Responses 000 (2009-2010)
Heh. Well, after yesterday's post, someone commented that if I finished the series, there might be difficulties. If you have a list of ten questions, with a large number of people all trying their hands at the same list, then after a while, the effect of plagiarism may occur. I say 'effect' because if you have a sufficiently large number of people thinking about the same problems, eventually some of them may duplicate the work of others. Of course, short commonalities are to be expected. The plagiarism effect arises not by coincidence, but by unconscious mental copying (the 'notebook in the head' effect).
True plagiarism, of course, is extremely difficult in this age of the Internet. It is just too easy to tap into a database and find matches. It is slightly more difficult to find paraphrases of ideas. But the student should be aware that plagiarism and breaching copyright are two different things. The latter subsists in making copies or derivatives of the form in which an idea is expressed; the former subsists in making copies or derivatives of the idea itself, without attribution.
It's considered very bad form, despite defences such as 'parallel evolution' and 'uncanny mystical coincidence'.
So in order to reduce the difficulty level, perhaps I shouldn't meditate at great length on the ideas I have concerning that list of questions...
True plagiarism, of course, is extremely difficult in this age of the Internet. It is just too easy to tap into a database and find matches. It is slightly more difficult to find paraphrases of ideas. But the student should be aware that plagiarism and breaching copyright are two different things. The latter subsists in making copies or derivatives of the form in which an idea is expressed; the former subsists in making copies or derivatives of the idea itself, without attribution.
It's considered very bad form, despite defences such as 'parallel evolution' and 'uncanny mystical coincidence'.
So in order to reduce the difficulty level, perhaps I shouldn't meditate at great length on the ideas I have concerning that list of questions...
Labels: Epistemology, Intellectual Property, Odd Questions, Plagiarism
etched with acid at 8:53:00 am
2 Comments:
Assuming they have an accurate knowledge of basics, people are bound to extrapolate from it and arrive at similar conclusions... Or not necessarily similar, but who gets to copyright the basics then? Mmm.
You're talking about the concept, copying of which may constitute plagiarism.
You can't copyright the basics, only the physical expression of the basics (e.g. a journal article, a poster, a one-act play). The first person to produce a specific expression automatically has copyright; copyright subsists in physical expression (which doesn't necessarily mean 'tangible expression').
Similar conclusions are not the problem. Near-identical expressions of the same concept, or usage of a concept without acknowledging prior publication, would probably constitute plagiarism.
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