[WikiEN-l] Re: Plagiarism Policy, was A Missing Policy

[Karl A. Krueger]

On Thu, Jul 21, 2005 at 08:32:16AM -0700, Matt Brown wrote:
> On 7/20/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> > As I pointed out in another email, adding plagiarised content to Wikipedia 
> > can be understood as taking written material someone owns & releases it 
> > under the GFDL or Creative Commons without first consulting the author 
> > or owner.
> 
> I think you are confusing copyright infringement with plagiarism.  We
> already have policies against copyright infringement, and enforce them
> fairly strictly.  I think the rest of us were talking about the kind
> of plagiarism that did not involve copyright infringement.

This distinction is crucial.  Plagiarism doesn't always involve
copyright infringement, or any other legal offense.  It's perfectly
possible to plagiarize from the public domain:  for instance, if I print
up _Huckleberry Finn_ with my name on it instead of Mark Twain's, I'm
not infringing copyright, but I'm certainly plagiarizing.  Plagiarism is
chiefly a matter of dishonesty or misrepresentation: purporting that
something is one's own work when in fact it is not.

A case of copyright infringement doesn't become a non-infringing use
when you cite your sources -- except in the edge case of certain
copyright licenses which permit copying only if you cite the source.
However, a case of plagiarism *almost always* becomes non-plagiarism if
you cite your sources correctly:  giving Mark Twain credit for his work.

-- 
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>