Students Settle With TurnItIn In Copyright Case

An anonymous reader writes "With the deadline for a Supreme Court appeal rapidly approaching, the students who sued TurnItIn.com for issues surrounding copyright infringement reached a settlement with the site's company on Friday. Now the search goes out for any student who has a paper which is being held by TurnItIn that they did not upload themselves. If your teacher uploaded a paper and ran a TurnItIn report without your permission, I bet the students' attorney would like to hear from you."

Comments

Re:Totally Unfair!

[fermion]

Exactly. When copyright law prohibit some kid from downloading unlicensed music it is unfair, but when copyright law allows them to bypass the normal rules of academic honestly, it is all the rage.

Now these kids may be the average kids who are not going to college, and if they are that is fine. They need to know how to sue to keep their low end jobs and maybe strike it rich when they 'have an accident' in wal mart.

But if they are going to college they should be more concerned with education rather than second guessing the process of which they have no experience. The sad thing is that so many people spend tens of thousands of dollars of a college education and really get nothing for it. One hears about all these college graduates that don't have a job, or can't find a well paying job, and I have to ask if these kids really got educated, or just did what they had to do to get a sheet of paper.

For many people, college has been and will continue to be a scam. The promise of higher salary and a middle class life depends on ones desire to put in the work. Otherwise it is wasted money. And no one is going to say don't go to college. There is too much money involved. Colleges need freshmen. The bring in student loans. College, unlike high schools, don't need to graduate anyone. They get no extra money for graduates, and lose face if the graduates suck. However, students still need to pay back loans. There is no way to get from under a loan. Not even bankruptcy. And banks make more moeny if you default. The government pays the loans, and they get to charge extra fees to get back the money you will have to eventually pay anyway. Even if you don't graduate. Even if you are working at 29 hours a week at wal mart.

This settlement is even more sad that the RIAA settlements. In the RIAA cases, there is likely no long term damage. In this case the lesson taught to kids is to attack those who are trying to help you, and that self serving immediate needs are paramount to long term goals. This may explain why arizona has almost a percentage point few per capitia college graduates than other states. People are more interested in looking good than being good.

Re:That's not how "copyright" works

[commodore64_love]

>>>The use of the papers did not affect the market value of the works, therefore favoring the use.

So if I write a script for Star Trek, to be submitted whenever it returns to television, the copy up on Turnitin won't affect my sale? Yeah right. Why should Paramount pay me when they can just grab a free copy off that website. Or worse, pay turnitin.com for the script rights instead of paying me, the original author.

Maybe today's management is honest, but companies tend to go downhill and it wouldn't surprise me if some future CEO at turnitin.com decides to start selling the papers, scripts, stories, and other creative output in his possession.

Re:Talk to your professor, opt out

[Hognoxious]

Professors get paid by my check every semester. They are there because students like me say they can be.

So yes, you do think you're a precious little snowflake. And arrogant to boot.

There's plenty more where you came from.

this article mentioned a lawsuit which is nearly ironclad in that students are in fact having their rights violated.

It says nothing of the sort. It's equally likely that it's just cheaper to settle.