd do whether I had a blog or not. To skip over that part of the process is unfathomable to me, because what appeal could running a channel about movies possibly have if you don't actually want to put out your own, original thoughts about them? If that part of it is a chore to you, then clearly you should focus your energy elsewhere.

EDIT 2 (05/09/10 7:30PM): Somewhat ironically, it seems I've inadvertently discovered further plagiarism in the form of @iZone, which has ALSO been targeting Matthew Turner's reviews. Matthew had 42 of his reviews stolen by FilmXTRATOM and an unidentified number of reviews stolen by iZone. Make him feel a little better by following him on Twitter, and hopefully assure that all of his content will be heard from him first in the future.

EDIT 3 (05/10/10 4:00 AM): Unsurprisingly, most of the links to the videos have stopped functioning since I posted this about 12 hours ago. However (equally unsurprisingly), the videos have only gone private as opposed to being deleted from YouTube entirely.

According to Turner, Tom has also issued his personal apology. I have only seen the one comment Turner Tweeted, but Tom claims he was "trying to test the corruptibility of YouTube". Gee, sorry, Tom, what a noble thing to do!

When I first started at DVDTalk, there was a forum post about a plagiarist who had just been deleted. His excuse was supposedly that he "liked the passages" he'd ripped from reviews so much, he'd put them into the same document as his reviews in an attempt to write something equally good, and they just happened to stay in.

Readers may also appreciate the story of "comedian" Nick Madson here and here over at Patton Oswalt's MySpace blog, which broke a little over a week ago. The second blog, in particular, is essential.

EDIT 4 (05/10/10 5:20 AM): Thanks to YouTube video by a user named FuryoftheFilmFan (how fitting), I realize I would be remiss if I did not mention FredLozano, the JoBlo poster who first alerted anyone about any of FilmXTRATOM's crimes. He deserves as much credit as anyone, if not more, for without Fred, Tom would still be getting away with everything.

In addition to FuryoftheFilmFan, a user named OrionSyndicate910 has created a very nice video about the situation here.

EDIT 5 (05/10/10 2:24 PM): In case you wanted to read FilmXTRATOM's apology letter, you can do that here at JoBlo. As a Twitter user pointed out, if he was "testing the corruptibility of YouTube", what purpose did it serve plagiarizing for his weekly live videos?

Luckily, Tom is resilient. As per his most recent Tweet, he will continue to do his video reviews. Well, thank goodness.

EDIT 6 (05/10/10 9:51 PM): Well, even though Tom seems to be prepared to put up new videos this week, it's still good to see that he has finally pulled the trigger and deleted the videos from his account (previously, he had only made them private).

I have two videos on YouTube, which are clip montages from films. They were both flagged at one point by movie studios, but I noticed even while the videos were not available, my view counts remained.

My theory about Tom's attempt to leave the videos "private" is that he could continue being a YouTube Partner -- and thusly, keep profiting from his plagiarism -- if the videos still existed, along with the view counts.

That said, I am not certain as to whether Tom is currently a YouTube Partner. I am going on the implied word of OrionSyndicate910, who suggests that Tom is (or was) a Partner, so make of it what you will.

EDIT 6 (05/11/10 11:42 AM): OrionSyndicate910 has posted a new video which explicitly states that Tom has been a YouTube Partner for 2 months.

By way of this story, I also got mentioned on FilmDrunk, my favorite movie blog on the internet. Day: made.

EDIT 7 (05/11/10 3:07 PM): Initial whistleblower Fred Lozano has put up his own two cents on the issue. Fred also Tweets as @BubblegumWay.

EDIT 8 (05/14/10 11:42 PM): Matthew Turner has a blog up about it, and the newest Empire video blog references the whole mess.

23 comments:

  1. You have done a great service

    ReplyDelete
  2. Incredible job on tracking these down. THE TIME TRAVELERS WiFE was one of mine as well. Crazy that he thought he could get away with it. Any apology letter he writes isn't worth a thing.

    Chris Bumbray
    joblo.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's indefensible really. I'm looking forward to hearing what this guy has to say, but i'm sure he'll keep his mouth shut. It's such a shame he's been making a living off other peoples work for so long, and with such a lazy and half-assed way of doing it too! SYNONYMS!!!!
    I'm sure he'll get his comeuppance, which will probably be that he'll never be able to write or talk about film professionally ever again. GOOD.
    tinyurl.com/slackercinema

    ReplyDelete
  4. I did a random spotcheck of one video/print review comparison. Then I threw up in my mouth.

    Hope this dude likes flipping burgers. Who'll ever hire him again?

    ReplyDelete
  5. For the record, I regret being so adamant with my opinion at the outset. While I found myself feeling a little bit of sympathy for the guy, I completely agree that what he did was indefensible.

    Let's just say I was playing "angel's advocate." ;)

    Again, well done on the research.

    ReplyDelete
  6. looking at the way that guy types in his tweets, it's no surprise he has to steal his shit.

    ReplyDelete
  7. His Funny People "review" was taken from Matthew Turner from ViewLondon as well.

    http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/films/funny-people-film-review-29366.html

    ReplyDelete
  8. Well fucking done and bravo. String this guy up and ostracize this POS as much as you can. It's disgusting.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks Chris and Adam for the tips. Thanks everyone for the comments, especially Scott.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wow. They're pretty much all gone. Along with any negative comments on page, of course...

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thanks for tracking these down. A scary, scary eye-opener...

    Simon
    DenOfGeek

    ReplyDelete
  12. It seems that he's not a good writer and lacks original thought, and thought it'd be easier to use what he thinks sounds good.

    To anyone who had their reviews plagiarised: I'm sorry, and it is rotten to see someone else take credit for your hard work, ideas, and especially as writers, words. His actions are deplorable but remember to feel a wee bit flattered. I hope it doesn't knock your confidence in publishing.

    Thanks for the comprehensive list - I hope it acts as a deterrent to anyone else starting out who is struggling to separate good reviews they've read from their own ideas.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Bloody hellfire. Having met Tom this came as a real shock. I just don't get WHY you'd do this and on such a grand scale. It baffles me, it really does.
    Great work on your post though, very thorough.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Chris:
    I find it unsurprising that the videos have merely gone private as opposed to being outright deleted.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Thanks for putting together this list. I did not receive the apology letter (I wrote the ZOMBIELAND review for JoBlo). Do you have a copy to send?

    ReplyDelete
  16. I do. PM me on Twitter with an address to email it to.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Can't he technically be taken to court if any of the hits generated from his plagiarized reviews made him any sort of money? That would be awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Can someone who received his "apology" e-mail post it online? I don't see any reason people should respect the privacy of that communication considering how little respect he showed for their hard work.

    ReplyDelete
  19. T.J., JoBlo ran it, and I linked to the article in one of the updates at the bottom.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I'm wondering what's happening with the @izone plagiarism as well at filmxtratom. I've looked at several of the reviews on that website as well, and all so far have been plagiarized, mostly from Matthew Turner's reviews, but some from others as well. I wonder if there are going to be any similar repercussions for this other guy as well. Are you planning on doing a similar side-by-side comparison for this site as well?

    I can't believe these guys would be so blatant with this plagiarism, especially since it's so easily uncovered with a google search. It looks like @izone gave the "source" for some of the reviews, but most of them do not give any credit whatsoever.

    ReplyDelete
  21. The thing about FilmXTRATOM is that there was a finite amount of videos on his channel. I too am greatly concerned about iZone's plagiarism, but who knows how many reviews on his site are plagiarized.

    I guess the poster (Izaruddin), according to his Twitter, is on some sort of no-net adventure. Still, he's using Twitter, so that can't be entirely true.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I'm shocked. I've subbed this guy on youtube quite a while ago and watched every review. I just watched his Robin Hood review and noticed an insane amount of comments. So I googled him as someone suggested and ended up here. I'm sad. I really liked him, he seemed so personable! Being an American, I NEVER would have made a connection on any of the reviews. And to steal from such popular sources - that takes some nerve. Wow, I feel duped. How sad.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Since he is doing reviews again in the same exact chipper automaton fashion, he may still be stealing. Anyone have any idea?

    ReplyDelete