Plagarism of Essays!

[SarcasticDwarf]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

I would imagine you have a legal leg to stand on if you want google to not cache your website. But crawling for search engines should really fall under fair use - it's not like you aren't credited (they show the link), and if the page isn't cached they still have to visit your site to see the material. You do occasionally find something on google that you can read through the cached page, but can't access directly. If the website owners wee serious, they would stop this (I don't know how it does work, but a simple email or phone call should be enough to make a search engine stop in this case).

Also, anyone who is trying to make money off their work can only conclude that google is helping them make money by bringing exposure.

It is all about intent and use. Turnitin is using my IP to create their own product that nobody but them will ever have access to. Incidentally, they do NOT respond to requests to remove your site data from their database, even when you follow their instructions.

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: pcnerd37
When they are added to their database, it bumps up the amount of documents they check against which is a large part of what they advertise to schools or other places. Schools and such buy a subscription to the site so they can check against all of these thousands if not millions of papers. Basically, turnitin.com is taking a copy of your paper and making money with it. This of course causes a number of legal issues.

I have read of a number of schools who have avoided sites like turnitin.com because of these legal issues. That is what helped make our case so strong against the school.

Sorry, but the act of turning in a paper grants the school the legal right to use that document however the school pleases. Papers produced as a result of academic assignments are treated the same as presentations created for an adult's job. They are owned by the company/school whose assignment was the impetus for their creation. Legally, the school was in the right.

Now, what probably happened is that the shool simply didn't want to pay the court costs associated with defending their right. However, it absolutely is a well-established legal precident that while the student does retain copyright of his or her work, the act of turning in the assignment grants the school an unrestricted license to use the student's work in any way the school wishes.

The only "legal issue" from sites like TurnItIn.com is that uninformed students who don't know actual law will get their panties in a twist and will tie your district up in court with a lawsuit that the students cannot win, but that will be a drain on both financial and manpower resources for the district for the duration of the suit.

I guarantee that the school is still using either TurnItIn or a similar site and that the teachers are simply manually entering suspect papers without the students' knowledge.

ZV

Getting an unrestricted license to use a work may be legal, but does the school have the legal right to grant OTHERS unrestricted rights to use the papers?

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: pcnerd37
That is probably what first got my attention to start looking into it because sometimes I put my papers up on my website for easy access instead of having to deal with removable media. I didnt want them to go nuts for committing plagiarism against myself.

Hate to break this to you, but it is still considered inappropriate (and is explicitly prohibited in most HS and College student handbooks) to re-use pre-existing papers that you wrote for another assignment. If you do use them, you're required to cite them as you would any other source.

ZV

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: SarcasticDwarf

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: pcnerd37
When they are added to their database, it bumps up the amount of documents they check against which is a large part of what they advertise to schools or other places. Schools and such buy a subscription to the site so they can check against all of these thousands if not millions of papers. Basically, turnitin.com is taking a copy of your paper and making money with it. This of course causes a number of legal issues.

I have read of a number of schools who have avoided sites like turnitin.com because of these legal issues. That is what helped make our case so strong against the school.

Sorry, but the act of turning in a paper grants the school the legal right to use that document however the school pleases. Papers produced as a result of academic assignments are treated the same as presentations created for an adult's job. They are owned by the company/school whose assignment was the impetus for their creation. Legally, the school was in the right.

Now, what probably happened is that the shool simply didn't want to pay the court costs associated with defending their right. However, it absolutely is a well-established legal precident that while the student does retain copyright of his or her work, the act of turning in the assignment grants the school an unrestricted license to use the student's work in any way the school wishes.

The only "legal issue" from sites like TurnItIn.com is that uninformed students who don't know actual law will get their panties in a twist and will tie your district up in court with a lawsuit that the students cannot win, but that will be a drain on both financial and manpower resources for the district for the duration of the suit.

I guarantee that the school is still using either TurnItIn or a similar site and that the teachers are simply manually entering suspect papers without the students' knowledge.

ZV

Getting an unrestricted license to use a work may be legal, but does the school have the legal right to grant OTHERS unrestricted rights to use the papers?

You'd have to sue TurnItIn.com to find that out. The school itself is within its rights to submit the paper to TurnItIn.com.

ZV

 

[Steve]

Ok, my other story is for a girl I knew who was doing a paper on one of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Can't remember which tale exactly, but something in the realm of low-to-midrange undergrad study (in other words, not a senior course). The passage that caught the prof's eye was "This is the most robust romance in all the Tales" which made him say wait a minute, undergrads here aren't studying all the tales in order to make that claim. She got busted for copy+paste, she tried saying she had simply typed in what she remembered reading by accident, like it all ran together.

Gosh, come to think of it I can think of a couple others. Hell, there was one that I testified at as a surprise witness.

 

[RichardE]

Originally posted by: loki8481
and there's always that one student who plagiarizes something the professor himself actually wrote and published

This man speaks the truth, had a dumbass friend get kic8ked out for doing that.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: pcnerd37

Originally posted by: Sudheer Anne
turnitin.com is something they've used a lot at my college. it's a service that runs your paper against a huge database to check for possible instances of plagiarism.

That is what my highschool started to use for a little bit, until some students rebelled and threatened legal action unless they stopped using the service. They stopped using it the second they realized the students were fully prepaired to go to court over the use of the program.

what could the students sue for?

Theft of IP? Privacy concerns?

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: Golgatha

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
what could the students sue for?

Theft of IP? Privacy concerns?

At best they would have a flimsy case for an action against TurnItIn.com. They have zero legal standing against the school.

ZV

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: Leros

Originally posted by: SarcasticDwarf

Originally posted by: Leros

Originally posted by: Imported

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: pcnerd37

Originally posted by: Sudheer Anne
turnitin.com is something they've used a lot at my college. it's a service that runs your paper against a huge database to check for possible instances of plagiarism.

That is what my highschool started to use for a little bit, until some students rebelled and threatened legal action unless they stopped using the service. They stopped using it the second they realized the students were fully prepaired to go to court over the use of the program.

what could the students sue for?

Using their essays without the author's consent? I believe essays submitted to turnitin.com are added to the database.

Every school I have been to says that once you turn in material, it becomes property of the school and is no longer yours.

Just because they say that it does not mean it is true.

Seems that you agree to those terms by turning in the assignment.

You agreed to those terms under duress due to the consequences of not turning it in.

 

[GasX]

How do teachers divine you ar plagiarizing?

Because your dumb ass can't put two sentences together without sounding like a reject from Kevin Federline's posse and suddenly you've written a well formed well thought out 20 page treatise of the significance of the white whale in Moby Dick...

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: S Freud

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
IIRC I remember one story about a student getting busted for plagiarizing his own paper. That is, he turned in a paper for one class, then rewrote it for a different class at a different time, but it had enough in common to hit.

But how is it that you get in trouble for copying or in this case using previous work? I mean the paper is/was his property and it is his writing...

So how is that plagiarizing?

I dunno, seems like BS to me. I've done that before. It was my work, I was just more efficient with it then others.

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: SarcasticDwarf

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: pcnerd37
When they are added to their database, it bumps up the amount of documents they check against which is a large part of what they advertise to schools or other places. Schools and such buy a subscription to the site so they can check against all of these thousands if not millions of papers. Basically, turnitin.com is taking a copy of your paper and making money with it. This of course causes a number of legal issues.

I have read of a number of schools who have avoided sites like turnitin.com because of these legal issues. That is what helped make our case so strong against the school.

Sorry, but the act of turning in a paper grants the school the legal right to use that document however the school pleases. Papers produced as a result of academic assignments are treated the same as presentations created for an adult's job. They are owned by the company/school whose assignment was the impetus for their creation. Legally, the school was in the right.

Now, what probably happened is that the shool simply didn't want to pay the court costs associated with defending their right. However, it absolutely is a well-established legal precident that while the student does retain copyright of his or her work, the act of turning in the assignment grants the school an unrestricted license to use the student's work in any way the school wishes.

The only "legal issue" from sites like TurnItIn.com is that uninformed students who don't know actual law will get their panties in a twist and will tie your district up in court with a lawsuit that the students cannot win, but that will be a drain on both financial and manpower resources for the district for the duration of the suit.

I guarantee that the school is still using either TurnItIn or a similar site and that the teachers are simply manually entering suspect papers without the students' knowledge.

ZV

Getting an unrestricted license to use a work may be legal, but does the school have the legal right to grant OTHERS unrestricted rights to use the papers?

You'd have to sue TurnItIn.com to find that out. The school itself is within its rights to submit the paper to TurnItIn.com.

ZV

I think you are missing the point. Just because a school can SUBMIT the paper for checking, it does not mean they can grant turnitin additional rights. Basically the school is giving the papers to a company so that company can SELL access to them.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: S Freud

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
IIRC I remember one story about a student getting busted for plagiarizing his own paper. That is, he turned in a paper for one class, then rewrote it for a different class at a different time, but it had enough in common to hit.

But how is it that you get in trouble for copying or in this case using previous work? I mean the paper is/was his property and it is his writing...

So how is that plagiarizing?

I dunno, seems like BS to me. I've done that before. It was my work, I was just more efficient with it then others.

It's called academic dishonesty. You're not being more efficient by copying your own work. Unless you get permission from the professor first, you're probably not allowed to do that.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: S Freud

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
IIRC I remember one story about a student getting busted for plagiarizing his own paper. That is, he turned in a paper for one class, then rewrote it for a different class at a different time, but it had enough in common to hit.

But how is it that you get in trouble for copying or in this case using previous work? I mean the paper is/was his property and it is his writing...

So how is that plagiarizing?

I dunno, seems like BS to me. I've done that before. It was my work, I was just more efficient with it then others.

It's called academic dishonesty. You're not being more efficient by copying your own work. Unless you get permission from the professor first, you're probably not allowed to do that.

But academic dishonesty isn't plagiarizing. He was just being lazy (rightfully so, I would be too if two classes asked for virtually the same paper).

 

[Steve]

Okay, another honor trial story. Yes we had trials, the defendant could choose whether they be public or private.

So I'm sitting in my dorm room one night, the school year and my college career being nearly done. The phone rings and it's the defendant on recess at her trial. She asks me a couple of questions and then gives me to her defender. We talk some more and I agree to walk over and testify.

Apparently the Honor Council had been so backed up with cases, this was for something that happened the semester prior. The girl's roommate had found a stack of completed final exams in the other girl's pillowcase.

The prof had mentioned that I had sent him an email saying I turned in my exam a few minutes after the deadline, 6pm. In fact the deadline turned out to be 5pm My bad, but it turned out to not be big deal to him, lucky me. I managed to make the room chuckle when the council asked me whether I was worried about turning it in late, I said "You know, that thought had crossed my mind!"

Anyway they asked me what I saw when I went to turn it in - a stack of papers, or an empty box. They were trying to determine the timeframe the tests went missing. She had worked up some alibi about being in the cafeteria then with friends, but in the end there was no good explanation as to why a whole class's exams were in her dorm room. She got the boot. Oh yeah, she was holding them hostage because hers wasn't ready in time.

 

[pcnerd37]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: pcnerd37
When they are added to their database, it bumps up the amount of documents they check against which is a large part of what they advertise to schools or other places. Schools and such buy a subscription to the site so they can check against all of these thousands if not millions of papers. Basically, turnitin.com is taking a copy of your paper and making money with it. This of course causes a number of legal issues.

I have read of a number of schools who have avoided sites like turnitin.com because of these legal issues. That is what helped make our case so strong against the school.

Sorry, but the act of turning in a paper grants the school the legal right to use that document however the school pleases. Papers produced as a result of academic assignments are treated the same as presentations created for an adult's job. They are owned by the company/school whose assignment was the impetus for their creation. Legally, the school was in the right.

Now, what probably happened is that the shool simply didn't want to pay the court costs associated with defending their right. However, it absolutely is a well-established legal precident that while the student does retain copyright of his or her work, the act of turning in the assignment grants the school an unrestricted license to use the student's work in any way the school wishes.

The only "legal issue" from sites like TurnItIn.com is that uninformed students who don't know actual law will get their panties in a twist and will tie your district up in court with a lawsuit that the students cannot win, but that will be a drain on both financial and manpower resources for the district for the duration of the suit.

I guarantee that the school is still using either TurnItIn or a similar site and that the teachers are simply manually entering suspect papers without the students' knowledge.

ZV

It wasnt the school that was turning in the papers, they were forcing us to turn it in directly to turnitin.com and then they would get their copy of our paper from turnitin.com as well as whatever plagiarism results the website generated.

 

[pcnerd37]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: pcnerd37
That is probably what first got my attention to start looking into it because sometimes I put my papers up on my website for easy access instead of having to deal with removable media. I didnt want them to go nuts for committing plagiarism against myself.

Hate to break this to you, but it is still considered inappropriate (and is explicitly prohibited in most HS and College student handbooks) to re-use pre-existing papers that you wrote for another assignment. If you do use them, you're required to cite them as you would any other source.

ZV

I was not re-using papers, I used my website/hosting as a storage medium to make the transfer of my files easier so that I wouldn't have to carry around physical media for turning in papers or whatever.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: randomlinh

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: S Freud

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
IIRC I remember one story about a student getting busted for plagiarizing his own paper. That is, he turned in a paper for one class, then rewrote it for a different class at a different time, but it had enough in common to hit.

But how is it that you get in trouble for copying or in this case using previous work? I mean the paper is/was his property and it is his writing...

So how is that plagiarizing?

I dunno, seems like BS to me. I've done that before. It was my work, I was just more efficient with it then others.

It's called academic dishonesty. You're not being more efficient by copying your own work. Unless you get permission from the professor first, you're probably not allowed to do that.

But academic dishonesty isn't plagiarizing. He was just being lazy (rightfully so, I would be too if two classes asked for virtually the same paper).

I prefer the term efficient.

Anyway, I don't remember it explicitly stated anywhere I couldn't do that. I didn't ask, but then again, I didn't even see anything wrong. And frankly, I still don't see anything dishonest. If it was the same topic, I would have been reusing the same thoughts and ideas anyway. Furthermore, redoing the same work is just an exercise in wasting my own time. I gain nothing but another antecdote of pointless busywork.

Regardless, I'm no longer in school with its arbitrary rules and castles of BS with foundations of BS. Here in the real world, there are real rewards for shortcuts.

 

[pcnerd37]

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: randomlinh

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: S Freud

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
IIRC I remember one story about a student getting busted for plagiarizing his own paper. That is, he turned in a paper for one class, then rewrote it for a different class at a different time, but it had enough in common to hit.

But how is it that you get in trouble for copying or in this case using previous work? I mean the paper is/was his property and it is his writing...

So how is that plagiarizing?

I dunno, seems like BS to me. I've done that before. It was my work, I was just more efficient with it then others.

It's called academic dishonesty. You're not being more efficient by copying your own work. Unless you get permission from the professor first, you're probably not allowed to do that.

But academic dishonesty isn't plagiarizing. He was just being lazy (rightfully so, I would be too if two classes asked for virtually the same paper).

I prefer the term efficient.

Anyway, I don't remember it explicitly stated anywhere I couldn't do that. I didn't ask, but then again, I didn't even see anything wrong. And frankly, I still don't see anything dishonest. If it was the same topic, I would have been reusing the same thoughts and ideas anyway. Furthermore, redoing the same work is just an exercise in wasting my own time. I gain nothing but another antecdote of pointless busywork.

Regardless, I'm no longer in school with its arbitrary rules and castles of BS with foundations of BS. Here in the real world, there are real rewards for shortcuts.

QFT

 

[Ipno]

Sometimes, its not so hard.

I graduated from high-school in the early 90s. But the story I'm about to tell took place before then, before there was widespread internet use, hell, before the high school even had computers.

My 11th grade English teacher happened to be a judge for a poetry competition. You know, one of those deals where every student is required to submit a poem, and the teachers have to sift through all the rubbish to find those few gems of literary mediocrity. He, along with 6 other teachers were going through the submissions in the teachers lounge, when suddenly, he found a stunning piece of magnificence.

He stopped everyone in the room. "I think we have a real winner here, folks.", he announced. He stood up, cleared his throat, and began to read:

"O captain, my captain ... our fearful trip is done .. the ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won!"

Sometimes, students are not quite as clever as they think.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: randomlinh

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: S Freud

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
IIRC I remember one story about a student getting busted for plagiarizing his own paper. That is, he turned in a paper for one class, then rewrote it for a different class at a different time, but it had enough in common to hit.

But how is it that you get in trouble for copying or in this case using previous work? I mean the paper is/was his property and it is his writing...

So how is that plagiarizing?

I dunno, seems like BS to me. I've done that before. It was my work, I was just more efficient with it then others.

It's called academic dishonesty. You're not being more efficient by copying your own work. Unless you get permission from the professor first, you're probably not allowed to do that.

But academic dishonesty isn't plagiarizing. He was just being lazy (rightfully so, I would be too if two classes asked for virtually the same paper).

I prefer the term efficient.

Anyway, I don't remember it explicitly stated anywhere I couldn't do that. I didn't ask, but then again, I didn't even see anything wrong. And frankly, I still don't see anything dishonest. If it was the same topic, I would have been reusing the same thoughts and ideas anyway. Furthermore, redoing the same work is just an exercise in wasting my own time. I gain nothing but another antecdote of pointless busywork.

Regardless, I'm no longer in school with its arbitrary rules and castles of BS with foundations of BS. Here in the real world, there are real rewards for shortcuts.

This would surprise me. What you're talking about has a name - it's called 'double-submission' and I've never heard of a post-secondary school that didn't expressly forbid it. There are a number of reasons for this, and they are all obvious.

 

[slimrhcp]

Originally posted by: Leros

Originally posted by: Imported

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: pcnerd37

Originally posted by: Sudheer Anne
turnitin.com is something they've used a lot at my college. it's a service that runs your paper against a huge database to check for possible instances of plagiarism.

That is what my highschool started to use for a little bit, until some students rebelled and threatened legal action unless they stopped using the service. They stopped using it the second they realized the students were fully prepaired to go to court over the use of the program.

what could the students sue for?

Using their essays without the author's consent? I believe essays submitted to turnitin.com are added to the database.

Every school I have been to says that once you turn in material, it becomes property of the school and is no longer yours.

Though laws may vary from state to state, intellectual property is typically retained by the author, regardless of academic submission. Cross-referencing with turnitin.com is fine, but when it's added to their database, it becomes an unauthorized republication.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
This would surprise me. What you're talking about has a name - it's called 'double-submission' and I've never heard of a post-secondary school that didn't expressly forbid it. There are a number of reasons for this, and they are all obvious.

Given the fact that he seems to think it's OK, I'm guessing a lot of time wasn't spent looking over the academic code for the school he attended.

The reason you can't use the same papers again is the same as why you can't (usually) take the same college course (or substantially the same course) for credit multiple times. You didn't actually do the work the second time.