Writer Nelya Romanovska used stories from “UP. Life” in her book without permission – News

Ukrainian writer Nelya Romanovska used the stories of people collected by “Ukrainian Pravda. Life” in her book “Saving Eve”. According to lawyers, in this way the author could disregard the copyright.

Historian Oksana Gospodarenko said that while reading the book in one of the stories, she recognized her acquaintance, who in April 2022 became the heroine of the text of ex-journalist “UP. Life” Yana Osadchai “Safari on people: 5 stories of those who survived in Irpen and Buch “.

In the book “Saving Eve”, the author tells about a friend from Buchi who, being pregnant, survived the occupation of Kyiv region.

“The book contains short essays on one page. This is the story of Eva and the reflections of the author herself. Logically building the story of her friend, the author also writes about the stories of people who also survived the occupation in Irpen. Among them was my friend Lyuba from Irpen, whom we met in the middle of January 2024”– said Oksana Gospodarenko in the commentary “UP. Life”.

After reading the book, the woman sent a page of the text to Lyuba, who recognized the story that she told the journalist “UP. Life” after the deoccupation of Kyiv region.

Later, the women discovered that Nelya Romanovska had used 4 of the 5 stories described in the text in the book.

“The book contains comments not only from people, but also the words of a journalist“, the historian noted.

“UP. Life” turned to Lyubov Tyutina, who shared her story with Yana Osadcha. According to the woman, the author of the book did not address her.

“At first I thought that “UP” had printed it, because I had never heard of Nelya Romanovskaya and no one asked me for a comment. It was an important and necessary interview for “UP”. When I returned to Irpin after de-occupation, I realized how important it is to speak and how important it is to listen. This is a traumatic experience that is witnessed and “postponed forever” until better times.

In addition, the cat and dog that I told about then are no longer there. The loss of “ones” with whom one survived the occupation is a very personal thing“, Lyubov Tyutina reported.

According to the ex-journalist of “UP. Life” Yana Osadchoa, Nelya Romanovska turned to her already after the publication of the book.

“I wrote to Nela Romanovska, she apologized and said that she did not know that it was necessary to give a link to the source. This is surprising, since she is, in particular, a teacher at the Faculty of Journalism.

Nelya noted that if she were to republish the book, she would indicate me and the publication as the authors. However, I asked her to remove the edition of the books. Then Nelya promised to take her book out of print”the journalist said.

Yana also said that, according to the writer, in this way she wanted a wider circle of readers to learn about the crimes of Russians.

“In the book, she made a “cosmetic repair” of my text – replaced “most likely” with “most likely”, picked up synonyms somewhere. This was my author’s theme: all these sufferings are not fictional stories, but real. I experienced them, in particular, because there are my friends among the heroes.

The text has received more than 68,000 views. This is the text of which I am proud, because it was written literally on hot tracks. We even made a second part about the heroes – how they live a year after the tragedy“, Yana Osadcha added.

According to the historian, the exposure of the plagiarism affected her attitude to the book and its characters, in particular, the main character of the text, Eva.

“I felt like a deceived reader, because I expected honesty in emotions and reflections from the author, because I read fiction. It turned out to be an unpleasant, in my opinion, passage.

If at the beginning I was worried about the main character – Eve, then after that my level of sympathy for the story became less. I have questions for the author of the book“, added Oksana Gospodarenko.

“UP. Life” asked Nela Romanovska for a comment, but at the time of publication, no response was received. We also contacted the Mandrivets publishing house.

Is it a copyright infringement: comments from lawyers

According to copyright expert Volodymyr Konovalenka, the interview is the object of copyright, and the use of the work or its part without specifying the author’s name and the source of borrowing is plagiarism.

In case of plagiarism, the non-property rights of the author of the work may be violated.

“Why are we talking about potential violations? Because only the court can establish the fact of copyright violations based on the evaluation of the evidence provided by the parties to the case.

To use the work, for example, in a book, the permission of the author of the interview is required, if, of course, he owns the property rights at the time of use of the work.

If the journalist works for a publication, then the property rights to the work may belong to the publishing house that owns the online publication. In this case, to use the interview or its part, permission must be obtained from the publishing house”– said Volodymyr Konovalenko in the commentary “UP. Life”.

If the use of the interview infringes the property rights of the work, the publishing house can apply to the court.

“Also, everything depends on the policy of using works in “UP”, because different conditions may be stipulated”– added lawyer Lyudmila Pankratova in a comment to “UP. Life”.

It should be noted that the actions of the writer Neli Romanovska are unacceptable. The use of materials from the site is possible only if there is a link (for online publications – a hyperlink) to “Ukrainian Pravda” no lower than the third paragraph.

We previously reported that Serhii Shkarlet is complaining about the committee that discovered plagiarism in his dissertation.