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Conference Board Admits Plagiarism, Pulls Copyright Report

Posted by timothy on from the look-forward-eagerly-to-future-reports dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Conference Board of Canada has withdrawn all three reports on intellectual property after allegations this week by Michael Geist of plagiarism. The organization now admits that its report on copyright was plagiarized from US copyright lobby groups."

8 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Internal Review FTW!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Had these reports been subject to "Internal Review", they never would have been released. What they really meant to say was: "We look like money grabbing hypocritical lobby group puppets and need to do some damage control before our reputation is permanently scarred." Yeah... thats what they *really* meant to say. I work at a company where all externally released documents are subject to internal review. That means that before the document can be released, at least 2 other people are required to review the document and sign off on it before it is released. The author and reviewers names are on the cover, and their signatures are captured and stored in a tracking system to show that they approved the documents. *Thats* an internal review process. To say that the Conf. Board of Canada did an internal review? Thats utterly laughable.

    Good work Mr. Geist for spotting this and stepping on it very early.

  2. Canada has a blacklist? by Piata · · Score: 3, Informative

    First I've heard of it. I've never had troubles accessing any site ever. This article seems a little bias when you consider how much more liberal Canadian laws are in the use of our internet and information technology in general. (i.e. we don't have a DMCA)

    1. Re:Canada has a blacklist? by nattt · · Score: 4, Informative

      But Canada does not have fair use, but instead fair dealing which is a lot less liberal than the USA's fair use.

      --
      -- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
    2. Re:Canada has a blacklist? by gordguide · · Score: 2, Informative

      " ... This article seems a little bias when you consider how much more liberal Canadian laws are ... i.e. we don't have a DMCA. ..."

      Canada has both more and less restrictive copyright law than the US does; that it is "liberal" is simply spin by the usual suspects, which would come as no surprise to anyone following the modern copyright debate.

      Regarding the DMCA, although it's somewhat strange to say "we don't have a [law enacted by a foreign government]" since sovereign nations always pass their own laws, virtually no two laws are identical between two nations (even basics like murder and theft legislation differs enough between any two given countries to be included there) and the US certainly never looks at Canadian legislation when crafting their own, I will accept your statement as if it were normal to have identical legislation, or for one country to copy another's laws verbatim.

      The Copyright Act (Canada) makes it legal to create a backup of any software that you are otherwise legally entitled to own/use (or however you want to put it). That provision cannot be negated by a EULA, because illegal clauses in EULA cannot be enforced (in any nation), but does not affect the EULA otherwise, because any illegal clause does not invalidate any other otherwise legal provisions.

      The DMCA (USA) would make certain backups illegal under all circumstances (although it would not affect every possible backup scenario).

      The Copyright Act (Canada) makes it legal to create a personal copy of music from any source. Only the person who makes the copy can listen to it; it's illegal to lend it, sell it, play it in public or for an audience, or to make a copy for another person. The person who hopes to enjoy this exemption must make the copy himself, operate the equipment, software, etc personally. Artists are directly compensated by quarterly cash payments collected from sales of blank media and paid out based on radio airplay data.

      Fair Use provisions (USA) allow you to make copies of music you otherwise have the right to play/use/etc. provided doing so would not violate the DMCA. Artists are not compensated for Fair Use copies. Other copies are prohibited.

      The Copyright Act (Canada) makes the recording of any video content whatsoever illegal under all circumstances. Use of VCRs, DVRs to "time shift" TV shows, for example, is completely illegal in Canada, as is the copying of movies, TV shows, etc, regardless of whether you otherwise have the right to view such movies (ie own the DVD), etc.

      Fair Use provisions (USA) for video content are similar to making music copies in the USA; allows for time shifting of TV shows, copying of movies that are not subject to the DMCA (video tapes), etc.

      Canada (and virtually every nation on Earth) allow for "Fair Dealing" (which is not to be confused with "Fair Use", which exists only in the USA) which allows use of copyright material for bona fide news, research, citations, reviews, quotations, etc provided such use is brief, appropriate to the subject under examination, and does not constitute a significant portion of the work.

      Quoting the entire article of a news story in a blog or forum, for example, would be illegal in Canada since it encompasses a significant portion of the work, and thus no Fair Dealing exemption could apply.

      So, two examples where Canada is less restrictive (audio copying; software backups) and another where they are more restrictive (video copying) than US law.

      Should the Private Copying provisions of the Copyright Act (Canada) be repealed, Canada would be more restrictive since there is no Fair Use exemption; all audio copying except for bona fide academic, etc use would be illegal, even if you owned the CD the copy was made from.

      In other words, they are "different" and you can't take one provision out of context of the whole body of law in either country, or any country for that matter.

  3. What this doesn't say... by revjtanton · · Score: 3, Informative

    Is that the Canadian's downloaded the plagiarized reports via BitTorrent.

  4. Re:Too bad they weren't the PirateBay by gujo-odori · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, no, they couldn't. Plagiarism is taking someone else's original work, either in whole or in part, and purporting that it is your own original work. A small example of this is using an attributed quote in a paper and not identifying it as a quote.

    A large example is copying your entire paper from someone else, putting your name on it, and submitting it as yours.

    Note that plagiarism with permission is still plagiarism. If your friend gives you his term paper from last year and you turn it in as yours, that's still plagiarism. If you do it without permission, it may also be a copyright violation.

  5. Re:Yawn by harryandthehenderson · · Score: 2, Informative

    Oh, but there's a flip side to not having copyright: Nothing stops anyone from taking what you've done, obfuscating it, encrypting it,

    One can already do that with GPL code now and make it hard for anyone to spot.

    tying it to a platform,

    What does copyright have to do with whether something is cross-platform or not?

    and releasing it as if it were their own.

    A number of people have done that anyway regardless of the existence of copyright or not. I expect many of them probably haven't and won't be noticed for doing so.

  6. The Conference Board of Canada is a lobby group. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    This really shouldn't be much of a surprise. Check out the people involved in their conference on Intellectual Property they are having tomorrow in Toronto.

    http://www.conferenceboard.ca/conf/09-0120/brochure.aspx

    The president of the CRIA is the chair of the conference for crying out loud.