Cheating Services and Copyright

[kniedzw]

So, in my daily web-browsing, I found this Washington Post article linked from Slashdot. The short form is that a few high school students are suing Turnitin for copyright infringement, and I think they have a legitimate argument

Comments

[ratmmjess]

I teach Turnitin to faculty here, and have for about five years now.

I've been waiting since the beginning to see what would happen if some students decided to sue for copyright infringement.

Of course, what's really going on here is that the students want to cheat and want to prevent professors from checking up on them. Nonetheless, and IANAL, I think the students might well have a case. On the other hand, there's this and this.

On the gripping hand, there's the question about what the university's Student Handbook/Student Guidelines requires of the students. I am only a private citizen, but students who attend this school are contractually obligated (and it says this in the school's Student Guidelines) to present their i.d.s to me when I ask them to. If they don't, they can be expelled. Are the suing students required by their school's Student Handbook to submit to plagiarism prevention of this sort?

I'll be *very* interested to see how this shakes out.

[kniedzw]

I don't entirely buy the argument in the Duke link that the only market being compromised is the research paper market. Specifically, rights for the paper's use in plagiarism databases could be at stake, and while such rights would be de facto fairly cheap, it's a valuation that could be calculated based on Turnitin's own revenues and assessment of their own database's value and size.

More to the point, I take issue that personal information, let alone copyrighted material, has been made so broadly available to the public sector. There are certainly some benefits to society, but I wonder at what cost to the individuals?

As an aside, the implication in the linked article is that these students don't want to cheat or facilitate cheating per se. Rather, they object to their work being used by a for-profit enterprise in a fashion that they do not construe as fair use. Mind you, these are all minors, so it'd be rather difficult to fact-check the lawyer's claims. ...but the overwhelming attitude of "us versus them" that I've seen

[novalis]

Specifically, rights for the paper's use in plagiarism databases could be at stake

This is a bit circular. If the fourth fair use factor is read this way, it will always cut against fair use, since if fair use is not found, one could always sell the rights to the particular use.

[kniedzw]

Circular or no, it's a valid argument. It might not be a particularly compelling one, but it's valid. :)

[novalis]

I don't actually think it is valid. If nature abhors a vacuum, then law abhors a no-op; in general, each provision of a law or contract is read to have some meaning. For the fourth fair use factor to have any meaning, it must not always cut one way.

[ratmmjess]

At this point in the conversation I have to confess my ignorance of the legal facts involved. Whose rights are paramount? Are these even rights? Got me. I'll let the courts decide that.

But while the students may even be telling the truth about not wanting to cheat or facilitate cheating, the practical effect of what they're doing is enabling other students to cheat. I can understand your...nonplus, or is that too strong?...at the us-v-them attitude, but from inside the ivory tower it does feel like we're at war with the students. Cheating is distressingly common, and students don't seem to take it seriously or even comprehend what the fuss is about. More, there's not just an air of privilege about students but also a quite shocking lack of manners and respect for teachers.

I suppose this is simply a generational thing. Just as my generation's philosophy undoubtedly would have shocked my parents' generation, so too is this generation of students appalling to me in their philosophy and behavior. So it goes, I guess.