Students Sue Anti-Plagiarism Service

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."

Comments

What's good for the goose

[fermion]

I would go along with the students, as long as the students pay the RIAA 10^x dollars, where x represent the number of songs in their possession that were not specifically bought on the same media on which the students listen to said music. I mean be realistic. If you can take the kind of crap submitted to professors as work worthy of a lawsuit, then J Lo is gold in comparison.

More seriously, I think these kids need to go to a college that is not concerned about the integrity of their degrees. I suspect that they are many schools that are more interested in money that education, and such schools would not degrade the user experience by utilizing turnitin. I would hope that a competant judge would throw this case out with same predujice as SCO and the RIAA.

What is next. Some college student using the DCMA to sue youtube for the sex pictures s/he took and posted.

Re:I predict

[alfs boner]

We need to enforce the rules because they are being broken, therefore we need to steal from the students.

It's not stealing, it's copyright infringement.

:)

Re:Why woudn't they want their work cataloged

[MaelstromX]

"why would you want to let other people make money off of deterring cheaters by using your work - without you seeing a penny of the profit".

Because it's not evil for a company to make money? And without the added value that your paper receives by being in an easily searchable database of millions of texts, it is essentially worthless after you have been graded on it? And because by preventing plagiarism and upholding honesty in academics they are providing a public service, even if, GASP, they are profiting off of it, the same way countless other companies in various fields do?

If the students are legally in the right, then kudos to them for their upcoming payday. But Slashdot is the last place where I would have expected to see everybody saying copyright owners inherently deserve god-like control of what anyone, anywhere does with their copyrighted works. (this isn't directed at the parent in particular, but at the discussion in general)

Re:Probably not fair use.

[thrawn_aj]

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. You're probably right. Of course, this lawsuit totally subverts the entire educational process. It is obvious that these students are simply trying to destroy a service that makes things inconvenient for them (or others like them) in terms of plagiarism. I'm afraid I'm with the anti-plagiarism service in this case - they provide a necessary service and students are worried about copyright protection of the *CRAP* they usually turn in, I can only point and laugh at them :P.

One crucial question that the students should be asked is how exactly they justify the assumption that their work is actually worth money in the first place? Is it a copyright violation if the work is appropriated by someone who has THE ONLY POSSIBLE WAY to make money out of it? Further, in most cases, the teachers give an ENORMOUS amount of input in how these papers are written; do they have any rights as co-authors? How about the fact that the original inspiration for these papers usually arises from the course being taken and discussions therein. Another piece of the pie? My point is that students writing papers for a class are fundamentally different from someone writing a book or article with the intent of getting it published.

Re:Probably not fair use.

[ShieldW0lf]

The moral of the story?

Don't waste your time and money on university.

If you're under the age of 50 and weren't born to someone who makes 7 figures a year while playing golf all day, the system is gamed to fuck you from birth to death.

Don't participate. Start a new game.

I don't understand plagiarism

[Simonetta]

I don't understand plagiarism. I mean I don't care where someone got the original text. It's like where you got the original code for a linked-list. It doesn't matter as long as it works. What difference does it make who wrote something as long as someone else is actually reading it?
    Schools make such a big deal about this plagiarism stuff. But it means so little in the real world. There, what is important is that you can take the information that you need from any source that you can find and turn it into profit for your employers.
    Next time someone tells you that plagiarism is serious, ask them if they've ever had to make a payroll with sales of an obsolete or marginal product. When you have been in that position, you know what is serious and what is simply pretensious nonsense.
    Few teachers, being in protected positions and jobs, can tell the difference...

Re:Probably not fair use.

[Anonymous Coward]

You've already been told twice, but you really deserve to be dogpiled for being such a stupid fuck.



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Fucklick.

PARENTZ POSTING SKILLZ R 1337!!11!11!!!ONEONE

[electrosoccertux]

Limiting the chars per line in your post to 80
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