The Hindu Business Line : Plagiarism: A form of intellectual property violation

One of the posters in Kaavya's Opal is said to be, "If from drink you get your thrill, take precaution— write your will." On page 35 of Salman Rushdie's Haroun, a 1990 children's novel, one of the warnings is, "If from speed you get your thrill / take precaution— make your will."

This is just one of the many parallels that Paras D. Bhayani and David Zhou highlighted in a May 1 story on www.thecrimson.com, `the oldest continuously published daily college newspaper' of the US, founded in 1873.

A hot debate now on in Harvard campus is whether the administration should drop Kaavya like a hot potato. "The Ad Board should confine itself to investigating matters directly related to Harvard," write Emma M. Lind and Ramya Parthasarathy in an article titled `On Campus, Off Campus,' dated May 4.

Right time, isn't it, that we came to terms with plagiarism. First, to be fair, `How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life' isn't the only stuff that pops up on the subject.

A report `52 minutes ago' on http://news.independent.co.uk titled `The man who fooled America' begins thus: "It was a byword for journalistic integrity, a beacon of truth and one of America's proudest institutions. Then, in 2003, The New York Times was brought to its knees."

The reference is to how Jayson Blair, "a 27-year-old reporter, one of the newsroom's brightest stars, was exposed as a plagiarist who fabricated stories and concocted quotes," leading to the editor's quitting. "Plagiarism costs Raytheon boss his pay rise," says RTE.ie, Ireland, `1 hour ago', citing the Financial Times reports about how "the board of Raytheon, the US aerospace company, has censured CEO William Swanson for lifting material for his collection of business aphorisms from another book."

Root of the word

Plagiarise or plagiarize means "take the work or an idea of someone else and pass it off as one's own," defines Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Derivatives are plagiarism, plagiarist, plagiaristic, and plagiariser. Greek plagios means `slanting', from plagos, `side', explains the following entry for `plagio-', but that doesn't seem to the root for the word now in question.

Plagiarism is traced thus in Online Etymology Dictionary: "1621, from Latin plagiarius `kidnapper, seducer, plunderer,' used in the sense of `literary thief' by Martial, from plagium `kidnapping,' from plaga `snare, net' ... Plagiary is attested from 1597."

Plaga is the Latin word for `snare or hunting net for capturing animals,' explains www.everything2.com. "Plagium was also used to denote the netting of game, as well as, for the crime of kidnapping children to be sold into slavery."

By the first century AD, the same word was used to refer to a literary thief or plagiarist, postulates the site. "Martial Valerius Martialis first transferred the concept of `kidnapping' to plagiarism of literary works." A case of kidnapping the word?

"Quotes which are brief or are acknowledged as quotes do not constitute plagiarism," clarifies http://dictionary.law.com. "The actual author can bring a lawsuit for appropriation of his/her work against the plagiarist and recover the profits." Graciously, however, Megan McCafferty, the author of Sloppy Firsts' and `Second Helpings, said recently that she was not seeking restitution in any form against Kaavya who is alleged to have taken unkind `helpings' from McCafferty for Opal.

Intellectual property

Plagiarism can amount to copyright infringement if permission has not been obtained from the copyright owner for use of the expressive elements of the work, cautions the legal glossary on www.nolo.com.

"Even if permission is granted, putting your name on someone else's work is still plagiarism and is unethical within artistic, scientific, academic and political communities."

Plagiarism is a form of intellectual property violation, declares www.onlineethics.org. The word is pronounced play"je-rizm', educates ArtLex Lexicon of Visual Art Terminology on www.artlex.com. "Also see appropriation, authentic, copy, copyright, counterfeit, droit moral, fake, forgery, likeness, original, reproduction, simulacrum, and trompe l'oeil," it adds.

"A form of cheating in universities," says www.usingenglish.com. `Copycats running wild in China's universities,' reports Globe and Mail, Canada, `48 minutes ago'.

In it, Geoffrey York rues, "Crusaders for academic honesty are revealing the hidden reality of Chinese scholarly life, showing that money and ambition are often more important than original thought or research."

He adds that the culprit is the system, which bases its salaries and promotions on numerical quotas of published papers in `key journals'.

Distressing statistics

There are distressing statistics that York cites from a recent survey of 180 doctorate-holders, conducted by the Chinese Science Ministry: "60 per cent admitted paying bribes to be published in academic journals, and a similar percentage admitted copying the works of others."

It seems corruption is blatant; so much so, "some academic journals have set their own price lists, demanding a `layout fee' from scholars who want to publish." John Burke says, "If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism. If you steal from two, it's research." Wilson Mizner would agree; for, a quote attributed to him on www.brainyquote.com reads, "If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research."

Plagiarists might well be considered intellectual pickpockets, notes www.word-detective.com. "The act of purloining another man's literary works," defines Webster's 1828 Dictionary. "A form of academic dishonesty," decries Wikipedia. "Self-plagiarism is the act of copying one's published or submitted writing (or products or ideas) without attribution of the source."

Plagiarism.org offers `Online service for preventing plagiarism'. On www.plagiarism.com, there is `software to detect plagiarism'.

The site www.turnitin.com speaks of `the worldwide standard in online plagiarism prevention'. Purdue University (owl.english.purdue.edu) has inputs on `Avoiding Plagiarism', and Georgetown University (www.georgetown.edu) answers common questions on the topic.

Further `research' can take one to some interesting quotes. Such as, of William R. Inge: that originality is undetected plagiarism! "Ideas improve. The meaning of words participates in the improvement. Plagiarism is necessary," argues Guy Debord. But, "taking something from one man and making it worse is plagiarism," reasons George A. Moore.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

More Stories on : IPR | Books | Coming to Terms

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Dangers of Saltoro pull-back

Export infrastructure yet to take off

Cement worries

Foreign Trade Policy needs FDI flavour

Reservation blues

Plagiarism: A form of intellectual property violation

The `when issued' market

Ayurveda and yoga, not IT

Galbraith: Scholarly and witty too

IT's mahajan

Being a success

Negative forces

Pending court cases