How many times do we have to make it clear that ‘copying’ as in reproduction of a published work without permission from its copyright holder is categorically distinct from ‘copying’ as in plagiarism?
Plagiarism is always reprehensible, whether copyright is infringed or not, as in the wilful misrepresentation of another’s work as one’s own, such as ‘copying’ a neighbour’s exam answers.
Otherwise, if no misrepresentation is intended, reproduction of an artwork is essentially quite natural, ethical and honourable.
Unfortunately, ever since good queen Anne saw fit to suspend the public’s natural right to produce copies or derivatives of published works in order to grant a commercially lucrative reproduction monopoly to printers (aka publishers), most people have accepted/tolerated the monopoly (not generally having had the means or inclination to infringe it) on the basis it provides a viable revenue mechanism, and have been inclined to deplore the actions of those few pirates who’ve attempted to profit from infringement.
So, infringement of a state granted reproduction monopoly (of questionable merit in this age of digital diffusion) is not analogous to the deceit or misrepresentation committed through plagiarism.
One might forgive a few for slipping up in confusing the two (given ‘copying’ tends to be involved in both cases), but not a technology critic who writes a regular column on these issues on the BBC’s website.
Therefore, through my copying of Bill Thompson’s words below please forgive my infringement of the BBC’s copyright, but note that I do not also commit plagiarism by presenting another’s words as my own, though I do embolden the critically inappropriate analogy:
From Making punishment fit the crime:
As author and blogger Cory Doctorow put it in The Guardian: “The internet is only that wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press in a single connection. It’s only vital to the livelihood, social lives, health, civic engagement, education and leisure of hundreds of millions of people”.
Yet EMI, Warner, V2, Sony BMG and the other four hundred or so members of the BPI want to cut people off from that network for copyright infringement. Imagine if you had a child who was excluded from school for cheating in an exam, and you were told that they weren’t allowed to watch TV, listen to music, read books, talk to their friends or go into any shop during the exclusion.
Oh, and you and your entire family were subject to the same restrictions.
That’s what the music industry wants at the moment – if you dare to damage their economic viability then you have to be excluded from everything the internet has to offer.
I’d say a better analogy would be this:
“Imagine if you had a child who was excluded from school for making a Photoshop collage from scanned magazines without first having obtained clearance from the publisher for such use, and you were told that they weren’t allowed to watch TV, listen to music, read books, talk to their friends or go into any shop during the exclusion.”
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Thompson is a gossip trafficker. Or possibly a fact stealer. It’s just a matter of semantics.
Comment #000199 at
2008-07-08 16:30
by
Rob Myers
I’d just like to clarify – I wasn’t trying to say that unlicensed copying is the same as cheating in an exam (there are many ways to cheat that don’t involve plagiarism, for one thing) but more to point out that the punishment being proposed for sharing unlicensed content is completely excessive given the nature of the alleged offense, and that we should not allow the record industry to have people hanged for stealing their sheep… I can see how you could have read it as implying a connection, but I assure you that it wasn’t intended. Then again, an author can’t control the readings of his/her work…
BTW Rob I don’t think you can steal facts – they aren’t copyrightable either…
Comment #000200 at
2008-07-09 09:55
by
Bill Thompson
Thanks for your clarification Bill (I hope you also append it to your original article). It would have been best if your article hadn’t needed a clarification of the disctinction. I suspected you would know the difference (at least once it was pointed out), but felt that you should still be criticised for negligently risking your non-specialist readers’ inference of copying from another’s work as being a form of copyright infringement – or a comparable misdemeanour.
Cheating in exams usually involves the examinee misrepresenting their work as entirely their own (rather than augmented by the work of neighbours or Elbonian ghost writers, or assisted by artificial aids such as crib notes, calculators, or web tablets). Plagiarism is one form of such misrepresentation – and a recognisably distinct infraction from copyright that I felt my audience may be more familiar with, than ‘misrepresentation’ per se. I don’t believe copyright infringement would be classed as cheating or would disqualify anyone’s exam, e.g. if an artist had submitted an infringing collage in an art exam without having first obtained clearance.
As for the rest of your article, yup, jolly good stuff – almost perfect, but for this critical albeit subtle flaw. ;-)
Comment #000201 at
2008-07-09 10:24
by
Crosbie Fitch
How many times do we have to make it clear that ‘copying’ as in reproduction of a published work without permission from its copyright holder is categorically distinct from ‘copying’ as in plagiarism?1
Plagiarism is always reprehensible, whether copyright is infringed or not, as in the wilful misrepresentation of another’s work as one’s own, such as ‘copying’ a neighbour’s exam answers.
Otherwise, if no misrepresentation is intended, reproduction of an artwork is essentially quite natural, ethical and honourable.
Unfortunately, ever since good queen Anne saw fit to suspend the public’s natural right to produce copies or derivatives of published works in order to grant a commercially lucrative reproduction monopoly to printers (aka publishers), most people have accepted/tolerated the monopoly (not generally having had the means or inclination to infringe it) on the basis it provides a viable revenue mechanism, and have been inclined to deplore the actions of those few pirates who’ve attempted to profit from infringement.
So, infringement of a state granted reproduction monopoly (of questionable merit in this age of digital diffusion) is not analogous to the deceit or misrepresentation committed through plagiarism.
One might forgive a few for slipping up in confusing the two (given ‘copying’ tends to be involved in both cases), but not a technology critic who writes a regular column on these issues on the BBC’s website.
Therefore, through my copying of Bill Thompson’s words below please forgive my infringement of the BBC’s copyright, but note that I do not also commit plagiarism by presenting another’s words as my own, though I do embolden the critically inappropriate analogy:
From Making punishment fit the crime:
I’d say a better analogy would be this:
“Imagine if you had a child who was excluded from school for making a Photoshop collage from scanned magazines without first having obtained clearance from the publisher for such use, and you were told that they weren’t allowed to watch TV, listen to music, read books, talk to their friends or go into any shop during the exclusion.”
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1 See A Classroom Teacher on Copying vs Plagiarism and New York University Confuses Filesharing with Plagiarism.