A San Francisco Small Claims Court commissioner has awarded $7,500 to Hank Donat, researcher, writer, and proprietor of the popular www.MisterSF.com Web site, upon finding that his original work was plagiarized by the recent book, Celluloid San Francisco, by local writer Jim Van Buskirk and former Bay Area resident Will Shank. Van Buskirk – a respected writer, co-author with Susan Stryker of Gay by the Bay , and historian who is also the program manager of the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library – was the sole defendant in the case and thus was held responsible by the court when it issued its judgment in Donat's favor on May 25. Van Buskirk has 30 days to appeal the ruling, according to a clerk of the court.

Reached by the Bay Area Reporter via e-mail, Van Buskirk said, "I do not agree with the Small Claims Court decision and decline to comment further while the case is pending." Shank was unable to be reached for comment by press time. Both Van Buskirk and Shank have contributed to the B.A.R .

Celluloid San Francisco: The Film Lover's Guide to Bay Area Movie Locations, was published by Chicago Review Press in April. Michelle Niebur, a representative of Chicago Review Press, said the publisher had no knowledge of any court ruling, and since it was not named in the case, could not comment on it.

Donat said he pursued the matter only with Van Buskirk since "he's the one who agreed numerous times to use my Web site appropriately, and he alone made that promise."

On Wednesday afternoon, Brooke Oliver, an attorney with the firm Oliver-Crain, contacted the B.A.R. on Van Buskirk's behalf to reiterate his position that the small claims court wrongly ruled on the matter.

Van Buskirk fully acknowledges that some attributions were omitted from the published book, said Oliver, but "Mr. Donat was fully referenced and properly acknowledged" when the book went to press, she said.

"What happened is that the publisher edited out some of the attributions ... and there may have been some quotation marks unintentionally omitted as a result of a computer glitch, which he did not know about until after publication," said Oliver, adding that that when the errors were brought to Van Buskirk's attention, he immediately offered to try to remedy the situation. "On behalf of all the artists and writers I've wor

Author Jim Van Buskirk. Photo: Rick Gerharter

ked with over the years, I've never sued somebody who stepped up to the plate right away and apologized and tried to fix it."

Such remedies, said Oliver, could include issuing a notice known as an Errata to go along with the books, posting a note on a Web site, issuing a press release, and working with the publisher to ensure that future printings are corrected.

"He's not liable for plagiarism. He tried very hard to make sure that Mr. Donat was properly attributed," said Oliver, adding that the publishing company should take responsibility for its errors since Van Buskirk and Shank "firmly believed" Donat was properly attributed before the book went to press. "Right now they're getting hung out to dry, because Mr. Donat wants a pound of flesh instead of the problem just being fixed. And the publisher hasn't stepped up to the plate."

Donat – whose column "Heart of the City" used to appear in the San Francisco Independent newspaper (the paper has been folded into the weekend San Francisco Examiner) and whose extensively researched Mister SF Web site has been featured in numerous articles and shows – said Van Buskirk first consulted with him about Celluloid San Francisco in 2003 and asked about referencing the Mister SF research from the site's "Cinematic SF" section.

Donat's records of correspondence – reportedly from a series of e-mails between himself and Van Buskirk – include an early conversation where Donat dictates how proper attribution of Mister SF should appear in the book. Earlier this year, an e-mail reportedly from Van Buskirk acknowledged that proper attribution was missing from some entries due to an editor removing the attributions. Donat told the B.A.R. that these e-mails were presented as evidence in his case. Because Van Buskirk declined to comment, he could neither verify nor deny the authenticity of this reported correspondence.

As part of his suit, Donat alleged that some of the book's unattributed anecdotes – such as the protest that happened when the movie Basic Instinct was filmed in the city – exist only because he was there in person to witness and record them. Some of the movie sites included in the book, he said, are sites he scoured the city for hours trying to find. Donat alleged that in 14 instances of the more than 300-page book, one can find his film reviews, jokes, and prose.

One book passage about the Vaillancourt Fountain, he noted, reads almost verbatim as it appears on his Web site.

"The Vaillancourt Fountain at Justin Herman Plaza and Four Embarcadero Center has been widely reviled since it was built in 1971 by French-Canadian sculptor Francois Vaillancourt. The late Herb Caen said it looked like a pile of poop while others are content to call it a mere eyesore. So harsh was public criticism that its embittered creator was ridiculed out of town. Built on land cleared for the Embarcadero Freeway and BART, the fountain is built on the site of former hotels and bars in an area once well populated by seamen," Donat's Web site states.

"When the Vaillancourt Fountain was unveiled at Justin Herman Plaza and Four Embarcadero Center in 1971, it was widely reviled. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen said it looked like a pile of poop, while others were content to merely call it an eyesore. So harsh was public criticism that its embittered creator, French-Canadian sculptor Francois Vaillancourt, was run out of town. Built on land cleared for the Embarcadero Freeway and BART, the fountain is built on the site of former hotels and bars in an area once well populated by seamen," Celluloid San Francisco states.

"[Van Buskirk] didn't just use my material without proper credit," Donat told the B.A.R., "he stole my voice."

Mister SF is his work and livelihood, said Donat, and the value of his work declines when it is credited to others.

Donat is acknowledged by Celluloid San Francisco for his help, and there are passages that refer to him by name. But Donat said those references are insufficient, and that placing his name in the proximity of long passages of his unquoted original writing still constitutes plagiarism. Additionally, said Donat, the agreement was to allow his research to be a resource, not to allow his writing to be re-printed.

Donat said that after meeting with the writers in an attempt to fix the mistakes, it was clear to him they would not offer him anything worthwhile, and he had to pursue the legal recourse that was available to him. An offer of mediation, he said, required him to contribute to the mediation fees. Corrections in future printings, he said, are contingent upon those second printings occurring, something the writers would not be able to control.

"It sounds like he has a beef with his publisher," Donat said of Van Buskirk.