Slashdot Mirror
In Argentina, Law Against Plagiarism Plagiarized
An anonymous reader writes "An Argentinian politician who introduced a law to send plagiarists to jail for three to eight years appears to have plagiarized the explanation of his bill directly from Wikipedia. The bulk of his explanation is three paragraphs that are taken, verbatim, from Wikipedia, without acknowledgment."
Do as I say don't do as I do, some politicians outside of Argentina also have that attitude ;-)
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
He can try again afterwards.
Or... you know, maybe not.
Oh pleaaaaaaaaaaase enforce the penalty!
crazy dynamite monkey
Same ole' crap. "Stop stealing," says the thief.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
They should have done a Wikipedia search on the definition of irony.
Plagiarism is not illegal in and of itself, except for where it's fraudulent, or an outright violation of copyright as well, and I'm perfectly okay with that. Plagiarism is primarily an academic offense, and by and large The Real World (tm) doesn't need the same level of rigorous academic standards that Academia does.
Also not generally illegal (save for fraud, promissory estoppel, etc): lying.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
This is more a case of stupidity in that he apparently confused plagiarism with copyright infringement. The more important aspect (to me) is that he is such a foolish person that he couldn't even explain the reasoning for himself. Not only did he require copying wikipedia, but he didn't even justify the new law. According to the article, he simply took the paragraphs that DEFINED plagiarism. This shows he has a complete misunderstanding of the topic, and worse, is apparently not smart enough to gather his own thoughts about a subject he wants to legislate.
I'm sure he will stay in office, as he is probably very good at winning popularity wars with opponents. I wish I could say that my own elected officials were better, but I know that isn't the case. Politicians in the US are only slightly better at disguising their ignorance.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Doesn't Argentina have like a free pass to take any IP that they want?
It is a well written bill with unit tests included.
The Bill explanation that was eventually copied to Wikipedia, or the Wikipedia explanation that was eventually copied to the bill?
The bulk of his explanation is three paragraphs that are taken, verbatim, from Wikipedia
Are those three paragraphs original to the Wikipedia - or do they quote or paraphrase other sources?
Otherwise the politician won't have learned a thing.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
This makes me wonder how many politicians who favor strong copyright enforcement and huge windfalls for the RIAA download music illegally? Or about how many have children that do. Would G.W. Bush have favored the industry in the same way if his daughters had been sued for copyright infringement? I'm not sure, but I find it difficult to believe that legislators don't download songs illegally and believe themselves to be immune.
Facts have a liberal bias.
You just can't make shit like this up!
While I was in seventh grade, I missed a week of school due to an illness. My first day back in English class, we were told spend the hour writing an essay about the evils of plagiarism. In retrospect, it's obvious what happened in my absence, but at the time I didn't know what the word meant, just that it was bad. So, I wrote an essay on the evils of communism, substituting the word plagiarism throughout. Yes, I discussed the possibility of godless plagiarists taking over the country and forcing a plagiarist regime upon the American people. I don't think we got a grade for it, but the teacher thought it was pretty hilarious.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
I remember other stories like this with congresscritters and senator types putting up copyrighted songs or text on their websites and being surprised when it's pointed out. It seems that they generally have a subconscious understanding of fair usage and consider it common-sense... thinking that copyright law is the realm of printed book and pirated movies being sold on street corners. It would explain a lot if they're pushing for harsher penalties without understanding the frequency that common people unknowingly violate copyright laws everyday.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
You made me go read a Techdirt article. I don't do that anymore. Bad /.
Mike is a hypocritical jerk who likes the sound of his own typing, apparently. Occasionally he even has a point, but usually he belabors stuff so much the point gets lost in the miasma. Most often things break down into the fanboys ("Is too!") and the haters ("Is not!") camps, and nothing much comes of it. Are there any filters on /. for Techdirt articles?
Everything you know is wrong, Just forget the words and sing along.
They should now pass a law that prohibits passing laws that contain plagiarized materials containing this one as an example.
From Wikipedia's Terms of Use:
"Wikimedia projects are required to grant broad permissions to the general public to re-distribute and re-use their contributions freely, as long as the use is attributed and the same freedom to re-use and re-distribute applies to any derivative works."
If he didn't cite Wikipedia (snicker) then he's at least violated their Terms of Use specifying a "Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0".. which I assume would be a copyright violation. But, IANAL.
How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?
I propose a new word to describe this - wikiflagarism, the flagrant plagarism of wikipedia.
It is an portmanteau of a malapropism with a neologism, or a Malamanteau.
i thought it was one of the licenses that didn't.
Remember when employment discrimination due to gender and race was outlawed? Not for Congress, as they excluded themselves! As far as copyrights and patents go, most governments that enforce such rules write exemptions for "public use." For example, the US government can implement any patent as long as the patent holder is reasonably compensated. The fact that Representatives act irresponsibly in regard to handling such exemptions is just another proof that power corrupts.
Politicians never use copyrighted material without permission!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Plagiarizing Wikipedia is like singing Happy Birthday without paying royalties.
In Soviet Argentina, laws plagiarize you!
He was just waiting for a [Citation Needed]. No harm.
I live in Argentina and have read the original proposal. In fact he's proposing to up the penalties for misrepresenting, selling fake property as the original or selling property without that you don't own. Basically, you could sell fake goods, but you'd have to state it, thus, you'll be infringing on copyright. It's not so much about plagiarism as about misrepresentation and selling of fake goods as originals.
Having said that, I still think what he did was despicable and I seriously doubt his wits to be a representative. But which country is proud of its politicians? I would seriously consider moving there!
Doesn't Argentina have like a free pass to take any IP that they want?
Like, totally.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
This sounds like a Monty Python skit
Actually until the law is actually passed presumably what he has done is not yet illegal. In fact this could be an exceedingly devious scheme to convince people that the law is actually needed...although I highly doubt that is the case.
Yes, it's sort of funny but no big deal.
The explanation was simply an explanation of the bill. It doesn't really need to be credited. And this is the sort of the Wikipedia is for - explaining and summarising sometimes fairly complex information for the layman. If the explanation credited Wikipedia it would distract from the explanation. It's not like he was claiming to have created this clever prose himself (unless I completely misunderstand the situation). He just wanted to share the knowledge.
Did he include a grandfather clause to excuse any actions previous to the passage of the bill? :o) Slick politicians...
Pass the bill, with a rider that makes the law effective retroactively to the date of the bill was written.
In Soviet Russia, law plagiarizes you!
-- Boycott Shell
I work in the sciences, and I expect my work to be cited just as I cite the work of others. But as a free, open, and anonymous service, why does wikipedia need to be cited? The information provided by this source is free and open, just like its accuracy.
However, I'm not saying that the Argentinian legislator is in the right, he should have put the relevant passage under quotation marks.
Well done America! You have finally applied the label of "ironic" to an appropriate subject! I'm so proud right now.
When I read this article, I immediately thought, what if he edited wikipedia (with a sockpuppet) to coincide with his bill before he introduced it? He can't be said to plagiarize his own text, after all.
The revision history of the article reveals that the current first three paragraphs were written on 19 April 2010 by Andreasmperu, who has been a prolific spanish wikipedia user for some years, is certainly not a sock puppet, is probably a woman, and may be from Peru.
Since I have disposed with the sock puppet theory, I feel comfortable embracing the much more humorous prevailing theory (pleasantly reinforcing my preconceptions about politicians) that Gerónimo Vargas Aignasse did in fact plagiarize the text of his plagiarism bill.
It`s broken. Shows some Excel article in the text :S
Soon you're going to find cops Bangalored!
I was myself the "victim" of a similar case, that is a magazine that says you can't copy their articles without at least attribution, then fully copied one of mine... without attribution, of course. When I said "you should replace the full text with an abstract and link to source" they simply removed the whole page :-|