McLean Students sue Anti-Cheating service

[mzkhadir]

Washington Post

 

[FoBoT]

sweet , good catch by them

According to the lawsuit, each of the students obtained a copyright registration for papers they submitted to Turnitin. The lawsuit filed against Turnitin's parent company, iParadigms LLC, seeks $150,000 for each of six papers written by the students.

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.

Kevin Wade, that plaintiff's father, said he thinks schools should focus on teaching students cheating is wrong.

"You can't take a person's work and run it through a computer and make an honest person out of them," Wade said. "My son's major objection is that he does not cheat, and this assumes he does. This case is not about money, and we don't expect to get that."

Andrew Beckerman-Rodau, co-director of the intellectual property law program at Suffolk University Law School, said that although the law regarding fair use is subject to interpretation, he thinks the students have a good case.

"Typically, if you quote something for education purposes, scholarship or news reports, that's considered fair use," Beckerman-Rodau said. "But it seems like Turnitin is a commercial use. They turn around and sell this service, and it's expensive. And the service only works because they get these papers."

 

[brandonbull]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
sweet , good catch by them

Don't the students give up the rights to those papers once they submit them?

 

[AaronB]

Originally posted by: brandonbull

Originally posted by: FoBoT
sweet , good catch by them

Don't the students give up the rights to those papers once they submit them?

Why should they?

It's an honest question, I haven't been in school for years now.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: brandonbull

Originally posted by: FoBoT
sweet , good catch by them

Don't the students give up the rights to those papers once they submit them?

Not if you copyright it beforehand, which the students did.

 

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by: brandonbull

Originally posted by: FoBoT
sweet , good catch by them

Don't the students give up the rights to those papers once they submit them?

unless they signed a contract turning over copyright to the company, then no, they didn't

the company needs to pay the students for their work if the company wants to use it for commercial purposes :laugh: this is rich!

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: FoBoT

Originally posted by: brandonbull

Originally posted by: FoBoT
sweet , good catch by them

Don't the students give up the rights to those papers once they submit them?

unless they signed a contract turning over copyright to the company, then no, they didn't

the company needs to pay the students for their work if the company wants to use it for commercial purposes :laugh: this is rich!

:thumbsup:

I'm not usually one for lawsuits just to make a point, but I wasn't aware of how turnitin operated exactly (never really gave it any thought). Turnitin is making a lot of money, presumably, by using works it has no authority to reference.

 

[miniMUNCH]

I love this... I think these students should win and I hope they do get a cash settlement.

I also hope this makes Turnitin, and other such companies, pay a fee to students to archive their work.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: miniMUNCH
I love this... I think these students should win and I hope they do get a cash settlement.

I also hope this makes Turnitin, and other such companies, pay a fee to students to archive their work.

The US Education system is very anti-IP (intellectual property). The greatest thing that could come as a result of this is that all works submitted continue to remain the property of the people submitting them, and do not belong to the school.

 

[Miramonti]

What a wonderful way for the 'rich kids' in school that we always bitched about, to give back to their community.

 

[pcnerd37]

Its nice to see that the movement I started is growing and gaining momentum. I fully support these guys and hope that they win.

 

[Miramonti]

Originally posted by: pcnerd37
Its nice to see that the movement I started is growing and gaining momentum. I fully support these guys and hope that they win.

The only movement you started in your life was a bowel movement.

Just kidding, what are you referring to?

 

[Linflas]

Good luck with that.

The purpose of copyright law
Stanford Law professor and copyright expert Lawrence Lessig (pictured right) writes, "Copyright has never accorded the copyright owner complete control over all possible uses of his work. Its purpose instead is to secure a limited monopoly over certain ways in which creative work is exploited, so as to give the authors (i.e., composers and performers) an incentive to create, and thus, in turn, to 'promote the Progress of Science'."

In fact, it's beyond argument today that the U.S. copyright laws recognize no absolute right in authors to prevent others from copying or exploiting their work. Rather, copyright laws grant authors limited rights in their works solely to an extent that Congress believes that creation and dissemination of their works are encouraged. In the long term, authors' intents and interests have always been secondary to that of the public.

While the above comes from a piece weighted towards music copyrights and royalty payments the principles are not all that different.

Copyright law and the CRB: What went wrong?

 

[miniMUNCH]

Originally posted by: Linflas
Good luck with that.

The purpose of copyright law
Stanford Law professor and copyright expert Lawrence Lessig (pictured right) writes, "Copyright has never accorded the copyright owner complete control over all possible uses of his work. Its purpose instead is to secure a limited monopoly over certain ways in which creative work is exploited, so as to give the authors (i.e., composers and performers) an incentive to create, and thus, in turn, to 'promote the Progress of Science'."

In fact, it's beyond argument today that the U.S. copyright laws recognize no absolute right in authors to prevent others from copying or exploiting their work. Rather, copyright laws grant authors limited rights in their works solely to an extent that Congress believes that creation and dissemination of their works are encouraged. In the long term, authors' intents and interests have always been secondary to that of the public.

While the above comes from a piece weighted towards music copyrights and royalty payments the principles are not all that different.

Copyright law and the CRB: What went wrong?

Turnitin MAKES MONEY off of student's papers (copyrighted work).

I cannot legally archive volumes of research journals (such as Nature, Science, or Physical Review Letters) and sell access to my archive of the journals for profit. Hell, I can't even archive journal articles and give access for free... you can't even do that with equipment manuals. I got a copyright infringement / take down notice for posting an equipment manual pdf on a public webpage.

Turnitin's use of copyrighted student work is exactly analogous to the example provided above.

i think the students will win... and, IMO, it won't even be close. If the case even starts looking 'iffy', journal publishers and other content publishers will step in decry a potential outcome in favor of Turnitin as it would signal a huge change in the copyright landscape.

Turnitin will have to pay up to the students and will have to get expressed permission from students to archive their work in the future.

The interesting part will be what happens to that huge archive of papers that Turnitin has that did not have proper copyright notices, etc.

On one hand, students could argue that they had no knowledge that their works were being submitted to an archive and thus felt they did not have 'opportunity' to properly retain copyright for their work. This akin to someone asking you to write a poem for their GF's birthday card... later, the guy sells the poem to Hallmark. You could sue the guy for the royalty rights because the poem was your work (if you could prove it was your work) and you would win easily.

I can see lawyers trying to make Turnitin purge the entire archive... that would be sweet.

 

[BD2003]

Thats a pretty rock solid case if I've ever heard it. Turnitin so got nailed.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: brandonbull

Originally posted by: FoBoT
sweet , good catch by them

Don't the students give up the rights to those papers once they submit them?

No. The students retain copyright to the paper.

Turning in the paper does, however, grant the school an unrestricted license to use the paper however the school pleases. This is a non-transferrable license and while it is legal for the school to put the papers through TurnItIn.com, it is questionable whether TurnItIn.com can legally use the students' papers in their archives since it is effectively profiting from the students' work.

ZV

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: BigJ
The greatest thing that could come as a result of this is that all works submitted continue to remain the property of the people submitting them, and do not belong to the school.

It already works that way. See my other post.

ZV

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: brandonbull

Originally posted by: FoBoT
sweet , good catch by them

Don't the students give up the rights to those papers once they submit them?

Not if you copyright it beforehand, which the students did.

Everything you write is copyrighted. That doesn't mean you can't grant another person permission to use it in certain ways.

From their usage policy:

Your License to Us: Unless otherwise indicated in this Site, including our Privacy Policy or in connection with one of our services, any communications or material of any kind that you e-mail, post, or transmit through the Site (excluding personally identifiable information of students and any papers submitted to the Site), including, questions, comments, suggestions, and other data and information (your "Communications") will be treated as non-confidential and non-proprietary. You grant iParadigms a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, world-wide, irrevocable license to reproduce, transmit, display, disclose, and otherwise use your Communications on the Site or elsewhere for our business purposes. We are free to use any ideas, concepts, techniques, know-how in your Communications for any purpose, including, but not limited to, the development and use of products and services based on the Communications.

http://www.turnitin.com/static/usage.html

If you don't agree to that, don't use it. Their beef is with their school for forcing them to use it or lose credit for their papers. Good luck with that one. :thumbsup:

 

[miniMUNCH]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: brandonbull

Originally posted by: FoBoT
sweet , good catch by them

Don't the students give up the rights to those papers once they submit them?

No. The students retain copyright to the paper.

Turning in the paper does, however, grant the school an unrestricted license to use the paper however the school pleases. This is a non-transferrable license and while it is legal for the school to put the papers through TurnItIn.com, it is questionable whether TurnItIn.com can legally use the students' papers in their archives since it is effectively profiting from the students' work.

ZV

I agree with ZV... the school has the right to submit the paper to check for cheating, etc. and keep the paper on file for future school related activities (showing essay examples at an open house years later, etc.).

But, as ZV mentioned, the school's right is non-transferrable... Turnitin does not have to the right to archive copyrighted papers and profit from them nor can a school confer this right.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: brandonbull

Originally posted by: FoBoT
sweet , good catch by them

Don't the students give up the rights to those papers once they submit them?

Not if you copyright it beforehand, which the students did.

Everything you write is copyrighted. That doesn't mean you can't grant another person permission to use it in certain ways.

I could've sworn I read in my college's academic policy that all works become property of the university once submitted.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: miniMUNCH

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: brandonbull

Originally posted by: FoBoT
sweet , good catch by them

Don't the students give up the rights to those papers once they submit them?

No. The students retain copyright to the paper.

Turning in the paper does, however, grant the school an unrestricted license to use the paper however the school pleases. This is a non-transferrable license and while it is legal for the school to put the papers through TurnItIn.com, it is questionable whether TurnItIn.com can legally use the students' papers in their archives since it is effectively profiting from the students' work.

ZV

I agree with ZV... the school has the right to submit the paper to check for cheating, etc. and keep the paper on file for future school related activities (showing essay examples at an open house years later, etc.).

But, as ZV mentioned, the school's right is non-transferrable... Turnitin does not have to the right to archive copyrighted papers and profit from them nor can a school confer this right.

Turnitin.com wasn't around when I was in school so I never used it, but my understanding was that students submitted the papers directly to the site.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: brandonbull

Originally posted by: FoBoT
sweet , good catch by them

Don't the students give up the rights to those papers once they submit them?

Not if you copyright it beforehand, which the students did.

Everything you write is copyrighted. That doesn't mean you can't grant another person permission to use it in certain ways.

I could've sworn I read in my college's academic policy that all works become property of the university once submitted.

Very possible. But that doesn't change the fact that everything you write is copyrighted whether you register it or not, or whether you put a copyright notice on it or not. You can transfer a copyright to someone else.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: BigJ

I could've sworn I read in my college's academic policy that all works become property of the university once submitted.

Very possible. But that doesn't change the fact that everything you write is copyrighted whether you register it or not, or whether you put a copyright notice on it or not. You can transfer a copyright to someone else.

Alright, so say the school had a similar academic policy setup to the one I'm talking about. Since they (the students) went through the official channels for everything, by handing in the assignment, they'd be transferring it over to the school, correct?

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: BigJ

I could've sworn I read in my college's academic policy that all works become property of the university once submitted.

Very possible. But that doesn't change the fact that everything you write is copyrighted whether you register it or not, or whether you put a copyright notice on it or not. You can transfer a copyright to someone else.

Alright, so say the school had a similar academic policy setup to the one I'm talking about. Since they legally got it copyrighted, by handing in the assignment, they'd be transferring it over to the school, correct?

Sounds like it if it's worded the way you worded it.

But I'm pretty sure students submit their papers directly to Turnitin.com, it's not the school doing it. So the usage policy I posted above applies. The students retain the copyright, but they grant Turnitin.com a license to use their copyrighted work however they want.

 

[rh71]

suckas got served