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Letter to the Editor
This letter is in reponse to “Who owns your homework?” that was published on Aug. 24.

In the recent “Who owns your homework?” article from 8/24/2009, I find the manner in which I was portrayed, in addition to the issue itself, appalling.

Momentarily discarding the slant of the piece that chose to vilify me as a mere troublemaker, the argument itself is a highly important, relevant issue regarding copyright and digital freedoms for both students at large and those pursuing programming-oriented degrees that was all but ignored in favor of misinformation.

The issues of a student’s rights to their own homework do not arise in other disciplines, even when they typically reuse assignments as part of a portfolio or for other public displays - most especially Art students, English majors, and promising Business candidates. But a handful of Professors within Computer Science departments worldwide seem to
feel exempt from the general academic policies on undergraduate student works of creation.

Most worrisome, however, is the choice by the “Daily” to give the most voice and credence to the university itself while implying that the issue is still a matter of debate, with SJSU standing firmly on the side of righteousness. This is simply not true, and supporting evidence can be easily found outside the university’s propaganda machine.

Portraying this highly controversial university issue in the favor of the institution is absolutely, ethically wrong, and so is the article’s factual misrepresentation of the issue at large.

No matter the financier of a journalistic endeavor, it is generally expected that some modicum of integrity is retained independent of the funding’s source, and SJSU’s “Spartan Daily” has failed to uphold this simple ideal in a horribly epic fashion.

Kyle Brady
Student, Computer Engineering Major

1. It was edited for content, not length.


2. Once again, any contact information or invitations for curious readers to investigate this issue for themselves has been removed.


3. Proving again that The Spartan Daily is not the pinnacle of journalistic evidence, they managed to claim me as a Computer Engineering student, rather than my true Computer Science status.

I decided I'd [send] this to you early so you can print it for tomorrow.  Do not edit, change, modify, etc. from its current form.

The link I include will not work until after Midnight tonight, so do not remove it because you can't find the page.

Response letter for printing:

In the recent "Who owns your homework?" article from 8/24/2009, I find the manner in which I was portrayed, in addition to the issue itself, appalling.  Momentarily discarding the slant of the piece that chose to vilify me as a mere troublemaker, the argument itself is a highly important, relevant issue regarding copyright and digital freedoms for both students at large and those pursuing programming-oriented degrees that was all but ignored in favor of misinformation.

The issues of a student's rights to their own homework do not arise in other disciplines, even when they typically reuse assignments as part of a portfolio or for other public displays - most especially Art students, English majors, and promising Business candidates.  But a handful of Professors within Computer Science departments worldwide seem to feel exempt from the general academic policies on undergraduate student works of creation.

Most worrisome, however, is the choice by the Daily to give the most voice and credence to the university itself while implying that the issue is still a matter of debate, with SJSU standing firmly on the side of righteousness.  This is simply not true, and supporting evidence can be easily found outside the university's propaganda machine.

Portraying this highly controversial university issue in the favor of the institution is absolutely, ethically wrong, and so is the article's factual misrepresentation of the issue at large.  No matter the financier of a journalistic endeavor, it is generally expected that some modicum of integrity is retained independent of the funding's source, and SJSU's Spartan Daily has failed to uphold this simple ideal in a horribly epic fashion.

For further details on the actual issue, as well as an analysis of the article's slant, visit kyle-brady.com/inLink/s8H0f

Kyle Brady
Student, Programmer, Writer, Entrepreneur
kyle@kyle-brady.com

Hi Kyle,

I am the Executive Editor of Spartan Daily and I am sorry you did not enjoy our article about your situation.

I don't feel that the article was slanted at all and that certainly was not the writer or editors intention.

That said, we do not have a paper tomorrow. I can run your letter Thursday, but your demands of not editing are against our editorial policy, which are printed in every issue.

Let me know what you decide.

Thursday is fine, and you can edit it for length, but not content.

Just be careful what you remove - the world is watching closely.

I have a question for you:  how dense [is] your staff?  Honestly, because I'm curious.  Do you hire based on any set of qualifications?  Or perhaps IQ level?  Because it appears that you do not.

I just saw my "Letter to the Editor" that you promised to print, and, once again, you guys managed to royally fuck it up.  Now screw it up, but fuck it up.  Does that better express to you the scale of your incompetence?

I'm going to address this in another public forum, as well as take this "over your heads" to people of higher authority within SJSU, but I'll clue you in on a few key points in advance:

1. You edited for content.  I specifically, explicitly said you could only edit for length, if required.  That was not a request, it was a demand - not optional.


2. You removed all references to contact methods, my longer response online, and, once again, any method by which curious readers could investigate for themselves.


3. You managed to pin me as the wrong major.  After all of this, it shouldn't be that difficult for you to figure out what department I'm associated with - how many hours were spent pretending to "investigate" this issue?  And with what Professors?  Inside what Department?  Oh, that's right - Computer Science.  Excuse me for assuming that you have any sort of memory, or the basic ability to look me up on SJSU's systems, refer to your own published article, or even, Odin Forbid, check my profile on my site where it clearly states my major.

Once again, you've created a situation of epic failure for yourselves.  Just as I'm not letting the issue with Beeson drop, this little issue with your publication is not going away any time in the future either.  You can keep pretending to be a true newspaper, but I, along with many others, now know that you are not - newspapers focus on things like "fact", "truth", and "unbiased inquiry".

Maybe you should read some self-help books on the topic.  May I suggest "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Journalism"?

You're an embarrassment to the industry you pretend to be a part of, and you should be ashamed of both yourselves and your complete lack of competence.

I'll be in touch.

• He's "had it with [my] insulting tone", and thinks I'll receive negative repercussions for publicly defending myself against such horrible excuses for public competency


• The Spartan Daily is run by students, which he claims excuses the publication from any and all "mistakes" made


• He claims that they didn't bow to the will of the Administration, and never have or will


• I'm "more than welcome to not like the story", and he doesn't really care.  Apparently I should feel lucky that they even published my "insulting rant on [their] editorial page", because the students have quotas to meet to get class credit - he ignores that they were ethically obligated to post my response letter.


• Since I didn't like how they edited my letter, their editorial policy is available for me to read - "Don't like it. Don't submit a letter to the editor."


• Then he decides to be insulting:
  
  
  
  • "Think about who you are and what you are trying to represent. As a Linux user (Ubuntu) and a longtime reader of 2600 and BoingBoing (I was reading the paper ed. of BoingBoing while you were still in the womb), I think you are making a mockery of the opensource and digital rights movement."
  
  
  • I know what I'm doing:  standing up against a professor that tried to bully me for the purposes of his own laziness, and trying to get the issue presented fairly by the school paper.  Nothing more, nothing less.
  
  
  
  


• He adds that he thinks I'm perusing this for blog traffic purposes, and that he is no longer going to communicate with me.


• As a closing, he uses the ever-thoughtful "Have a nice life"

Hank,

I've had it with your incompetence.  We can go tit-for-tat all day long, and I'm prepared for any so-called consequences me coming after you for this may bring, so let's not have the pot calling the kettle black, ok?

Occasionally making mistakes is understandable - making critical mistakes on every public aspect in relation to me in the last week is not.

Once again, let's not jump to conclusions.  First, I got permission from Stefan (both in person and via email) to use the photo.  Second, the final version is pulled directly from the paper, and is visibly so.  Third, the original was emailed to me by Stefan himself.  Want to cry some more over milk you spilt?

I know what I'm doing - I'm not making a mockery of anyone or anything, but rather standing up to a professor that tried to bully me for purposes of his own laziness, and I'm seeing the issue through.  If you don't understand this, perhaps it's because you've been reading BoingBoing since before I was born - an interesting statistic from all the emails and comments worldwide is that a certain dividing line exists in terms of age for whether or not they agree with my original actions.  And apparently you are on the opposite side of it.

I don't really care whether or not you pushed someone else's content off to publish my response - you were obligated to publish it.  You're the ones who have continually failed to be even partially competent, not me.  If that was the case, I wouldn't be in a position to have fought Beeson in the first place, nor would I be a Computer Science student - we tend to be a bit brighter than most.

I'm not doing this to drive hits to my site (since I get decent traffic as it is anyway), but rather using the site itself as a vehicle for exposing you and your staff.  This is not new, and not confined to you - it's a personal philosophy of mine to go after people when they're wrong.  Ask Lawrence G. Roberts, one of the founders of the Internet, if you don't believe me.  Or Tanya Harding, who recently publicized 17,000+ emails of the entire SJSU student body by, surprise!, being incompetent.

Finally, I think it's worth noting, and rather hilarious, that I have more journalistic integrity, talent, and overall writing skills [than] most of your staff - as a Computer Science student / programmer.  What does that say about the company you keep?  Ponder that pixel of wisdom.

Have a nice, long, slow slide into senility.  I hope it's entertaining.

p.s. Emails are never private unless they're encrypted or published with legal disclaimer.  Yours is neither.  And consider the irony of you demanding private email conversation after denying my own demand of not editing my letter.  Guess what?  Publishing emails related to stories is part of my policy - if you don't like it, don't email me.

Or follow the update thread for the latest chapter in the saga

1. Dr. Beeson seems to believe he can simply claim copyright on his assignments and prevent students from posting them [see here, "Copyright" section] without serious code augmentation, effectively ensuring that most of his students (if not all) will not take the time or effort required to post solutions publicly.


2. The Spartan Daily, SJSU’s daily student news publication, contacted me recently to setup an interview me for a “feature article” in the full-color issue that would reopen the paper for the Fall semester on 8/24/2009.  While they made a great effort to appear as if they were going to present the issue in a fair and unbiased light, this is simply not the case.   As a school-funded publication, they apparently thought it best to slant the facts, arrange details and quotes, and even “photoshop” a picture of me to portray my crusade as one with trouble-making intent, rather than as defense of a noble cause.

1. The fact that the code was of my own creation, and therefore my property and copyright to do with as I please, was entirely avoided, with the associated ownership legality given the same silent treatment.  Instead, they chose to make it appear as if I was only interested in showing off as some sort of open source guru.


2. Copyright was addressed in terms of the homework assignments being created by Beeson, with no statement that the decision by the JAO implied Beeson didn’t have true copyright of the assignments in the first place.  Instead, I’m quoted as once again being arrogant and the article remains without any reference to the reality of Beeson’s false copyright claims.


3. The article closes with Beeson’s recent machinations to prevent the public posting of code, not only seeming to endorse the idea but also giving him the last word – which is very important when creating lasting impressions on readers.  I was asked to comment on this very topic during the interview, and said something to the effect that these were expected and should not be allowed to continue, but my comments were omitted.


4. I’m quoted only twice for a complex issue, whereas SJSU has three voices with a total of seven quotes.  The phone interview with Suzanne lasted approximately forty minutes and covered the entirety of this issue.


5. No outside sources were cited or asked for quote, despite that places like BoingBoing, TechDirt, and ArsTechnica helped make my case successful and held plenty of external insight.  Additionally, professors from other universities worldwide could have been asked for comment, which they would have gladly given if the emails and comments I received during early June are any indication.  I’m sure even the EFF would have loved to comment.


6. No information was given to readers for those curious enough to investigate on their own - neither this site nor the page holding all the details of the case.

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1. The photo has been distorted to make me appear grotesque and disproportionate – my forearms are gigantic, while I have a tiny head.  Whether this was a byproduct of a lens or software is irrelevant, but it's obvious that considerable time was spent inside an advanced photo-editing tool:  besides the code-overlay, the highlight on my face and overall lighting has been modified.  It's worth noting that the "before" picture included above was only given to me after I had expressed my distaste for the piece and my intentions for a rebuttal - not the best circumstances for a legitimate before-after comparison, given recent history.


2. The overlaid code, which I knew about in advance, is not only not code from SJSU assignments, but trash code as well.  The code comes from an introductory C class I was forced to take over the summer at a different institution (Mission College), and posted online for archiving purposes.  It’s clearly labeled as “missionProjects”, with “sjsuProjects” available just above the link, and there’s a text file for each assignment indicating the code is not of high quality and was written quickly/sloppily to meet only the barest requirements and pass the class with little effort.  All of this was ignored, and now crap code unrelated to the issue has been forcibly associated with the “Beeson Debacle”.


3. In both the “print edition” and the “digital print edition”, but not the web version, the caption for the photo reads “This is a picture I took where ever I took it of whomever it is I took it of while doing whatever is is that they were doing aksjd lkajs dkjaslkdj alksj”.  A correction was printed in the following day’s edition, but the damage had already been done:

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Hi Suzanne,

A few points:

1. Was this really the "big story" you mentioned it was intended to be?  Because it pretty much skates over only the barest of the issue, not to mention the work I went through to win this case.  Such as BoingBoing, which you found the story through and should have received a reference, or my defense of my actions using pre-existing SJSU polices, cases, and statements.


2. It's common practice in the journalism world that when you mention a website, you reference the URL at least once somewhere, or give a link when online.  I would have appreciated this common courtesy.


3. You made the end result much more ambiguous than it really is.  If you read Beeson's green sheet declaration, which I did a few days ago, it's a direct result of what happened and him trying to worm his way out of the situation, and you avoid the entire fact that an overwhelming worldwide population of both academics and professionals support my view of the situation, rather than Beeson's - you make it sound as if what he's doing is acceptable.

You can expect a response, in the very near future, and I'll be contacting all the same people who were interested last time to let them know just how the school publication spun it deftly in the school's favor, not allowing an unenlightened reader to be aware of the full, unbiased situation.

At the very least, you could have made more of an effort to show that I wasn't just being a troublemaker or defending my grade, but standing up for something more noble.

Kyle, thanks for your response. The story was edited from 800 words to 500 at the last minute, and much of those things you mention were taken out to more focus on the copyright issue, which is the point of the story. Sorry you feel like I spun you, because my goal was to accurately portray all sides. I am not one to take sides or spin. This isn't a conspiracy, it was simply a last-minute edit. Yes, please do write a letter, we would welcome the dialogue. Again, sorry about this.

Also, I just saw the print edition and checked the digital print edition - not only is the photo terribly distorted and makes me look misshapen and odd, but it's captioned with filler nonsense.

This whole affair has been one misstep after another by apparently the entire staff at the Spartan Daily, and your journalistic integrity, as well as ability, should now be highly suspect for anyone that knows me personally, knows of the issue, or even knows what I look like.

I'm embarrassed to even have provided you material for quotes, pictures, and what turned out to be otherwise cannon fodder for a shoddy publication.  If these are the behaviors that you and your brethren practice in the "real world of journalism" outside of college, then it's no wonder people stopped buying papers and advertising money has dropped drastically -no-one wants to spend money on absolute crap.

The semi-friendly rebuttal I was going to write has just turned into a scathing takedown.  I hope you and the paper are prepared to be famous for maligning a digital freedoms issue.
I'll be in touch.

Hey Kyle,

I've forwarded your emails to the executive editor and the advisers. Thank you for getting in touch with me.

Firstly, I was shocked and embarrassed myself at the caption. I didn't see it until this afternoon. There has been a firestorm around that error. It's unacceptable and we are running a correction to the caption.

We had a problem with the design of the paper and we had to do an emergency revision at 2 a.m. Unfortunately that revision meant the paper reverted to a previous version, and the words that were originally placeholder text appeared instead.

We have a brand new staff of students who came in on Sunday evening to pull together an issue, many of whom were unfamiliar with the process. This is a student-run paper, and all of us are learning. But that is no excuse, and it's a quick lesson to learn for everyone.

But as for the edits, I can only say I did as best as I could with time and space constraints. Despite the last-minute edits, I still stand by my story and believe it is an accurate portrayal of what I saw was the issue. My editors and I decided to focus on the copyright issue in the incident. The copyright issue is a bigger story, and I plan on doing a follow-up story for not just the CS program, but for other on-campus programs as well.

Re: the photo, we've also alerted the photo editor about your concerns. Is it the online photo you're concerned about, or the one in print?

Also, please write a rebuttal both online and in a letter to the editor, and we will publish it. Send the letter to me and I can forward it along.

Thanks Kyle

Both photos, although it's only noticeable in the real life edition or the "digital print edition".  Besides looking like an idiot, he didn't even use code from SJSU - he picked it from a class at Mission (clearly labeled) that was also clearly labeled as crappy just-make-it-work code.

But all will be clear when you hear from me tomorrow morning.  I'll have a full version and a shortened version that will fit the constraints of your print edition, that way I don't have to worry about your mysterious editing process screwing me over once again.

In the recent "Who owns your homework?" article from 8/24/2009, I find the manner in which I was portrayed, in addition to the issue itself, appalling.  Momentarily discarding the slant of the piece that chose to vilify me as a mere troublemaker, the argument itself is a highly important, relevant issue regarding copyright and digital freedoms for both students at large and those pursuing programming-oriented degrees that was all but ignored in favor of misinformation.

The issues of a student's rights to their own homework do not arise in other disciplines, even when they typically reuse assignments as part of a portfolio or for other public displays - most especially Art students, English majors, and promising Business candidates.  But a handful of Professors within Computer Science departments worldwide seem to feel exempt from the general academic policies on undergraduate student works of creation.

Most worrisome, however, is the choice by the Daily to give the most voice and credence to the university itself while implying that the issue is still a matter of debate, with SJSU standing firmly on the side of righteousness.  This is simply not true, and supporting evidence can be easily found outside the university's propaganda machine.

Portraying this highly controversial university issue in the favor of the institution is absolutely, ethically wrong, and so is the article's factual misrepresentation of the issue at large.  No matter the financier of a journalistic endeavor, it is generally expected that some modicum of integrity is retained independent of the funding's source, and SJSU's Spartan Daily has failed to uphold this simple ideal in a horribly epic fashion.

For further details on the actual issue, as well as an analysis of the article's slant, visit kyle-brady.com/inLink/s8H0f

Kyle Brady
Student, Programmer, Writer, Entrepreneur
kyle@kyle-brady.com

Original Print Edition, 8/24/2009, Bottom of Page 1

Photo Comparison

Photo Caption

Correction Print Edition, 8/25/2009, Bottom of Page 1

Correction Snippet

Professor,

How is this a violation of Academic Integrity?  I posted them after the initial due date, and very clearly state that these are not to be used in lieu of a student doing their own homework, nor are they likely reliable enough to be used in a corporate environment.

You may ask, then, what the point is - the point is that I'm starting to create a repository where my future employers can see code I've written easily, something that is more important for the interview process in our modern world than ever.  The work all semester was difficult enough that I felt it warranted being included.  Additionally, sharing code with the world at large, in the spirit of the Open Source community, is not incorrect when the code is your own - even if no-one ever looks at it.

According to the Academic Integrity Policy of SJSU [accessible here], I do not qualify for any of the terms of Cheating or Plagiarism.

According to the Student Conduct Code of SJSU [accessible here], I do not qualify for any of the terms of Section B.  Any arguments for Section B Item 14 are invalid, because they are not being disseminated for commercial purposes.

According to a statement by the SJSU Student Senate on April 20, 1990 [accessible here], "Academic institutions exist for the transmission of knowledge, the pursuit of truth, the intellectual growth of students, and the general wellbeing of society".  My actions are within the spirit of this.

Finally, according to the same Senate Resolution, students have a right to freedom of speech (which this is classified as), "So long as a student demonstration does not interfere with the classroom".  Having posted the code after the due date, I did not interfere with the classroom.

Thusly, I do not see a need to remove my code under threat of grade penalty.  If you disagree on any of these points, or wish to discuss it further, I will be more than happy to bring this discussion to Dr. Louden's attention.

• what were cited are examples, not a full list


• he had expected me to cooperate, otherwise he would have filed a Cheating claim against me


• take down his PDF files due to copyright (note: I did; they're being retooled for reposting as my own content)


• does everything need to be stated as acceptable or not?  spitting on the classroom floor was mentioned.


• future classes will expressly prohibit the public posting of code solutions at any time

Professor,

I understand that they are merely examples, but I thought it was important to point out what the spirit of Cheating and Plagiarism is, since this may very well result in a new definition set.

I will remove the problem descriptions.

I appreciate that you didn't file a case, because, as you said, it was not my intention to help others cheat or facilitate it.  In fact, I still don't believe this could be considered cheating, since it is a very different situation than passing a Final around the room.  Perhaps I could have posted the code at a later date than I did for each assignment, but the principle remains the same.

There is no reason to not make homework solutions public at an appropriate time, and what I have done is no different than sharing answers after they have been turned in for grading - or reviewing graded homeworks in groups before a Final Exam.  I merely used the Internet as my distribution method, instead of a paper-and-ink solution.

Finally, I believe spitting on the floor is completely unrelated.  That would fall under basic actions of human decency, whereas what I have done over the previous months is more intellectual in nature.

Thank you for the consideration of my response.

Hello Dr. Louden,

I have been contacted by Dr. Beeson today regarding the posting of my homework solutions for CS146, past due date, online as a reference for my future employers as well as the general public (if they were interested).  He seemed to think this was a violation of Academic Integrity, and considered it Cheating.  While we still disagree, he has agreed to not penalize me because he didn't explicitly state it was forbidden.

However, this is still a concern to me, as he has indicated this will be a tenet in all of his classes henceforth.

The code I have posted is code that I wrote, and posted past the due date.  As such, it cannot be considered cheating.  But for a Professor to prohibit post-grading distribution of solutions is ludicrous.  What I have done is, essentially, no different than students comparing answers after handing in homework, or comparing graded solutions of a semester's work prior to the Final Exam.  Neither of those are considered Cheating, or any manner of an Academic Integrity violation, so why should mine be considered different?

To prevent it would not only be destructive, prohibitive, and harmful, but potentially a violation of Freedom of Speech as well.

I have included the emails between myself and Dr. Beeson as an attachment.  I hope that you can review these details and make an appropriate decision as to whether the prevention of such sharing is both legal and intelligent.

Thank you for your time, and I hope to hear from you soon.

• the Office of Student Conduct and Ethical Development was contacted for a ruling


• Dr. Louden did not believe Dr. Beeson can unilaterally prohibit the public posting of code


• copyright issues could arise if the problem sets were highly unique or code from Dr. Beeson was used (note: not the case)


• Dr. Louden disagreed with the assertion that posting code online was the same as sharing homework solutions, because of the medium in which they were posted (note: the Internet)


• Dr. Louden stated he thought the claim of Freedom of Speech would be a stretch

"I have now heard from Debra Griffith, Judicial Affairs Officer of SJSU, and she agrees that what you have done does not in any way constitute a violation of the University Academic Integrity Policy, and that Dr. Beeson cannot claim otherwise."

Plagiarism: The Overwrought Bastard Child of Copyright

Citations and plagiarism have strode hand-in-hand through the world of academia almost as long as the idea of “the institution” has existed. The theft and rebranding of another’s ideas, purely for academic credit and recognition, is the ultimate sin amongst professors, collegiate authors, and students, but this disease of morals is seen by many to be spreading in the current age of all things digital. However, there is a growing cloud of dissent that continues to rain on the copyright parade, contending that copyright itself is a flawed concept, and, therefore, so is the current system of academic citations.

Plagiarism is currently defined, by Dictionary.com Unabridged, as

the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work (“plagiarism”)

with citations being concurrently defined as “the act of citing or quoting a reference to an authority or a precedent” (“citation”). However, the rules and definitions get further defined and restrictive, as a few large governing bodies have arisen to act as the academic citations watchmen, the most pervasive of which is the Modern Language Association, or “MLA.” This godlike body has handed down the law from on high regarding when citations are necessary, and it has become the Golden Rule of all forms of academic writing: anything that is not completely original in origin is required to have a source. Exemptions include self-operated exercises, using self-created media, or an author retelling a life experience… but, for all intents and purposes, those are the only exemptions (Purdue OWL, Stolley, and Brizee).

The results of such stringent documentation necessities should be immediately obvious to any intelligent external observer: any written document that contains anything other than the author’s dream descriptions or embedded photographs of their children is going to be full of citations, to the point of excess and annoyance. Granted, in the scientific community, this makes perfect sense- scientific knowledge is heavily layered, building on previous work and its iterations of both research and writing, and cannot produce a truly original idea. A scientist writing a paper outlining a new theory or concept may be groundbreaking and revolutionary, but due to the very nature of scientific work, the paper will be acceptably laden with references to other theories, equations, and research outfits.

Outside the scientific community, such extreme reverence for prior works of art leads to a document that reads like the author has obsessive-compulsive citation tendencies. The typical argument for citations of all unoriginal work, including ideas that have been digested and reformed as the author’s own, involves statistics on the “rise of plagiarism” and how the stringent requirements of formats such as those by the MLA will help to squash such unethical and immoral activities. However, as Mike Hart and Tim Friesner mention in their whitepaper on academic plagiarism, “[e]stimates of the prevalence of plagiarism may […] be contingent upon the definitions employed” and that “plagiarism may be only weakly associated with cheating behavior”(89). The current situation of statistics vs. definition arguments is a stereotypical chicken-and-egg scenario that may not have a true beginning.

In “Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity”, Lawrence Lessig, a Standford professor known for his political activism, states:

"There has never been a time in history when more of our 'culture' was as 'owned' as it is now. And yet there has never been a time when the concentration of power to control the uses of culture has been as unquestioningly accepted as it is now (28)."

This not only aptly describes the copyright climate, but it also exists as a parallel to the citations argument: if such a large number of works have been written on an infinite number of topics, how can one write a truly original paper? The author may use or paraphrase concepts or ideas picked up many years ago from another source, and yet doesn’t think to cite them. It may seem innocuous, but this is still filed under the category of plagiarism. Because of this potential reality, many universities, and even high schools, have adopted an attitude of prevention in an effort to educate students on the intricacies of using information learned elsewhere (Wiebe).

However, it is such an attitude that will only perpetuate the current copyright cringing and citing-by-default climate. The central issue is not whether or not plagiarism exists, but rather why it exists, and if what is perceived as plagiarism may actually be a misinterpretation of the needs and purpose of copyright itself. An argument may be made that students, and otherwise authors of academic works, are viewed “as lazy cheaters who are guilty before proven innocent” (Regan 5), as the predatory behaviors of teachers, critics, and otherwise citation hawks is self-evident.

The result of such predatory behaviors has only one logical conclusion, which the academic world is only beginning to realize. Many times, after authors discover that citation-free blocks of text in a written academic work will be scrutinized for plagiarism, “there is a temptation to […] pad out [their work] with descriptive material leaving little time […] for their own […] comments” (Friesner and Hart 94). Academia is not alone in their problems with their own versions of perceived theft: both the music and movie industry are screaming obscenities as their glass houses built with sex, greed, and drugs quickly disintegrate under the flames fanned by Internet “pirates.” Despite the obvious differences in definitions of theft and their target audiences, all three institutions have the same central problem: copyright (Silverthorne).

For years “the industry” has continued to convolute the definitions of copyright, extending the terms of protection and prosecution, converting a system meant as a means of protection into something that resembles a heavily armed drug cartel, “protecting” their goods. And since citations are borne out of the ideas of “prior work”, a concept used in copyright law, the anti-copyright world of academia actually continues to support and favor copyrights by pushing overzealous citations.

Regardless of the chicken-and-egg birthcycle, there is a solution. Academic institutions need to de-emphasize the habit of wanton citing, and governing bodies such as the MLA need to loosen restrictions and definitions to a more reasonable, but still protective, level. Rather than regarding authors as highly likely to be cheaters and perpetuators of plagiarism, they should be given respect and a certain level of trust until they prove to not be worthy of it. The justice systems of the world have such a revolutionary concept: it’s typically known as “innocent until proven guilty.”

If a scientist isn’t required to prove e = mc² in order to avoid citing a well known and “common knowledge” theory, every time they use it in new equations, projects, and theories, then why would the academic literary equivalent be necessary?

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Works Cited

• "citation." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 25 Nov. 2008. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/citation>.


• Hart, Mike, and Tim Friesner. "Plagiarism and Poor Academic Practice - A Threat to the Extension of e-Learning in Higher Education?" Electronic Journal on e-Learning 2.1: 89-96. Feb. 2004. 25 Nov. 2008 <http://www.ejel.org/volume-2/vol2-issue1/issue1-art-35-hart-friesner.pdf>.


• Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture Control Creativity. New York: The Penguin Press HC, 2004. 28.


• "plagiarism." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 25 Nov. 2008. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plagiarism>.


• Purdue OWL, Karl Stolley, and Allen Brizee. "Avoiding Plagiarism: Is It Plagiarism Yet?" Purdue OWL. 30 Sept. 2008. 25 Nov. 2008 <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02/>.


• Regan, John. "Curing the Cold but Killing the Patient? Turnitin.com, Online Paper Mills, and the Outsourcing of Academic Work." Plagiary: Cross-Disciplinary Studies in Plagiarism, Fabrication, and Falsification 3.2 (2008): 1-11.


• Silverthorne, Sean. "Music Downloads: Pirates or Customers?" Harvard Business School: Working Knowledge 21 June 2004. 25 Nov. 2008 <http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4206.html>.


• Wiebe, Todd J. "College Students, Plagiarism, and the Internet: The Role of Academic Librarians in Delivering Education and Awareness." MLA Forum 5.2 (2006).