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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
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The best response to a charge of plagiarism I've heard of in academia occurred at Otago University when I was studying there. The student, caught, said something along the lines of "Oh, I didn't think you would have read that article. You already know everything." As I understand it, the student meant it as a kind of compliment.
[muttering about standards at his alma mater -e]
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Just heard on the news that two other books by Stephen Ambrose contain many passsages almost identical to those contained in other books, none written by Clement Clarke Moore. Here's a link I dug up with the AP story: http://www.salon.com/books/wire/2002/01/10/ambrose_plagiarism/index.html
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
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Rule 7 states "Plagiarism saves time"
I'm all for plagiarism in non-academic and non-literature circles. Frinstance, if I receive a good sales proposal (in terms of structure and/or content) I will often pinch part of the content and/or layout.
Same as when doing a proposal - hop into the supplier's website, cut and paste some product descriptions into your own doc and away we go!!
stales
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Stales, I wouldn't call that plagiarism. You are simply describing to the customer what he will get (through you) from the supplier. You are disseminating your supplier's advertising for him and, if successful, increasing his business. You customer is not misled: he knows that you obtain, from your third-party suppliers, some of the goods you supply to him.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky.
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize!
Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
[Only be sure always to call it please, "research".]For Tom Lehrer's full text see http://members.aol.com/quentncree/lehrer/lobachev.htm
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Since I put up a plagiarism site for other reasons, I just want to put my two or three cents in here to make my feelings clear. I think the only prime victim of the act of plagiarism is the creator of the work. In instances of songwriting, for example, the writer can go back and sue for copyright infringement and reclaim a portion of the profits...but in the eyes of the public that song will always be associated with the thief who released it. There's no going back. Opportunities to establish careers can and have been lost that way. And I find a site like the one that advocates the theft of work by students especially repugnant. Because sites like Napster, for instance, who make money by dealing in artists work they don't pay for, at least retain the name of the true artist on the work (and this doesn't excuse their thievery). And people who patronize these sites rationalize and pacifiy their own crime (and that's what it is) by saying they're only hurting the rich music corps...that's a lie, and they know it. But a site like plagiarist.com makes money by advocating the complete thievery of a literary work as one's own, thus obliterating even the name credit for the authentic artist. This is especially vile. And especially, I might add, for poets who make nothing, if a pittance, for their work anyway. All they have is their good name to market into speaking engagements, workshops, etc. Steal that and you steal everything. No shades of gray here, folks. Stealing is stealing. Pure and simple. If you want to qualify it, as in the point tsuwm I believe was trying to make, you could compare it to the stealing of a patented invention and marketing it as your own. If someone stole Edison's lightbulb...well, we'd still have the lightbulb, we'd still all be the better for it. But if the thieves had lawyers savvy enough to discredit Edison's patent, then Edison would have zilch...not even the credit for it. Do not patronize people who make money by stealing other peoples' work! Someone said, here, the students are just being lazy...aw, well let me get out my damned violin! When they're too lazy to make money I guess it's all right to go out and rob a back then, too...or to float a bad check, huh? Intentional plagiarism, is stealing, period. It's not only unethical, it's downright uncivil. And what's more, it's now teaching a whole web generation to have no respect for the law, for ethics, or for the rights of others. So what's the argument here, gentlemen?
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member
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Posts: 157 |
To steal from one is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
Here's my take on the left-handed thing. I skimmed thru the other replies to be sure I wasn't being redundant, but if this was already said and I missed it, I apoligize!
I think the expression could come from the Bible, in Matthew 6:3. Jesus is telling how people giving alms should not do it for the purpose of being noticed by others: "Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets... But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret:" Whaddaya think?
Again, sorry if this was already posted!
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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Apr 2001
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It took me a while to come to grips with this post, only because I didn't want to let anyone think that I’m defending theft. Just a few comments with regard to intellectual property.
This is a new idea, historically. How do “traditional” songs/stories become traditional anyway? One person must have come up with the idea – s/he never got credit for it. That is “copyright infringement” as is defined nowadays. Shoot, there is precedent in the law for someone to have a copyright on stuff they posted off-the-cuff on the Net. But we think nothing of recording, re-recording, copying, reprinting “traditional” works. So what changed?
Someone(s) saw that they could 1) encourage more art by 2) protecting the work so artists could make money and hence 3) collect taxes on it. Money – the “root of all evil” – is the basis of copyrights. I’m not saying it is wrong, but let us not sugar-coat it either. In the days before recording media (and mass-production of works), there was no point to copyright. You couldn’t record a performance and then sell it somewhere else. You couldn’t mass-produce a book. In fact, to be copied even once (before the printing press) was a great honor. To be copied many times elevated you to celebrity status. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It remains so today.
Copyright is the product of technology. It provided the *capability* to make serious money off of someone’s work, and to steal it. And now technology is turning art full circle – effectively (if not legally/morally) rendering copyright obsolete. So how does an artist survive such a situation? For performance artists (musicians, actors, etc) it is simple – provide live performances, and make your money off of that. For writers and graphic artists, it is more difficult. Several ideas have been put forward. Direct selling (after all, you never know if a copy has been altered) is one, reading aloud live is another (having someone do it for you). Technology may help protect some work, but remember that whatever technology can do, it can undo. Some forms of art (painting, sculpture) aren’t easily copied.
I’m not sure how we as a society should react to art theft. I am sure that hiding behind idealism and legal maneuvering isn’t productive. I’m sure that we need to think outside the box to fix it. I think if artists were smart, they’d cut out the middleman and sell direct. The middlemen get 90% of the price of a book. Why shouldn’t the author simply sell his e-book for $0.90 and get it over with?
Cheers,
Bryan
Cheers,
Bryan
You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be.
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Carpal Tunnel
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> The middlemen get 90% of the price of a book. Why
shouldn’t the author simply sell his e-book for $0.90 and get it over with?
and yet the math doesn't justify it. selling (conservatively) 100,000 copies (with big-time marketing) at $25 - $30 (to say nothing of paperback rights and other followons), even at only 10%, is far better than selling (optimistically) 10,000 copies online at a buck.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Sorry Bryan, but there's so much in your post that sounds incredibly naive about all this. First of all it was not until the invention of printing in the 15th Century that a form of copyright protection was devised...(that old pesky culprit, technology  ). Then the law was formalized by The Statute of Queen Anne in England in 1709: http://www.patent.gov.uk/copy/history/Works are, or become "traditional" because either they were created and passed down anonymously (as with much old folk music and stories of folklore), or because the copyright has expired and the work has passed into public domain. According to present U.S. Copyright Law this period of protection is from the date of creation to 70 years past the death of the author: Copyright Law of the U. S. Of A.http://www.loc.gov/copyright/title17/ Click on Duration of copyrightSo how does an artist survive such a situation? For performance artists (musicians,
actors, etc) it is simple – provide live performances, and make your money off of that.I'm sorry, Bryan, but you don't have a clue here. Statistically only 2% of all performing artists (actors, dancers, musicians, singer/songwriters, magicians, etc.) make a living income by performing. And of that 2%, only a handful are the super-rich celebrities. Otherwise it's a constant struggle...holding down a "day" or "real" job and performing on the side. C'mon! If every performing artist could just snap their fingers and establish a career in performance that pays enough to make a living don't you'd think they'd just do it instead of struggling along? And if writers and recording artists had the capital to package, promote and distribute their works to the level of high-visibility, don't you think every one of them would eliminate the hated publishers/producers, (the "middleman"), and do just that? And why do you believe that the owners of trademarks and patents have a right to the protection of their works but artists, or the creators of "intellectual property," don't? And, by the way, plagiarism and copyright infringement is the same thing...where's this 'shade of gray' you seem to see? I find it alarming that someone of your intellect and good-intentions, Bryan, is unaware of many of the implications here. But I think that's a symptom of the current problem. And this rebuttal is addressed to the issue, not personally to you, I assure you.
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