[governance] Plagiarism and intellectual property

Deirdre Williams williams.deirdre at gmail.com
Wed Dec 14 14:42:37 EST 2011 

Jovan and Norbert,
Norbert first - of course I agree with you. How can you add to 'the total
of human knowledge' if you are apparently incapable of making a distinction
between what you have thought and written and what somebody else has
thought and written?
Jovan - I read the 2007 discussion with interest. I wonder whether in fact
it's 85% of students or 85% of work submitted - but then I never was much
good at statistics.
I thought perhaps that I was forcing an irrelevant digression from what
this list is about, but no, although I have changed the subject line to
make the point clearer.
Our world, virtual and physical, places great store on property and on
ownership. Our societies disapprove of and punish those who don't respect
what is implied by 'ownership' - the thieves. The production of
intellectual property is really HARD work; surely our sympathies lie with
the creator rather than with the person who stole and claimed ownership.
Ownership is not about money. It admits sharing. In fact the person whose
work was plagiarised was expressing 'willingness to share' by the act of
publication. He or she displayed trust and asked for honesty.
Jovan sent me off on a nostalgia trip to a rhyme I had learned as a child:
"When gorse is out of blossom,"
(Its prickles bare of gold)
"Then kissing's out of fashion,"
Said country-folk of old.
Thank you CM Barker, and Google for knowing about it as well. What does our
discussion have to do with gorse (or kissing)? Well the point is that gorse
always has blossoms, and kissing's always in fashion. So is honesty.
Honesty is the social Higgs boson that holds everything together. Without
at least some honesty I believe that societies would crumble and fail.
Plagiarism is a fancy name for lack of honesty, as it is also a fancy name
for theft. If we change the rules to allow plagiarism it seems to me that
we condone theft and encourage dishonesty and end up having to redesign our
society completely. And the way I see it we have very little, if anything,
to gain from the change.
Deirdre

On 14 December 2011 13:02, Jovan Kurbalija <jovank at diplomacy.edu> wrote:

>  Deirdre,
>
> You reminded me of an interesting discussion on plagiarism triggered by
> the news that 85% of university students in the United States are involved
> in some sort of plagiarism.  Can 85% of students be wrong? Should we invest
> in a better anti plagiarism software or start considering a new educational
> paradigm? Like with many other policy issues, there is a mix of causes and
> effects. Here is the link to the discussion from 2007 which is still valid
> today: http://wp.me/p81We-m
>
> Regards, Jovan
>
> On 12/14/11 4:12 PM, Deirdre Williams wrote:
>
> This discussion interests me for a slightly different reason.
> I have been wondering for some time now whether the norm about plagiarism
> isn't shifting as the norm about privacy seems to be doing. Privacy is
> still important but the things considered "private" seem to have changed.
> With the issue of plagiarism - we are being encouraged to "remix" from the
> existing. Does this carry with it the idea that, once published,
> information is "free"? When I asked this question on the Diplo ning I was
> assured that the "old" rule still obtains - if you borrow someone else's
> intellectual property you must acknowledge where/who it came from.
> But now I wonder again - in changing times is plagiarism not as wicked as
> it used to be?
> Deirdre
>
> On 14 December 2011 10:36, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
>
>> > Given that the general reaction to this appointment could not have come
>> as a
>> > surprise to Mme. Kroes or her staff one really has to ask why it was
>> made.
>>
>>  Indeed. And she's legally obligated to give the reasons (when the
>> question is formally asked) why such a scandalous person was chosen
>> instead of conducting a more normal kind of search for a well-qualified
>> and suitable person to fill this role:
>>
>> According to Article 41 of the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights [1],
>> which has been ratified by all EU member countries as part of the
>> Lisbon Treaty, there is a right to good administration which includes
>> in particular "the obligation of the administration to give reasons
>> for its decisions".
>>
>> [1] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/
>>
>> Greetings,
>> Norbert
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>
>
>  --
> “The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge" Sir William
> Arthur Lewis, Nobel Prize Economics, 1979
>
>
>
>   <http://www.diplomacy.edu/Courses/Humanitarian.asp>****
>
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-- 
“The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge" Sir William
Arthur Lewis, Nobel Prize Economics, 1979
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