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Students Sue Anti-Plagiarism Service
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Mar 29, 2007 03:51 PM
from the students,-regrettably,-rarely-have-a-lot-of-rights dept.
from the students,-regrettably,-rarely-have-a-lot-of-rights dept.
jazzbazzfazz writes "It seems that some students in Virginia are not happy with the anti-plagiarism service Turnitin. The company checks prose submitted by its customers for signs that it has been copied in whole or part by comparing it to a large database of works that it maintains. Trouble is, it also adds the submitted prose to its files and stores it for use by the company in future scans, which the students feel is illegal use of their copyrighted materials. I think they've got an excellent case, especially since they seem to have prepared for this eventuality: they're A-students, never been accused of plagiarism, and they formally copyrighted their papers prior to their submission to Turnitin."
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First Post (Score:5, Funny)
Re:First Post (Score:5, Funny)
(c) Anonymous Coward 2007. All rights reserved.
Parent
Re:First Post (Score:5, Funny)
And that is what the company will claim, or the school will claim copyright since the schoolwork was OBVIOUSLY a work for hire.
Parent
Probably not fair use. (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually wouldn't mind if it was covered under Fair Use, because I think that's something we could really do with broadening, but the law as written today wouldn't cover it.
Now, what I think will happen, is that Turnitin will advise its clients (schools, universities, etc.) that in order to use the service, they must obtain a release from students that includes permission to upload the files. This way, they'll just offload the responsibility for copyright infringement off on the schools, who will just force students to release their work, or refuse to give them a grade.
I don't think it'll be very long before, when you apply to a college or university, you also sign away all rights to everything you think, say, or do while you're there, in perpetuity, in any medium whatsoever. They'll just make it part of the admissions contract, and that will be it -- at least for private schools and colleges. I'm not sure what legal grounds you would get into with public schools, and whether they could force students to do that or not.
But I think the students in the Turnitin case, have just as much if not more grounds than the plaintiffs in the similar cases of book publishers vs. Google. (Actually, I think Google has a much better Fair Use defense than Turnitin does.)
Parent
Re:Probably not fair use. (Score:5, Insightful)
unless submitted through Turn-it-In which provides ample disclaimers.
Students should be complaining to the school district for forcing them
to give up rights to their paper. However, this is unlikely to succeed.
At the University, only faculty own their research. Students and employees
get no rights. Even student thesis papers belong to the University, not
the student.
Parent
Re:Probably not fair use. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Bzzzt! Wrong answer! (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, we expect a degree, unless you're so incredibly smart that you can produce without one. (And almost all of you who think that you are that smart are simply wrong. Formal education tends to give you the foundation on which all technology is built, and it's rare to find someone who 'gets it' without going to college.)
No, we DO NOT CARE where you went to school, as long as it's accredited. What we care about is:
a) Can you do the technical work we need done?
b) Can you communicate clearly? (Orally and in writing.)
c) Are you decently groomed? (So that others are not made uncomfortable by your appearance.)
d) Do you know when to SHUT UP? (Being right about a technical issue is nice, but just because you are right you don't have the freedom to tell people they are idiots.)
e) Can you see the big picture? (Sometimes there is considerable business value in building something other than the "perfect" solution, and we want to be able to pay you to build something technically "lame" because it's the best way for us to make more money.)
f) Are you a leader in your chosen field? Are you willing to learn leadership in a broader sense?
We can always hire someone who knows how to flip bits. We are looking for people who can flip bits and be tolerable to be around. There are plenty of technically competent jerks who think they know it all. We'll let others have them, and we'll hire the people who are smart in more than one area.
The key is turning brainpower into systems and applications that make the company cheaper to run or facilitate making more money. That's what we care about. We don't care where your parchment came from.
Parent
Re:Probably not fair use. (Score:5, Informative)
The 'harm' is violation of 17 USC 106(1) - their exclusive right to copy their works. You don't have to hurt the owner financially to violate copyright law - financial impact is part of damages, not part of guilt.
As far as damages, copyright violation doesn't have to involve actual monetary damages, there are also statutory damages for where the actual damages are not significant (see 17 USC 504(c)).
Parent
Re:Probably not fair use. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Probably not fair use. (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree...The courts have ruled in several different cases (not a legal scholar so unable to site the specific cases) that copying of an original work (article, essay, book, etc...), or even a critical portion thereof (as demonstrated with Gerald Ford's book concerning the Nixon Pardon), exactly as it was presented in the original work, even for purposes of subsequent commentary, still constitutes infringement of copyright and is not protected under fair use. In addition, due to the efforts of the RIAA over the years, it does not matter if one intends to "redistribute" the work or not (i.e. a copy made to share with your friends for free or even one made for personal use, as in the mixed tape for example), it is *still* copyright infringement. It should be noted that the courts have left it purposefully ambiguous so that each case is decided separately by a judge, but the precedents are strongly against Turnitin for maintaining whole copies of student papers, if indeed that is what they do (cryptographic hashing may be an interesting question if that is also going on), in their database and it doesn't matter if they show those papers to anyone or not, the very fact that there are copies in the database is enough to trigger copyright.
a for-profit service, who is obviously deriving some economic benefit by using somebody else's copyrighted paper (by adding it to their database) is probably not going to qualify.
Absolutely...this only adds to the prejudice that any reasonable judge would have against their fair use defense, especially in light of the reasons stated above.
I actually wouldn't mind if it was covered under Fair Use, because I think that's something we could really do with broadening, but the law as written today wouldn't cover it.
Perhaps the RIAA will actually write a "friend of the court" brief in support of the students to prevent that from happening (they wouldn't want that type of fair use precedent established in the common law). They say that litigation often makes for some strange bedfellows after all.
Now, what I think will happen, is that Turnitin will advise its clients (schools, universities, etc.) that in order to use the service, they must obtain a release from students that includes permission to upload the files. This way, they'll just offload the responsibility for copyright infringement off on the schools, who will just force students to release their work, or refuse to give them a grade.
I am not sure if the students can be compelled to do that since it could be argued that they entered into the contract under duress of not getting a grade and thus a degree. Even if this is effective, it would only prevent future claims, but the ones currently working their way through the system would still be valid and thanks to the RIAA the price per infringement is quite high, on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars per infringement which could make for a fairly spectacular judgment or at least a hefty settlement (bye bye student loans).
I don't think it'll be very long before, when you apply to a college or university, you also sign away all rights to everything you think, say, or do while you're there, in perpetuity, in any medium whatsoever.
Contract law is not omnipotent, if they make the contract overly broad then the contract can be dissolved by the courts or at the very least, assuming the contract is well written, the offending parts could be severed from the agreement (the court decides which language is struck) and dissolved while leaving the remainder of the contract, if anything does remain, intact.
But I think the students in the Turnitin case, have just as much if not more grounds than the plaintiffs in the similar cases of book publishers vs. Google. (Actually, I think Google has a much better Fair Use defense than Turnitin does.)
The students do indeed have a stron
Parent
Re:It's a civil case, so you need damages, so... (Score:5, Insightful)
The market need not be plagiarists, it could just as easily be the market for competing plagiarism detection services.
Parent
Re:Probably not fair use. (Score:5, Insightful)
The point isn't about whether it subverts the educational process or not (I would agree with you that in this particular case, the students (the ones that don't cheat) have nothing to benefit from by shutting down turnitin), it's about how you apply copyrights. If a government implements a copyright system it should work for everyone, not just RIAA and the corporations. This means that the same rules apply to "pot-smoking communist students" as they do our corporate overlords.
If you are willing to make the benefits of copyright applicable only to one set of people/organizations, then there is nothing morally wrong with pillaging the seas for mp3s.
Your statement about value is even more stupid. I could argue that Britney Spears' shit (that corporations try to present as music) has no inherent value and it no way satisfies the requirement that copyrights were created for. To function (both in a legal and moral sense) copyrights have to be universal, it doesn't matter if I write a poem about how great pot is or compose a piece of music that changes the world, both these products have the exact same rights when it comes to getting copyrights.
If anything, you're just underlining how artificial and pointless copyrights (especially in their current form and with the development of digital technologies) are. They are not real, like corporations they are an artificial construct that were initiated in hope that it would benefit society overall.
You statements about inspiration from discussions is also lame. You would not be able to copyright the vast majority of mainstream music. After all, most of "gangsta rap" is represented by identical carbon copies. Add "bitches/bentlies" to the videos and "cash, money" and " Ima G" lyrics. What about the black cop/white cop formula used by many cop movies?
Copyright is not sustainable in it's current form and the fact that there is an issue around turnitin underlines this fact.
Parent
Why woudn't they want their work cataloged (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about these students, but when I was in school nothing bothered me more than students asking to see my answers, cheat off my tests, or read my essays for 'inspiration'.
But then again, it is a violation all the same. I say if it bothers them, go for it the law is on their side.
Re:Why woudn't they want their work cataloged (Score:5, Funny)
I guess that would depend mainly on how much you were able to sell your paper for.
Parent
Re:Why woudn't they want their work cataloged (Score:5, Insightful)
In essence, Turnitin is making a good deal of money by using other people's work. If those people want a cut of the proceeds, I don't see a problem with that.
Parent
Terms of Service (Score:5, Interesting)
If not, does this constitute fair use? I would argue that it doesn't, since Turnitin is doing it for commercial gain.
Re:Terms of Service (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Terms of Service (Score:5, Interesting)
The real questions involve the fact that teachers are submitting papers which are not their own IP to the site. Perhaps the teachers or school system can be held liable for copyright infringement, or some sort of fraud for claiming ownership of the copyrighted work of others?
Parent
Re:Terms of Service (Score:5, Insightful)
Um no. Not without a signed legal document.
No.
Glad you don't agree, but it IS unreasonable. Imagine a "writer" teaching a literature class and snaging ideas from a few good students papers. Is that right? Aside from this potential abuse, is there ANY legitimate reason to require a student to assign copyright to the school? Just remember that the school doesn't have a place where they archive all these exciting papers they get. The prof normally grades then and gives them back.
Back to Bullshit again. No one is paying the student. In fact, the student is paying for an education.
Parent
Re:Terms of Service (Score:5, Interesting)
Normal use of this service is by the TEACHER, not the writer. The teacher does NOT have the legal authority to assign the copyright to Turnitin.
I am sure that the kids took the precaution of having Student A write the paper and Student B submit it, so that there particular law test case will work.
Parent
Re:Terms of Service (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
that system is pretty flawed. (Score:5, Informative)
Clear case of Fair Use (Score:4, Interesting)
I hope it is thrown out while leaving plenty of egg on the students' faces.
Say what?! (Score:5, Insightful)
A "clear case" of fair use? It's copying the entire work, and it's doing it for commercial purposes. That's the worst possible result on two of the four criteria, before we even start on the others.
And how is this at all the same as Google's book search?
Parent
Re:Say what?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Google book search also copies the entire work, and does it for commercial (advertising) purposes.
I'm not sure why I had different initial opinions in the two cases (for Google but against Turnitin), but I have to admit the cases are pretty damn similar.
Parent
Re:Clear case of Fair Use (Score:5, Insightful)
And secondly, the company is making money using the content from the students.
How is any of that fair use?
Not to mention that these systems are used by people assuming that all students cheat, which is bad to begin with. So much for morale.
Parent
Re:Clear case of Fair Use (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly Google offers this as a free service. Although it has ads, there are also links to several book sellers which would allow the person who wrote the book and the publisher to get a sale from it. Turnitin is not a free service. They are directly profiting from the work of college students who do not and cannot see any monetary reward from their work being forcefully included in the turnitin database.
It doesn't sound the same at all to me.
Parent
Totally agree (Score:4, Informative)
I hate that fucking bot... (Score:5, Interesting)
Right there it tells you how to turn the fucking thing off.
User-agent: TurnitinBot
Disallow: /
One of the McLean High plaintiffs wrote a paper titled "What Lies Beyond the Horizon." It was submitted to Turnitin with instructions that it not be archived, but it was, the lawsuit says.
So, instead of suing first, I assume that these students sent a certified letter demanding the content be removed from the database? The article doesn't specifically say, but I have a feeling that's not what happened.
Horrible system (Score:5, Informative)
To make matters worse a large number of professors are starting to use this and treat it like the gospel. I know several students accused now of plagiarism, falsely, because of this system.
I am lucky this semester and have 2 professors who realize this and in a move to stop plagiarism have taken other actions, such as asking us to turn in all of our rough drafts and print/copy out our sources and attach it all to our final work, something you can still cheat on but are much less likely too.
Personally I don't know anyone who has ever cheated on a paper. I suppose with some of the fluff classes and electives some may have because those classes are a low priority, but by and large plagiarism is no where near as big a problem as these people make it out to be. High school maybe, but not in higher education.
Hmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It would really be interesting if all the published books on one particular subject (again, say, the Divine Comedy) were submitted to this service and a check was run about just how much 'plagiarizing' and 'original thinking' there is going around...
This is already the case (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Uh... no. (Score:4, Informative)
Now, around here it IS fairly common for clauses specifying ownership of IP to be present for faculty and research staff, but not for students.
Parent
Re:Uh... no. (Score:5, Interesting)
This was the second time he had taken the class, and he still had all his coursework from the prior semester. Instead of redoing one particular assignment, he simply turned in what he had done for the same assignment the prior semester (for which he had scored well). The professor gave him a failing grade and reported him for plaigarism.
His argument: He had done the work himself, he should be able to turn it in.
The school's argument: Per the contract, all work submitted by students becomes the intellectual property of the university. Upon first submission, the intellectual property rights were transferred to the university. Upon second submission, the work was now in violation of plaigarism rules, as it consisted entirely of intellectual property belonging to the university.
In the end, the schoolboard decided on leniency, and allowed him a short period to repeat the assignment, but made it well-known that this would not be tolerated in the future.
Parent
Re:Uh... no. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, university disciplinary boards aren't known for their attention to fairness and justice, so I'm not surprised.
Parent
Re:Uh... no. (Score:5, Insightful)
I signed no contract in primary or secondary school that said my work is the property of the school, and copyright law has no provision that makes such a theory true. The closest thing that comes to mind is works for hire. And I don't think any copyright attorney would argue such an asinine position.
Parent
Re:Uh... no. (Score:5, Interesting)
The professor passed out papers to be submitted with the final work which assigned rights to the University. I refused to sign. I made what I thought was an intelligent and calm case for my point -- immediately shot down, and received an automatic F (even though I submitted the work, and suspecting there to be a problem did so at the faculty office where I received signed proof it was submitted on time).
While most ideas were probably stupid in the great scheme of things, this was obviously a fishing expedition by the professor to hope to get a great idea.
Later, another professor wanted to use my idea from the paper. Lacking automatic license, we discussed it, discussed the other professor's actions, etc. The end result was the legal team for the school voiding all that professor's agreements under fear of liability for unjust enrichment and other abuse of power type of laws -- and his tenure was revoked. And, ta dah -- the Chair of the department adjusted my grade.
But, I did happily sign a LIMITED license for the University to use my program free-of-charge on that specific project --- when I was asked, explained what it was to be used for, and treated with the respect that just because I was an undergrad doesn't mean they have everything and I have nothing.
That being said -- clearly it's not automatic that the school gets rights to the work, nor can you be forced to assign rights unless the school exchanged something for them (or it was a condition of admission, etc.). But, obviously there needs to be SOME wiggle room to allow academic growth (should I be able to sue because my professor gave my paper to someone else because he thought it was either really good or really bad and it wasn't implied he would be sharing them?)
It all comes down to respect and asking permission, if you ask me. Given the option of 1- using Turnitin and getting a grade quicker and not having to submit rough drafts, research, etc. -- or 2- Submitting 2 rough drafts and documentation of research with your paper --- most students would probably use Turnitin. But they've been given a fair choice in my example, and if they disagree with Turnitin's policies they are free to not use it.
Parent
Re:Formally copyrighted? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Formally copyrighted? (Score:5, Informative)
If registration is made within 3 months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney's fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner.
Parent
Re:Going nowhere fast? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Going nowhere fast? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Going nowhere fast? (Score:5, Insightful)
These students should be plenty happy. They get what they're "entitled" to out of their work: (good) grades. It's just greedy to be concerning yourself with the idea that some commercial entity which enables professors to MORE AFFORDABLY provide you your education (by way of spending less time simply checking for plagiarism) should be forking over some portion of their profits.
I know this'll be an unpopular viewpoint. Whatever side of copyright infringement a group of young student-types are on at the moment is the "right" one. My mistake.
When you hit grad-student levels and someone "steals" papers you'd otherwise publish, thereby depriving you of your livelihood, we'll talk. Otherwise hand in your damned homework, get your grades, pass you class, get your degree and go get a job.
Parent
Re:I predict (Score:5, Insightful)
She doesn't use any special software or tools though, it's almost always obvious, such as when a student suddenly starts spelling words correctly they have never spelled right all semester, or using coherent sentence structures, etc, and usually googling a few snippets of the questionable paper turns up the plagiarized sources. (Yes, people just copy/paste from wikipedia and other sources without citing it and try to turn it in as their own.)
So, basically, this tool kind of sounds like it's more for professors that are too lazy, unobservant, or overworked to actually recognize their own students writing after a whole semester. And I guess for busting the genuinely clever plagiarists who are buying papers all semester long that they know haven't been published elsewhere online.
Parent
Re:I predict (Score:5, Funny)
Don't take this wrong, but I think I want to be in your wife's class. I can plagiarize with the best of them and if my punishment is to be nailed by the teacher....
Parent
Re:I predict (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:I predict (Score:5, Insightful)
Anybody who's an English major presumably wants to be one because they enjoy writing (due to the "do you want fries with that?" job prospects). Therefore, they wouldn't want to cheat anyway. In contrast, the types of majors that people who care about money rather than the subject go into, like management, probably have a much higher incidence of cheating.
Parent
Re:I predict (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Normalize. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I missed something, but I thought we were trying to teach our children something positive. Do we really want to raise our kids to be even more confrontational, aggressive, mean spirited and anti-social? I would say no.
As an aside to this, I went to a polytechnic that involved a large number of randomly assigned group projects. Basically this threw the successful and underachievers into the same bucket. This whole exercise was basically meant to neutralize a self performance based metric into a group based success role. Teams that did well with each-other would always do better than mavericks, no matter how talented they were. The team working really gave a reflective picture of how you deal with people after those years of school are long over with. You have some who slack off and bring the group down. You have others that push hard to get their work done. Now the onus was on group members to either lift or tear apart each other.
And isn't that whats really important? We plagiarize through life, most of the time we never even think of the backs we're standing on. I would rather deal with solving the problem in a more creative way (like heavy group projects) instead of using technological means to force you to succeed. Some people will never 'succeed' in the way that society places on them. Are they worthless? If so, then we're not making very good use of our resources now, are we?
I you just can't implement something like the above and plagiarism is 'rampant', I see nothing wrong with an anti-plagiarism system as long as there are processes to deal with false positives and that everyone involved knows that it exists.
Parent
Ah, ideal world utopias... how cute (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me tell you about those group assignments: _no_ university, college, or polytechnic _ever_ had assignments complex enough and under enough time pressure to actually _require_ cooperation. They're simple stuff doable by average students, who've been given 20x the necessary time for either to do it on his own. A really good student tends to plough through that assignment in an afternoon or two... and usually ends up having to.
What really happens in those groups is that you end up teamed with various clones of Wally (from the Dilbert comics), who can't be arsed to do _anything_ for the project.
E.g., take it from experience, in the first year in college I ended up having pretty much my own sidekick, sorta like Batman and Robin. His claim to glory was looking over my shoulder when I was at a computer in the lab. Now I don't think I was some kind of genius, but somehow I ended up with some "the great Moraelin" kinda reputation pretty fast. This guy ended up being "the great Wally" because he was with me all the time, so people _assumed_ some kind of teamwork was involved. It looked like pair programming, I guess, although that guy never actually offered any actual advice or information or ever coded anything for that matter.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a nerd, so I'll take any kind of popularity or friend, if it's available. I didn't mind having my own fan following around.
By the time we get our first group assignment, it seemed only natural to pair him with me. After all, everyone could swear that we're already such a great team. Let me tell you, the guy did _nothing_. Admittedly, I did do a stunt and come up with a far more grandiose idea than the professor wanted to give our team. (Hey, I must keep that "the great Moraelin" reputation.) But I asked him to do only some small trivial parts of it, merely token so I can say with a straight face that he did something too. To get an idea, by the end I had reduced it to asking him to write a function that draws two perpendicular lines on the screen. _That_ trivial. He didn't even do that. In fact other than reassuring me that he's working on it and almost ready, he didn't do anything at all. I ended up writing it all by myself.
The same theme repeated throughout college, even if with different people. I still wonder what had happened to my first sidekick. I think he wasn't around any more by the next year. No problem, I got other sidekicks. I even had a sorta girlfriend based on just doing her assignments too. She never even saw the program when we were teamed for such a group assignment, until we presented it to the professor. Wasn't interested in seeing it either. (And tbh, it didn't bother me much:) Smart girl otherwise, mind you, but, you know, why bother working when someone else can do all your assignments?
Getting teamed with another guy on another occasion, well, got me another guy pretending to be my best friend. He did at least paint about two pages of flowcharts after the fact, though, before getting bored with that too. In the meantime the "girlfriend" had been teamed up with someone else, but, hey, I got to do their work too, although I wasn't on their team.
So basically, please spare me the bull about learning to function in a team. I've yet to see even one team in college which actually worked as a team. Invariably it was one "maverick" doing all the work, and a bunch of Wallys doing little more than moral support, if even that.
Well, ok, so it may be a useful lesson for later. I was reading a study that said that about 3 out of 4 programmers can't actually program, or don't program, and just find some way or another to live as parasites off others. Ranging from "oh, you're my best friend, please help me", to taking all credit and trying to discredit the real worker to the boss, to being the boss's personal pet, to God knows what other creative ways. Yeah, you can get used to that kind of people in those group assignments, but that's about it.
But even that's not as useful as you may think. Yeah, it taught some of us geeks to be "good team players", meaning: to not mind a Wally just hanging around and taking credit. But it also taught whole generations of Wallys that that's one way to get the job done.
Parent
Re:Sue the pants off them!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
The student pays to go to school, not the other way around. Students hire teachers to teach them. I don't see how turning in a paper becomes "work for hire".
Parent