[TAG] A case of copyright violation / plagiarism?

[Benjamin A. Okopnik]

On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 09:43:14AM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> Hullo again.  Back from my restorative sojourn in the land of nod.
> 
> Quoting Benjamin A. Okopnik (ben at linuxgazette.net):
> 
> > However, the disagreement here appears to pivot solely on the
> > definition of "plagiarism", not on the actual issues of the incident
> > just past.
> 
> Quite.  I contended that use of that term (introduced _not_ by you
> but by Baishampayan in his original post; thereafter firmly if quietly
> omitted from my own reply to him) would unintentionally mislead anyone
> closer than us old fogies to the insane punctilio required by university
> honour codes and such.
> 
> > I, and I believe Kapil as well, were using the "substantive literal
> > copying without citation" definition (admittedly without explicitly
> > saying so) - in fact, I believe that to be the commonly-used meaning
> > of the word _except_ in the ivory towers where that kind of
> > microtome-based disassembly is practiced.
> 
> Well, is your and Kapil's concern limited to _literal_ copying?  Isn't
> writing "I'm not much of an altruist, but frankly it's pretty obvious
> that three people's troubles don't amount to much in the long term,
> anyway" still ripping^W riffing off "Casablanca"?

Rick, I think we just talked past each other: I was agreeing with you
(i.e., "people who use the the word 'plagiarism' to mean 'you used the
same dictionary as someone else!' should climb the hell down out of
their ivory tower and smell the flowers.) My concern is authors who take
the substance of another's work and present it as their own - not some
fiddly resemblance at the submolecular level.
 
>   "I'm scandalised, scandalised, I tell you, to hear there's wagering 
>   occuring in this casino!"
> 
>   "Your payoff, sir."

Darn, I missed the part where you signed it "Rick Moen". Can I have your
autograph? Oh, and - you'd better watch out: there are people out there
(no, really!) who'll use it and try to say it's theirs. You just wait
and see. :)


* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *