For many authors today, the access of materials in the Internet sends shivers down their spines, as they fear that their book will ever be sold at all.
Jeremy Refkin states in no unequivocal terms that “we are turning from a society of sellers and buyers to one of suppliers and users where ownership is being replaced by access.”The “in” thing now is “not who owns something but who has access to it.” (p. 60). This paper looks at the copying aspects in the Copyright Law and compares it with the rules on plagiarism often violated by the studentry and the academe. It explores their similarities and differences and suggests ways on how this can be remedied.
The Copyright Law and Plagiarism Human intellectual creative activities or the intellectual property rights include copyrights. Expression of oneself in the form of music, paintings, scripts, sculptures and many more automatically gives one the copyright to that work.Each individual novel idea has the potential to acquire a copyright (Read these instructions before using the copying service). Embodied in the copyrights are two rights. First is the prevention of one’s work from being published without permission. Second right is to prevent gains that may come from one’s work.
There are restrictions in the copying of materials in a Library because the owner has the right to obtains gains from his/her work whenever it is used. The Copyright Law limits the copyright to certain boundaries such that people can still use the works of others without their permission (Read these instructions before using the copying service).Therefore, the Copyright Law Enforcement Ordinance, and the Copyright Law Enforcement Regulations have come up with regulations to spell this out clearly. First, copying is strictly for personal use only and users are prohibited to make copies of the materials in order to sell them. Second, the copying machines in the Library are limited to materials owned by the Library. Users are not allowed to copy documents they prepare for classes.
Third, only parts of a book are allowed to be copied, and not the entire book. Lastly, users must make only one copy of the materials. It is not permitted to make two or more copies in presentation for the class (Read these instructions before using the copying service). For print publications, it is usually the publishers who lobby for more copyright powers.
The trend nowadays in copyright legislation is to give publishers more powers for longer periods of time. However, legislators often end up giving these publishers more copyright powers (Misinterpreting Copyright).Meanwhile, plagiarism is one of the leading problems that academic institutions perennially encounter among the members of its student bodies, and in certain occasions, among the teaching staff.Copying in the copyright laws are more often violated by people in the industry of music, architectural, paintings and scripts Indeed, an ongoing battle against this intellectual dishonesty is being waged. There are a number of cases when the ideals of scholasticism prevail.
Plagiarists are brought to justice--and to shame, as their stolen laurels are revoked from them.Yet for every instance that a plagiarist is caught, investigated and brought to litigation, there are many who go on with their life scot-free. These cheaters finish their degrees, flaunt their college diplomas, earn a higher degree, build their credentials and pursue decent, high-paying careers without paying for their tort.Surprisingly, plagiarism is not limited to the young scholars whose carefree attitude and sporadic lapses may have caused them to put lesser weight on intellectual honesty and throw caution to the wind just to pass a paper or to satisfy a pressing requirement.
Rather, plagiarism is common the world over in almost every level of academic pursuit. Truly, many a plagiarist found guilty were enrolled in Masters and Doctoral programs, Medicine, and even Law.This shows the grave prevalence of plagiarism. In the article, Ethics and Plagiarism by John Crace (2005), the closest estimate indicates that 10 percent of student essays are plagiarized. In Ronald B.
Standler’s (2000) treatise, George Washington University professor Julie Ryan assessed that “7 of 42 students plagiarize most of all their papers.”A more serious cause for concern, however, is the ramifications of this prevalence to the future of respected professions once the plagiarists become members of their chosen fields. Thus, plagiarism may slowly eat away the culture of intellectual pursuit and education that once served as proof of the degree of a people’s civilization.Comparison of Copyright rules and Plagiarism IssuesThere is a dire need at present for “copyright rules that recognize the public’s feelings of right and wrong, provide appropriate incentives and rewards, cope with new technologies and support sustainable industries.” (p.67).
Even in the area of music, the author posits that digital technology encourages one to treat music and pictures as we have become accustomed to treat words” (p.72). That is, access to these properties are readily available and possibilities of people ever actually buying one for themselves is nil when the material they want is readily available in the Internet.One of the important issues here is the high propensity to infringe copyright laws. The fluidity of information in the Internet makes certain information exposed for copyright infringement.
Today, the focus in terms of public policy is the production of alternative dispute resolution that would help manage the security of the Internet.Alternative dispute resolution is a method of resolving conflicts through the community and the people who uses the Internet rather than through the mechanism of the government. One of the reasons for this is the relatively low economic barrier present in the Internet thus enabling small value transactions (Testimony of Henry H. Perritt, Jr. 2000).
Thus people will not engage in Internet transactions if the cost of dispute weighs more than the value of transaction.ReferencesAVCC Submission to the Copyright Law Review Committee Reference on Copyright and Contract. Retrieved Sept. 28, 2007 fromhttp://www.ag.
gov.au/agd/WWW/clrHome.nsf/Page/Past_Inquiries_Submissions_Sub_No._13_-_Australian_Vice-Chancellors_CommitteeBalaram P. 2005, May 10 ‘Plagiarism: A Spreading Infection.
’ Current Science Retrieved Sept. 28, 2007, from http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/may102005/1353.
pdfCarroll, J. 2004 ‘Deterring, Detecting and Dealing with Plagiarism’ Oxford Brooks University. Retrieved Sept. 28, 2007, from http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/2_learntch/plagiarism.html
