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

Classic Moment from the Appeal

[Anonymous Coward]

One of my favorite points in the Appeal was when Mr. Vanderhye made a point about the security of TurnItIn.

I can't quote it exactly... but when he made the point, nearly EVERY head nodded, including the three appellate judges. It was one of those made-for-TV moments. This was right around the time of the US Presidential election:

something like "You can bet if Barack Obama's or Sarah Palin's high school papers were stored on the *most secure server* on the internet, they would have been hacked. There's no doubt that a site with the lax security of TurnItIn would be hacked."

Man, ya shoulda been there!

Talk to your professor, opt out

[Grant The Great]

Seriously, each professor that I had that used this service specifically mentioned it the first day and it was written in the syllabus. I brought up an objection with each professor and they had no issue with me opting out and them presumably just googling various sentences in my papers. It wasn't an issue, the professors agreed with me when I voiced my objections about the privacy, copyright ownership, data retention, presumption of innocence, etc. The only reason that they used it was because the department head dictated it.

Exercise your rights. It's your paper. Remember, professors are people just like you. While they may believe you to be paranoid, they won't hold it against you if you voice your concerns with logic, passion, and conviction.

Re:Talk to your professor, opt out

[Bob9113]

they had no issue with me opting out

You do not have to, and should not have to, opt out of your creative works being infringed.

The only reason that they used it was because the department head dictated it.

If the department dictated that the professor should take your laptop, sell it on eBay, and give the money to some third party corporation, would you see the professor as having done no wrong? This corporation is building its cashflow on your creative work, without license. If they want to come to you and negotiate a deal to use your creative work in their business model, fine. Until then, it is yours.

But is this REALLY copyright infringement?

[MickyTheIdiot]

In a way it's too bad that this didn't go to trial. Back when I was working in the Academic sector there was occasionally firestorms between students and faculty about this subject.

The major university I worked for (which will remain unnamed obviously) had it in the student contract (or code or bylaws or whatever) that the copyright of anything turned in by a student was owned by the university. I am guessing many universities do the same thing.

So it would have been interesting to see if that sort of fine print clause in a student agreement with a state institution would of held up. If it does I would think that the student didn't really have a case.

Totally Unfair!

[Bob9113]

Copyright law is supposed to protect corporations from potential customers. It is not meant to be used to protect authors from corporations. This is a perfectly honest corporation advancing its agenda by innocently infringing the copyright of authors. Corporations are supposed to get unequal protection under the law. How this court could see fit to apply the law equally in this case is beyond me.
 
/sarcasm

Re:Who is really hurt by such services?

[causality]

"Ok, just file a complaint. I'm sure that semi-literate guy did something wrong enough to slap them down."

I love how the Americans think that suing everybody is the best solution for every problem.

That illness has a self-perpetuating nature, as does all aspects or expressions of "us against them." To sum it up, when you find yourself born and raised in an environment in which most recipients of most legitimate complaints are insensate and unreceptive, the "force of the law" nature of legal remedies become the only undeniable way to call attention to even the slightest injustice. All it really should take is for a person to stand up, with understanding, and call out those things which need to be addressed, to shine a light upon them and remove the shadows of excuses and other utilitarian purposes under which they are sheltered. By comparison, what we have now is not an underlying acknowledgement of human dignity or a celebration of harmony, but the primitive desire to avoid punishment.

It's such a precious thing, such an exquisite privilege, to put the lie to this pattern by nothing other than your living example of a higher order.

Re:how do i find out if my teacher did that?

[commodore64_love]

>>> she reserves the right to upload it as she sees fit. The student agrees to the contract

This contract would be declared "void" in a court-of-law, just the same as various provisions in the Paypal User Agreement were declared void a few years ago. Why? Because contracts can not be used to sign-away rights protected by Federal Consumer Protection laws. In other words, a company (college) can not force a customer (student) to give-up his rights or privileges as a precondition of service,

Nor can a company add conditions AFTER the money has already been paid, which would be the case if a customer does not see the prof's syllabus until the first day. That's called bait-and-switch.