[Air-l] turnitin issue

[Alexis Turner]

There has currently been no case brought against Turnitin to my knowledge; 
however, this accusation has been brought by other schools and students in the 
past, and Turnitin has stated their position is that they are using these 
papers within the Fair Use clause.  Opponents claim that because Turnitin is 
making money from their database of papers, it is not protected by Fair Use.  
Each side is reasonably strong.

A few other notes to consider:
Turnitin does not store the actual paper.  They store a hash of the paper, 
weakening the argument that IP is being violated.

Nonetheless, many schools, both small and large, have stopped using Turnitin 
because of this precise issue.  The professor would have a difficult time 
discounting the student's complaints out of hand.

-Alexis


On Thu, 8 Mar 2007, Barry Wellman wrote:

::Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 18:37:08 -0500
::From: Barry Wellman <wellman at chass.utoronto.ca>
::Reply-To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
::To: aoir list <air-l at aoir.org>
::Subject: [Air-l] turnitin issue
::
::Dear AOIRers,
::
::A colleague teaching another course has come across an issue with an
::undergrad who refuses to hand in her term paper because the faculty
::member's course requires that all papers also be submitted to
::Turnitin.com.
::
::The student claims that this violates her own intellectual property
::because Turnitin reportedly keeps copies for future plagiarism searches.
::
::As a supposed ICT & society "expert," my colleague came to me for advice.
::My first thought was horsefeathers.
::
::However, I am wondering if there is any precedent or case law on this in
::Canada or the US. (EU would be too different, I think.)
::
::I am not interested in the ethics or the morality of Turnitin, but in how
::other situations have been resolved.
::
::Thanks,
:: Barry Wellman
:: _____________________________________________________________________
::
::  Barry Wellman   S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology   NetLab Director
::  Centre for Urban & Community Studies          University of Toronto
::  455 Spadina Avenue    Toronto Canada M5S 2G8    fax:+1-416-978-7162
::  wellman at chass.utoronto.ca  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
::        for fun: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
:: _____________________________________________________________________
::
::
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