Even a book on rock art
the object of unlawful copying

Susan Searight

At the Ingolstadt meeting in 1996, a member of AARS (Thomas Wyrwoll) kindly informed me that a certain Josef Otto had just published in Lollschied a copy in German of my small French language book on the rock engravings of the High Atlas. He sent me a photocopy of the book, for the German version had suddenly become out of print... The active intervention of another AARS member finally produced in the summer of 1997 a copy of the book itself:
«Prahistorische Felsgravuren in Hohen Atlas» (Pulsar-Verlag).

With the help of German-speaking friends, I was able to confirm after careful study that my book «Gravures rupestres du Haut Atlas», published in 1992, had been thoroughly and blatently copied, including photos and plans. The word-for-word text even repeated such personal remarks as: «When one has oneself covered kilometres in the mountains or inspected hundreds of square metres of rock looking for engravings...» (p. 13 in my book), translated by Otto (p. 10): «Wenn man in den Bergen selbst Kilometer über Kilometer gefahren und gewandert ist oder hunderte von Quadratmetern an Felsen/ Platten auf Gravuren hin untersucht hat...»

With a few exceptions (the cover of Otto’s work for instance shows an engraving from the Anti-Atlas), the black and white drawings are the same, but re-drawn and the photos are mine. There can be no mistake here: the same shadows, the same small marks on the photo (though Otto’s are frequently back to front). An engraving from an unpublished site is used by Otto – with the same caption of course («Example of polished technique»). The sketch map of Oukaimeden, drawn expressly for my guide, is reproduced quite calmly by Otto (p. 39). The whole presentation of the French language book is faithfully copied in the sequence of themes treated.

There is absolutely no doubt that this book is simply my text put into German (a bad German, according to TW), my drawings re-drawn, my photos reproduced in black and white. Otto has simply added a few inappropriate photos and text of his own. The whole thing is on sale to the public at 39 DM with the unshamed announcement: «Copyright by Kultur-Institut für interdisziplinäre Kulturforschung e.V. (Lollschield /Rheinland-Pfalz)». Goodbye author’s royalties, goodbye editor’s rights...

It’s so much easier and cheaper to copy.