Online copyright infringement

I’ve been reading an informative post on the IPWatchdog blog “How to stop online copyright infringement“.  Whilst in our line of work we think more often about issues that arise from plagiarism or lack of attribution there are certainly principles worth noting about avoiding copyright infringement.

The IPWatchdog article says:

“Copyright infringement is rampant on the Internet…”

and goes on to explain:

“Copyright infringement has nothing to do with citation or linking back.  A copyright owners rights have been infringed if another reproduces the work without their permission with or without citation.  In the minds of some copyright infringement is synonymous with plagiarism.  Plagiarism, however, is the passing off of the work of another as your own without citation.  Legally, however, copyright infringement is merely copying, with or without appreciation of the wrong.  So those who cite and link back are not absolved from copyright infringement.  They are misappropriating an original work and free-riding.”

The author goes on to explain what practical steps can be taken to try to prevent online copyright infringement (in the US).

Scanning other sites dealing with this topic I noticed again the use a tool that inserts an automatic citation if you cut and then paste their text.  For example, visit the post “How to Handle Plagiarism, Content Theft Online“, then cut and paste something from the body of the post.  You will see following your pasted text their citation and invite to read the full item.

Of course this isn’t going to stop plagiarism or copyright infringement, but it is a great tool to act as a reminder to attribute, and could also help ensure the correct citation is included!  I’d like to find out how to set it up.  Does anyone know?

Avoiding plagiarism; ethics, attribution and authorship

SciDev.net recently posted an item entitled “Plagiarised scientific papers plague India”, dealing with some recent plagiarism controversies, and bemoaning a lack of intervention at government level.

“Nandula Raghuram, secretary of the Delhi-based Society for Scientific Values, an independent watchdog, told SciDev.Net that the Indian government has not heeded calls for an independent ethics body in the country.”

Attribution and authorship are critical issues to any research organisation anywhere in the world, but in practical terms how can we  make sure people are properly credited for their work?  High profile plagiarism cases certainly bring it out in the open, but nobody wants to see those (apart from the original authors perhaps!)

The SGRP published in August 2010 a “Booklet of CGIAR Centre Policy Instruments, Guidelines and Statements on Genetic Resources, Biotechnology and Intellectual Property Rights” of which ethics is a part.  However, these statements don’t deal with issues at the level of plagiarism or copyright. 

An old post on the Scientific Misconduct blog: ““We promise to be honest” at the University of Toronto – is it enough?”, talks of the University of Toronto’s use of an “honest oath”  – an interesting way of making sure people are aware of their responsibilities.  Dealing with this issue at the time contracts are signed certainly confirms awareness, but how effective is it?

We need to pay attention to these issues.  As the role of social media and knowledge sharing increases, we will need to pay even more attention to make sure individual creators are not forgotten.

Plagiarism; what happens if we don’t pay attention to attribution

I wanted to point to a post that appeared on IPKat on Friday (thanks Francesca for the link).  Their article was entitled “Plagiarism: do we know what it means, do we know why we need it?”

This is an important topic, and I for one wasn’t aware that it was surrounded by legal ambiguity.  IPKat quote Wikipedia’s definition of plagiarism:

“Plagiarism is not the same as copyright infringement. While both terms may apply to a particular act, they are different concepts. Copyright infringement is a violation of the rights of a copyright holder, when material protected by copyright is used without consent. On the other hand, the moral concept of plagiarism is concerned with the unearned increment to the plagiarizing author’s reputation that is achieved through false claims of authorship.”

The article then goes on to explore the issue in terms of the ‘offence’ being an issue of both morality and possible infringement of copyright.  Indeed if more attention is paid to attribution plagiarism can be avoided.  As the post says:

“Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, however, by citing sources”

One of the comments caught my attention, a James Wagner commented:

“Protecting the moral rights and copyright of the author will not protect against plagiarism where the original author is a willing participant”

By willing participant he might mean signing away IP rights in an employment contract.  This could indeed be a scenario where legality and morality conflict.  To what extent is an employer morally obliged to credit an employee for created materials when legally they need not?  (By this I mean ethically rather than referring to moral rights.)  This is particularly important in a research environment but it could be argued that attribution assists innovation in many other areas too.  I recently watched a TED talk entitled “Sweat the small stuff” where the speaker, Rory Sutherland argues that “many flashy, expensive fixes are just obscuring better, simpler answers” and one could imagine how an environment of attribution might help bring some of these details into the light of day.

In the less ambiguous context of academia, Sebastian Derwisch sent me a link to a humorous video from the University of Bergen about plagiarism.  I notice IP Kat also linked to this video in their post update (they never miss a trick!).  It is a very funny clip, and also very effective in getting the message across!

Some practical steps on how to “detect, fight and report the unlicensed republication of your content”

An interesting article on Robin Good’s media blog today provides some practical steps to deal with online plagiarism.

The item collates links to relevant articles and sites to help deal with this growing problem.  From free tools to detect plagiarism to how to report unauthorised re-use of your content.  It’s a great selection of resources – thanks Robin Good!