Where does one draw the line? And How do you know if you’ve crossed one?
Plagiarism is rearing it’s ugly head these days, as Gideon has written about Link; Link; Link.
As I have also written about, Link; Link; (and if I missed anyone else's blogs about this topic, I apologise! I've not had the chance to do my follow up reading yet of my fav bloggers because JU was a bit slow this week and acting wacky and then I had all these thoughts I wanted to get on paper before I forgot them! Whew!) as in the case of so many others that have come and gone. Some, as Gid mentioned in his blog, ‘soon to be forgotten’ (not verbatim).
In this day of technology and all that we have available at our disposal, how do you know when you’ve crossed the line?
Take for example another case I just read about Link. Technically, not one of plagiarism, rather this time one that is questionable because of copyright infringement. Here a doctoral student, Virginia Kuhn at the University of Wisconsin, completing her dissertation and using technology to assist her in the final output of her work. She used multimedia format with lots of hyperlinks and quotes from other sources online to complete her work.
While the university had approve her producing her work in this format, when she handed it in they questioned themselves on whether they should accept it because of her use of electronic media and the copyright nightmares that may ensue because of this.
They felt that she should have asked permission from some of these sources to use their film clips, etc., although she did cite, and noted every sources she received her information from.
She felt that since she did cite and listed every (in my words) “Tom, Dick, and Harry, et al) and referenced all of her sources and their sources, she didn’t have to ask permission because this would hint at some legal requirement on her part in order for her to use these sources.
Before the Internet and technology in general, what with all the Palm Pilots, and Blackberry, multimedia software and hyperlinks and such devices, if you were writing and wanted to quote someone, all you had to do was quote them, cite where and from whom it was taken from without having to worry about it. As long as you noted your sources everything was OK or as I like to say honki dory!
These days with the technology involved it’s not so easy anymore. Now you have to be so careful what you do write and copy from. Now there are more serious legal ramifications involved in what you do use.
I think that issues such as these do and will affect us as bloggers. We do write our own stuff, but sometimes we do get inspired by others and their work. Are we to now worry that if we copy something into our blogs, even if we do reference and quote the sources there will need to be more than that? Would we be libel to some person’s whim if they felt we shouldn’t have used their work?
And if they did do that, would that be fair to us? Because isn’t their printed work considered to be in the public’s domain and thus we should have fair use as Ms. Kuhn said in that attached article? Isn’t referencing and citing all the sources enough anymore? How do you know if you’ve crossed that line? Granted if anyone did what that young lady at Harvard did, they definitely will know they have crossed that line!
However, if someone really, really didn’t know they have done the wrong thing, would that just be plain stupid or just carelessness?
I guess this is a topic that will be in discussion for a long time as for now the publishing world is still reeling from this latest debacle.
[I mentioned on one of Gideon’s blog that some professors only seem to get a slap on the wrist when they get caught plagiarizing. I’ve been trying to find that article and when I do, I will write about it.]