The Napster Of Newspapers

from the cut-and-paste dept

It's no secret that I tend to think folks who worry about plagiarism quite often blow the issue out of proportion. Luckily, over the last few years, we've seen more and more folks start to recognize that plagiarism isn't always so bad. In fact, quite often, the plagiarists do something more interesting with your content, sometimes taking plagiarism to a new level of artform. The more you look at it, there's a pretty fine line between plagiarism and inspiration. Also, in other contexts, "plagiarism" is quite similar to everyday collaboration. Yes, the failure to properly credit the original author is a bit sleazy, but if you can get beyond that issue, plagiarism is an interesting phenomenon to observe.

Over at Slate, writer Jody Rosen is discussing what he believes may be one of the "biggest" cases of plagiarism ever discovered: an entire Texas-based free alternative weekly newspaper that appears to have an awful lot of plagiarized content. Rosen only discovered it when someone pointed out to him that one of his own columns appeared (in part) in the newspaper, The Bulletin. As he looked into it, he realized that the article actually mashed up three separate articles written by others, making very minor changes and not even doing much to hide the very different writing styles.

The more he looked, the more plagiarism he found. He eventually got his hands on the latest paper issue of the newspaper, and worked out that every single article, other than some short blurbs about local events, appeared to be plagiarized in this manner. Even the letters to the editor were plagiarized from elsewhere. And while he does sound a little bit ticked off at having his work used in this way, he seems more amused by the whole thing. And while the following paragraph is almost certainly meant sarcastically, there's a point to it:

But perhaps the Bulletin is merely on-trend--or even ahead of its time. The Drudge Report, the Huffington Post, and Real Clear Politics have made names and money by sifting through RSS feeds; Tina Brown and Barry Diller are preparing the launch of their own news aggregator. Mike Ladyman and company may simply be bringing guerilla-style 21st-century content aggregation to 20th-century print media: publishing the Napster of newspapers.

Or there may be a better description: it's the mashup or mixtape of newspapers. Most of the plagiarized articles (all of which have been taken off the web since Slate published Rosen's article) involve bits and pieces from other articles, trying to craft (weakly, from the sound of it), a new article of sorts. And yes, it's sleazy for the (tiny) Bulletin staff to have pretended to write these articles themselves, but is it all that different than what Girl Talk does with music -- which people celebrate (though, to be fair, Girl Talk's mashups are actually good, which makes a difference).

Either way, this is not to condone what The Bulletin has done. It's definitely underhanded and scammy -- and, hopefully thanks to this expose, the folks behind the paper find their reputation deservedly knocked down a few pegs. But, from a cultural standpoint, it's quite interesting. Matt Mason posits that such mashups are often a sign of an unmet market need in his book The Pirate's Dilemma. He points to many similar "mashups" in other fields that later resulted in legitimate enterprises. So, perhaps all this really tells us is that there's a market for taking good content from all over the place, and "mashing" it all up together in a useful manner -- which is exactly what some aggregator sites already do.

Filed Under: mashups, newspapers, plagiarism

The Songs Coldplay Didn't Write?

from the simple-coincidences dept

The What Is Fair Use? blog points us to a fascinating story, suggesting that one of the popular songs from the new Coldplay album has a nearly identical melody to a song by another band. This was brought to the world's attention by that other band, who put together this great YouTube video cheekily comparing the two: There are a few ironies here, including the fact that the original song, by the band Creaky Boards, is called "The Songs I Didn't Write." The band also points out that the Coldplay version is being used in an iTunes commercial -- even though it's about the Crusades. The Creaky Boards version is about listening to music in your room -- which, indeed, seems like it would make for a better iTunes commercial.

Still, the good news is that this doesn't appear to be descending into legal threats or anything of that nature. Instead, the video concludes with a rather cheeky: "I wish Coldplay the best of luck. If they ever want to collaborate, I've got some microphones we could use in my bedroom." Coldplay, for its part, "totally refutes" the claims of the band, noting that the song was written well before the Creaky Boards performance in New York where the band thinks Coldplay's front man, Chris Martin, attended (the band also notes Martin was in London that night). It also notes the differences in the songs, and suggests that it's a "simple coincidence" that the songs sound similar.

Indeed, the guy from Creaky Boards later not only retracted his accusation, but suggested that perhaps both bands were actually "inspired" by the "Fairy Theme" in the Legends of Zelda. In a world of strict copyright, of course, that might make both songs "illegal," though I doubt anyone would think that would be the optimal outcome.

Of course, Martin also once admitted: "We're definitely good, but I don't think you can say we're that original. I regard us as being incredibly good plagiarists." The thing is, part of the point we keep trying to make around here is that, for the most part, that's true of just about everyone. It's the overly aggressive use of copyright law that prevents that sort of "goodness" from showing up. Oh, and it's also worth mentioning, that this little story has definitely increased the profile of The Creaky Boards -- proving one of the points we recently made about plagiarism. Even if the plagiarist is "bigger" than you, the original creator can use that to their advantage as well.

Filed Under: coldplay, copyright, creaky boards, music, plagiarism, songs

Is It Really So Bad If A Student Plagiarizes A Speech?

from the get-over-it dept

We've discussed how silly the concept of "plagiarism" is in many contexts once you look at the details. It's a concept that needs to be rethought -- as it often really represents someone reimagining a work in a different, and potentially valuable context. In fact, we've seen a few plagiarized defenses of plagiarism that are pieces of art by themselves.

It can be especially silly in school, where what some people consider plagiarism is really no different than collaboration. And, in fact, what people complain is "plagiarism" in schools is the sort of thing that can often be considered perfectly reasonable as an adult. When a newscaster reads someone else's script, is that plagiarism? What about when a politician reads a speech by a speechwriter? In both cases they're "passing off" someone else's work as their own. And, of course, in the stand-up comedy world, "joke stealing" is considered a part of the business (the same is true in casual joke telling) -- and that's fine. Because the words themselves aren't always what's important. It's the delivery. Or the message. Or the actions to back up the words.

That's why it seems rather overblown to read about a local controversy in Palo Alto, California, as some graduation speeches apparently borrowed heavily from others. In the details provided, it sounds like the "plagiarism" mostly consisted of jokes. Again, repeating and sharing jokes is a crucial part of culture. Pretending that only one person can ever say a joke seems ridiculous -- especially on something where the delivery and presentation are so important. So, rather than condemning these kids for seeing some funny stories and incorporating them into their talks, can we start recognizing that maybe, just maybe, "plagiarism" isn't really as bad as some make it out to be.

Filed Under: plagiarism, students

Forget Journalist Plagiarism, How About Journalists Hiring Others To Ghost Write For Them?

from the this-must-be-the-new-journalism dept

These days, journalistic plagiarism scandals are old hat. Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass... been there, done that. So, now, thanks to Romenesko we get news of a new type of journalism scandal. A columnist who's been accused of hiring a ghost writer to write his columns. Apparently that ghost writer came forward, asking for bylines to be changed to include his name (oops). Still, is this really that bad?

It reminds me of stories from a few years back during the dot com boom when there was some concern about offshoring work to India. Some people jokingly claimed that they hired some folks in India to do their own jobs for them, and were able to make a good living without having to do much work, other than reviewing the work of others. It's not clear if this ever really happened, but would it really be that ridiculous if it did? Yes, there's the moral question of whether or not it was right for this guy to present the work of someone else as his own, but that happens every day. Almost every political speech is written by someone else -- yet no one worries about the ethics there. Books are ghost written all the time. Hell, I've been both asked to ghost write a book for someone else and had someone offer to ghost write a book for me (in the same week, no less!). So, is this really such a big scandal?

Filed Under: ghost writing, plagiarism, ramiro burr

Turnitin Found Not To Violate Student Copyrights

from the might-be-a-good-thing-for-Google... dept

Last year, we noted that some students were suing iParadigms, the makers of "Turnitin" the excessively popular plagiarism checker used by many colleges and high schools. The professors feed student papers into the system, and it returns a "score" judging how likely the paper is to be plagiarized. However, it also takes a copy of each paper and includes it in its database for future plagiarism checks. This annoyed quite a few students who felt that this was copyright infringement -- using their papers in a commercial database.

However, a court has now rejected the students' arguments and found that Turnitin does not violate the copyright of the students for a variety of reasons. First there is the fact that students had to agree to the terms of the service to use it -- even if they were forced to by their schools. However, the court finds that this is a problem for the schools, not Turnitin. But, much more interesting is the rationale for why storing those papers is considered "fair use." Among other things, the court found that Turnitin isn't using the papers for their creative meaning and even though it stores the entire document, it doesn't really publish a full copy of it for others to see.

That becomes especially interesting given the current lawsuit concerning Google's scanning of books from various university libraries, as it may be able to note the similarities in this situation to Turnitin's. There are some differences -- and clearly, the publishers will claim that the impact on the commercial value is quite different (despite evidence to the contrary -- but this ruling is likely to help Google's position at least somewhat.

Filed Under: copyright, homework, plagiarism, students, turnitin
Companies: iparadigms

Why We Should All Want Politicians Who Plagiarize

from the it's-called-learning-from-others dept

There's been a rather bizarre debate about plagiarism kicked off by charges from Hillary Clinton's campaign that Barack Obama has "plagiarized" some of his speeches. This isn't a political blog, and I won't get into the politics of this, but we do talk about plagiarism here, and it's a ridiculous claim. In the past, we've noted that it's time to rethink the concept of plagiarism, and even pointed to Jonathan Lethem's fantastic defense of plagiarism, which was entirely plagiarized itself. Many people wrongly confuse copyright and plagiarism -- even though they are two separate things. Copyright has nothing to do with making sure someone gets credit for their work. What some people want to call plagiarism, others are realizing is actually a form of collaboration. Ideas and words do not come to us uniquely as a burst of inspiration -- but are built on what we have all learned from others. When anyone speaks, they are "plagiarizing" others in some form or another. Name a political candidate who has only uttered his or her own words, not taking anything from anyone else and improving on it in their own way.

Thankfully, various speechwriters have come forward to ridicule the charges of plagiarism, noting that all political speeches pull from others, and when is the last time you heard a politician credit his or her own speechwriter for a speech he or she had just given? Copyright expert William Patry has blasted the charges as well. In fact, most of the commentary seems to be about what a lame tactic it is. Most amusing of all, perhaps, are the false claims by one news organization that it broke the story. Think about that for a second: a news organization is demanding undeserved credit for breaking a story on a politician who, by omission, failed to credit where his ideas came from. Which is worse? Claiming credit for something you did not do, or failing to credit a friend and advisor who provided you with an idea you built on?

But the key point here is that I want a politician who plagiarizes. I want a politician who takes the ideas of others, mixes them around and comes out with something better. I want a politician who doesn't think that all good ideas spring from his or her head alone, but knows that by listening to others, and by internalizing those ideas, remixing those ideas and building on top of those ideas something better, something more profound, something more meaningful can be produced. Any politician who chooses not to build on the ideas of others and who insists that only he or she creates the speeches and policies put forth is not a politician worth following.

Filed Under: barack obama, hillary clinton, plagiarism, politics, speeches