McLean Students Sue Anti-Cheating Service

[V. Barbarino]

Looking forward to the outcome on this one, I think these kids have a great point. If you do school work, how come someone else gets to profit off of it.


McLean Students Sue Anti-Cheating Service
Plaintiffs Say Company's Database of Term Papers, Essays Violates Copyright Laws

By Maria Glod
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 29, 2007; Page B05

Two McLean High School students have launched a court challenge against a California company hired by their school to catch cheaters, claiming the anti-plagiarism service violates copyright laws.

The lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, seeks $900,000 in damages from the for-profit service known as Turnitin. The service seeks to root out cheaters by comparing student term papers and essays against a database of more than 22 million student papers as well as online sources and electronic archives of journals. In the process, the student papers are added to the database.

Two Arizona high school students also are plaintiffs. None of the students is named in the lawsuit because they are minors.

"All of these kids are essentially straight-A students, and they have no interest in plagiarizing," said Robert A. Vanderhye, a McLean attorney representing the students pro bono. "The problem with [Turnitin] is the archiving of the documents. They are violating a right these students have to be in control of their own property."

Turnitin officials did not return calls for comment yesterday. A Fairfax County schools spokesman said the system would not comment on pending litigation.

The legal dispute comes amid a debate over the best way to ensure students are doing their own work at a time when the Internet can make it easy to cheat. Many educators, including Fairfax County school officials, say Turnitin is an effective way to police for plagiarism.

Attorneys for the company and various universities and public school systems, including Fairfax , have concluded that the service doesn't violate student rights. Turnitin is used by 6,000 institutions in 90 countries, including Harvard and Georgetown universities, company officials have said. Some public schools in Arlington, Prince George's and Loudoun counties use the service.

According to the lawsuit, each of the students obtained a copyright registration for papers they submitted to Turnitin. The lawsuit filed against Turnitin's parent company, iParadigms LLC, seeks $150,000 for each of six papers written by the students.

One of the McLean High plaintiffs wrote a paper titled "What Lies Beyond the Horizon." It was submitted to Turnitin with instructions that it not be archived, but it was, the lawsuit says.

Kevin Wade, that plaintiff's father, said he thinks schools should focus on teaching students cheating is wrong.

"You can't take a person's work and run it through a computer and make an honest person out of them," Wade said. "My son's major objection is that he does not cheat, and this assumes he does. This case is not about money, and we don't expect to get that."

Andrew Beckerman-Rodau, co-director of the intellectual property law program at Suffolk University Law School, said that although the law regarding fair use is subject to interpretation, he thinks the students have a good case.

"Typically, if you quote something for education purposes, scholarship or news reports, that's considered fair use," Beckerman-Rodau said. "But it seems like Turnitin is a commercial use. They turn around and sell this service, and it's expensive. And the service only works because they get these papers."

[endymion]

This will become somebody's essay for their law school application. What would be really interesting is if one of those students filed a copyright registration before turning the paper in, which raises the stakes. The one who wrote specific licensing instructions on his paper that it should not be archived is pretty interesting.

The media normally carries the story when cases like this get announced or filed, but then there's no follow-up on what happens unless you have Lexis. Ends up misleading people about how the law works.

[coach]

Originally Posted by techjunkie

What would be really interesting is if one of those students filed a copyright registration before turning the paper in, which raises the stakes.

[quote author=V. Barbarino link=board=6;threadid=38498;start=0#msg430963 date=1175262845]According to the lawsuit, each of the students obtained a copyright registration for papers they submitted to Turnitin. The lawsuit filed against Turnitin's parent company, iParadigms LLC, seeks $150,000 for each of six papers written by the students.
[/quote]

However, you need not file a registration for copyright for your intellectual property to be copyrighted. It is considered copyrighted the minute you affix it to a permanent recording device (paper and pen, for example). If Turnitin wants to use the students' papers for commercial usage, they need to obtain a license and pay the students a fee.

[endymion]

Oh interesting, I missed that.

The registration raises the stakes considerably by entitling you to six-figure statutory damages if you win. As opposed to having to prove a real loss.

Yeah that one who explicitly denied granting the school license to archive the paper, that's the interesting one. Lexis bookmark...

[V. Barbarino]

Is that company publicly traded? Let me know I'll short that stock!

[endymion]

Courts have often ruled that students do have fewer rights in many cases that involve schools. Not as totally clear-cut as it seems at first. If this had happened between authors of a publication and a media company that archived things without license then it would probably lead directly to a settlement for the authors. Since it's a school thing it could get cloudy.

[all4tribal]

I grew up in Mclean most of my life, went to elementary school thru high school and graduated from Mclean High.

Interesting article.

[saintjohn]

A lot of Broward school teachers use turnitin, but they're are better (and perfectly legal) ways to catch those who plagiarize papers.

Most students seem to think that teachers, especially older teachers, have no idea how to use a computer. They also think it's perfectly natural for a C- high school English student to suddenly turn in a college-level thesis paper, complete with notations from books that aren't available in the school library, the county public libraries, or the county community college libraries.

All a teacher really needs to do is monitor each student's progress during the term paper process, from selecting an author, to developing a thesis statement, to outlining the paper, to the finished product. Grade each step, not just the end result, and plagiarism becomes more trouble than it's worth.

Don't get me started on sparknotes . . .

[yume]

Very interesting. I got the impression that these students planned this though, and got the copyright registration before they even submitted it, not after. That company is screwed.

[coach]

Originally Posted by saintjohn

Most students seem to think that teachers,...

Now, when you say "most", you actually mean "the exceedingly small percentage that actually plagarizes." This seems to be, again, a great overreaction to what is actually a small problem. I mean, I'd say that many kids cheat, but generally it is more of the kind of looking on each others work. Is plagarizing papers off the internet really such a huge problem that we need to spend all this time and money on it? As you say, a teacher just needs to watch for a huge jump in a student's writing quality and that would solve the problem. Of course, that would assume that we have teachers who are actually competent, which I believe is the real issue.