(Flickr.com - Image by Make Studio)There is indeed an increasing concern raised by authors and publishers regarding texts, images as well as music on the Internet and intellectual property rights (IPR) associated with them. The already existing legal frameworks which discipline the use of texts, images and, generally speaking, artistic pieces of work (both published and not) has to cope with the spread of the Internet. Establishing legal jurisdiction is sometimes difficult, as the article “As rights clash on YouTube, some music vanishes” by Tim Arango (The New York Time, 22nd March 2009) clearly state.
According to the definition given by Oxford Monolingual Dictionary, plagiarize means “to copy another person’s ideas, words or work and pretend that they are your own”. This is the reason why, as discussed in class, plagiarism is considered wrong, unethical and in the USA, it may lead dishonest students to fail an exam or - even worse - to get expelled from the University they are attending. In order to avoid plagiarism and showing respect for other people’s work, all students and anyone who publishes something must document the sources used for their work, writing a detailed and accurate bibliography/ webliography listing the references, the name of the author, the year of publication of the book/article and any other data that could be considered useful to trace the original work.
I believe that quoting pieces of others’ work is a good thing to do, since it shows that your research is based on extensive reading and you incorporated content taken from different sources. Yet, if you do not want to commit fraud, you must make explicit reference to the sources used. Paraphrasing, summarizing and, last but not least, direct quoting must be followed by a precise reference. As far as links are concerned, a good student should also mention the last visit on the Website. Personally, I prefer using parenthetical references instead of footnotes. This means that I mention the reference immediately after the quotation and then I write the complete reference at the end of the paper, in the bibliography. It seems to me that writing footnotes is more a time-consuming activity than inserting parenthetical references.
For what my blog is concerned, I use images taken from Flickr and I write below the images the name or nickname of the photographer in order to avoid copyright problems. When I quote something I make reference to the link/book/article from where I got the information. The only doubt I have is about YouTube. As a matter of fact, the article by Arango made me think that sometimes people do not respect copyright involuntary: in my opinion, adding a song as a background for a message could not be considered as plagiarism or copyright violation, since Juliet Weybret (the teacher whose video was removed from YouTube) was not using that piece of music to earn money. I am wondering if I can leave the videos I downloaded from YouTube in my blog... According to me there is nothing wrong with that, but it would be unpleasant to be fined for the violation of copyright!
In my opinion, thanks to the Internet plagiarism is becoming more and more widespread since having access to many articles and works, as well as to online books is extremely easy. This is also asserted here: “It [plagiarism] has increased with the rise of technological advances and individual access to technology. The average person has access to multiple, global sources of information, increasing opportunities for plagiarism to occur” (www.ncwiseowl.org.it/plagiarism/default.htm, last visited: 14th April 2009). Therefore, everyone should be careful and honest enough to avoid plagiarism. Being fair is only up to us!
According to the definition given by Oxford Monolingual Dictionary, plagiarize means “to copy another person’s ideas, words or work and pretend that they are your own”. This is the reason why, as discussed in class, plagiarism is considered wrong, unethical and in the USA, it may lead dishonest students to fail an exam or - even worse - to get expelled from the University they are attending. In order to avoid plagiarism and showing respect for other people’s work, all students and anyone who publishes something must document the sources used for their work, writing a detailed and accurate bibliography/ webliography listing the references, the name of the author, the year of publication of the book/article and any other data that could be considered useful to trace the original work.
I believe that quoting pieces of others’ work is a good thing to do, since it shows that your research is based on extensive reading and you incorporated content taken from different sources. Yet, if you do not want to commit fraud, you must make explicit reference to the sources used. Paraphrasing, summarizing and, last but not least, direct quoting must be followed by a precise reference. As far as links are concerned, a good student should also mention the last visit on the Website. Personally, I prefer using parenthetical references instead of footnotes. This means that I mention the reference immediately after the quotation and then I write the complete reference at the end of the paper, in the bibliography. It seems to me that writing footnotes is more a time-consuming activity than inserting parenthetical references.
For what my blog is concerned, I use images taken from Flickr and I write below the images the name or nickname of the photographer in order to avoid copyright problems. When I quote something I make reference to the link/book/article from where I got the information. The only doubt I have is about YouTube. As a matter of fact, the article by Arango made me think that sometimes people do not respect copyright involuntary: in my opinion, adding a song as a background for a message could not be considered as plagiarism or copyright violation, since Juliet Weybret (the teacher whose video was removed from YouTube) was not using that piece of music to earn money. I am wondering if I can leave the videos I downloaded from YouTube in my blog... According to me there is nothing wrong with that, but it would be unpleasant to be fined for the violation of copyright!
In my opinion, thanks to the Internet plagiarism is becoming more and more widespread since having access to many articles and works, as well as to online books is extremely easy. This is also asserted here: “It [plagiarism] has increased with the rise of technological advances and individual access to technology. The average person has access to multiple, global sources of information, increasing opportunities for plagiarism to occur” (www.ncwiseowl.org.it/plagiarism/default.htm, last visited: 14th April 2009). Therefore, everyone should be careful and honest enough to avoid plagiarism. Being fair is only up to us!
"the flowers are all right"...!?...
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