Do You Know What Plagiarism Is?

[mjtaylor]

An article in the NY Times article this morning explored the increasing lack of understanding of what plagiarism is among students: Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age.

It reminded me of a recent thread on this forum where members discussed Citing in Forums.

So, perhaps a further discussion and exploration might be of interest. Is it okay to copy several paragraphs of an article as long as you cite where you got it with a URL? If you quote most of the article, even fully and properly attributed to its source, is it still plagiarism?

What if you rewrite the material? Is that okay? No, says Ronald B. Standler, a Massachusetts copyright attorney says in an article posted here: http://www.rbs2.com/copyr.htm#anchor400000 on "Using someone else’s text in your writing":

Find some text elsewhere; copy it; make a few changes, deletions or additions; and then upload it to a website. This is copyright infringement, a violation of the copyright owner's exclusive legal rights under 17 U.S.C. § 106 to make (or to authorize) derivative works.

Standler says the only way to quote even a small part of someone else’s work is to fully cite the reference:

Find some text elsewhere, copy a small part of it, and include it as a quotation in your work. To avoid plagiarism, be careful to both (a) use the indicia of a quotation (i.e., either quotation marks or indented block of single-spaced text) and (b) include a complete bibliographic citation (e.g., author's name, title of work, URL, etc.) to the source of the work. This is the only acceptable way of using text written by someone else in your webpage or other writing.

(from Some Observations on Copyright Law by Ronald B. Standler, http://www.rbs2.com/copyr.htm.)

Standford U's Fair Use website offers guidelines for webmasters as well as “Five Ways to Stay Out of Trouble” when it comes to questions of copyright on the Internet.

More helpful WPW threads and the references:

• Copying/Republishing Poll on WPW
• 10 Big Myths about copyright explained, by Brad Templeton: http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
• Copyright Law Information & Articles from KEYTLaw: http://www.keytlaw.com/Copyrights/copyrightlaw.htm - offers a large number of articles on the topic including more myths, and obtaining copyright protection and remedies.

It may be of some note that WPW's recent update to the Forum Rules is now very clear on plagiarism (bold mine):

Rule 4:
Don't Break the Law - Do not make any unlawful, libelous, defamatory posts, or posts that infringe upon any intellectual property rights. Do not conduct any activity that may be illegal, or harmful in any way, to people, to software or hardware, such as hacking, flooding scripts viruses or Trojan horses. This also goes for references to any 'warez', cracks, serials or illegally obtained copyrighted content!

FWIW.

[kgun]

Great thread mjtaylor, one of your absolute best. It is an interesting discussion. Here are some further ideas with strong relevance to the digital age:

1. Is text copying different from code copying? It should not be difficult to find examples.
2. What about movies, music and other media that are published all over the web? We all know the case against PirateBay.
3. Is it easier to attack text plagiarism than digital plagiarism since it is easier to identify?
4. Where is the border between rewirting and stealing a motive? I once saw a painting by Picasso where he said he stole the motive and maid it unreckognizeable. The original had a dog in it. In Picasso's version the dog was abstracted away.
5. We all know Norwegian Dvd john. Should he be thanked for making technologies publish or should he keep his secrets so it can be showled under the carpet and be used in the black economy?

I have the Simula compiler for Os II. I am worried that this compiler will die and be forgotton, even if I still don't see a program that is better to teach people object oriented programming. I have thought of making it public on the web with some examples and documentation, but no. It is not my responsibility.

[cw1865]

[*]Where is the border between rewirting and stealing a motive?

I understand what you're saying, kgun, I know you seem to take pride in choosing the correct English word. In point of fact, 'motive' is technically correct (since one of the definitions of motive IS 'motif') In this instance the word I believe you are looking for is 'motif' or 'theme' - motive typically is for a 'crime' - ie. his motive was greed....

[weegillis]

@kgun: Do you ask, "When does derivative work become theft?" (referring to above post by cw1865)

[kgun]

I understand what you're saying, kgun, I know you seem to take pride in choosing the correct English word.

No, I was even uncertain about the word, since "motiv" is a Norwegian word and I know what it is in that regard. I thought motive was a bad or incorrect word. Thank you for your explanation.

Finally you English speaking moderators should understand how difficult it is for us foreigners to speak and write correct English, even if 95 % of what I read and write is in English. I think in Norwegian and laugh in Swedish and crie in Danish

[mjtaylor]

I admire anyone tremendously who can write in any other language than their native tongue. Your English is generally remarkably excellent. I can cry in any language, and get myself into trouble in French. C'est tout.

[kgun]

@kgun: Do you ask, "When does derivative work become theft?" (referring to above post by cw1865)

Derivative work can be compared to subclassing, going from the abstract (general) to the concrete, so it is not plagiarism in my opinion. Multiple inheriatnce and subclassing make the subject even more difficult.

Class species .................................................. ......................... Class human inventions.

Subclass species that can fly .................................................. .... Subclass airborne devices.

Subclass Birds that can fly. ... Subclass insects that can fly. ............. Subclass Airplanes ... Subclass Helicopters

Where is the plagiarism or mutation?

A popular definition of plagiarism. "You only copy from (use) one source".

Research: "You copy from (use) two or more sources".

Various methods are used to detect originality. Search engines use simple stop words, like a, the, in, of, out ,,,

A opposite method is described in

Professor Bjørn Kirkerud (1989): "Object Oriented Programming With Simula". Addison Wesley Publishing Company ISBN 0 201 17574 6.

chapter 11.1.1 to detect author fingerprints by analysing the relative frequency of the use of the above mentioned simple words. The idea is that different authors are relative consistent in their relative use of these simple words in their works.