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Publicizing shoplifters vs. publicizing plagiarists

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

A mall in Staten Island flashes pictures of convicted shoplifters:

Every six minutes, digital billboards in the Staten Island Mall will flash the photos of five convicted shoplifters for 15 seconds. These ads will appear on eight and nine-foot-tall plasma screens dubbed "Smart Screens," that have a 65-inch digital display.

"I wanted to do something just to warn people who might have ideas about shoplifting," Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan told Larry McShane, a staff writer at "The New York Daily News."

Shoplifting is a crime; the general population knows what it is, and these people were convicted.

In the K.Y. Cha matter against Bruce Flamm, Cha made much of the fact that he had not been "convicted" of plagiarism. In fact, there is no crime of plagiarism, and what it means, at least to some, is a bit iffy. Glenn Poshard was found to have committed "unintentional" plagiarism, but not intentional plagiarism, according to a panel convened by SIU. Did he copy without attribution. Yes. Allison Routman copied parts of three sentences from Wikipedia, related to historical facts, and this act was deemed an honor code violation by a group of professors, and Allison walked the plank. A university president in California copied a Thanksgiving greeting from someone else, and an ethics professor said this was mere copying, not rising to the level of plagiarism. This involved "ghostwriting," as the copying was done by someone else on behalf of the president, who signed the greeting, much as the Laurence Tribe matter involved ghostwriting more than plagiarism by Tribe, who nevertheless did sign the work.

Part of the problem with exposure is that there is no clear definition of what plagiarism is. Copying without attribution should be simple enough. But is it? There was a fair understanding of what happened in the Cha matter with KJOG and "Fertility and Sterility." But Cha took issue with "convicted of plagiarism." Nobody really discussed Biden's plagiarism at Syracuse during the election, but Biden copied five pages without attribution. The word "plagiarism" has a bad connotation, but the acts which constitute plagiarism are a bit fuzzy.

See also

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/11/was-loye-young-wrong-in-seeking-public.html

Full post as published by IPBiz on November 27, 2008 (boomark / email).