CAN PLAGIARISM PREVENTION VIOLATE COPYRIGHT LAW?

ONLINE PLAGIARISM DETECTION SERVICE SUED

Turnitin, a widely used online tool across the nation by public school teachers, is in the defendant's chair as two local Fairfax high school students filed a lawsuit against them this past week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.

They seek damages from the Californian based compay that exposes those who copy and cheat on their papers by comparing their work "against a database of more than 22 million student papers as well as online sources and electronic archives of journals."

The students are suing because their own essays and papers are added to that same database in the process, violating copyright law.

Robert A. Vanderhye, a McLean attorney, clarifies:

"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."

Perhaps public schools should focus on teaching students to be creative and not copy others as opposed to spending so much effort in catching them in the crime.

A win for the student would be a considerable shift in the landscape of how teachers and professors across the country can and can't check students' work for authenticity.