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A couple of news items have grabbed my attention over the course of the past week or so. One is the terms of service changes on Facebook, and particularly its resulting byproduct, where many Facebook users are staking copyright protection of their posted material. The other is the proliferation of teenage MLB reporters (alleged reporters) on Twitter. Both news items got me to thinking about rampant plagiarism and copyright infringement on the net.
PLAGIARISM, INFRINGEMENT AND IDENTITY THEFT
Listening to internet trolls posing as teenage newsmakers isn’t a great way to process info.
— Mike Ferrin (@MikeFerrinSXM) December 3, 2014Plagiarism is defined as the attempt to “steal and pass off the ideas or words of another as one’s own,” and it's the final part of that definition that is most important, particularly in the digital reporting age. It isn’t so much that social media users take information from others and use it in their preferred social platform -- almost everybody does that, and as digital media has exploded, particularly thanks to Facebook and Twitter, this phenomenon is relatively commonplace. The real issues are fabrication and lack of attribution. Few give credit to the source of content being used or re-posted and others simply make things up to generate interest and social media followers. In both cases it is certainly a horrible breach of ethics.
I don't want to put too fine a point on it, because for most, social media is simply a social platform, a way to connect and interact within large groups of friends, family and social peers. But what of news aggregators? Since sharing content is rampant on the internet and practically the sole basis of the social media space, citing sources and/or providing links to sources should be common courtesy. But it isn't even common practice. Particularly with younger users who fancy themselves as news aggregators. Is social media teaching our youth that plagiarism is acceptable? And how far does it go? If the cost of plagiarism is simply credibility, do random Twitter and Facebook users really care?
Many hide behind three alleged loopholes:
1. Citing anonymous sources.
2. Paraphrasing or summarizing the content.
3. The internet is a free and open source for information and anything posted online is considered common knowledge and becomes eligible for free, random usage by anybody.
In some cases, authors cannot reveal their sources as a means of protection or for fear of professional retribution. That's understandable. It doesn't give license to make that a blanket statement, however, to copy or fabricate content.
As far as not having to cite a source if the content is simply paraphrased, the truth is, you have to document sources whether you quote, summarize or paraphrase the source material. Additionally, switching words around or incorporating synonyms for a few words in the original source is not paraphrasing. That's still plagiarism. Paraphrasing is expressing an existing idea in your own words.
Common knowledge can be defined in a number of ways, but the overarching definition is this: Common knowledge consists of well-known information and facts widely available through a variety of standard references. Notice that it doesn’t say anything about ease of access or that the information is free. Therefore, all information gathered from online sources must be documented appropriately.
NERD ALERT: I follow baseball a great deal. It offers great stress relief for me and as an active fantasy baseball participant who focuses strictly on analytics, I get to spend my free time focusing on two subjects I love a great deal, baseball and math. During the offseason, rumors and speculation of player movement between teams and possible free agent signings offers a never ending data stream on social media, and Twitter is my modern equivalent of a news ticker. I get real time information, sortable by subject and author via Twitter lists.
Twitter lists are a funny thing. By creating a filtered feed you see a lot of redundancy. Some of it is so blatant that, in the realm of intellectual property, it crosses over from pure plagiarism to virtual identity theft. This is a common occurrence with news aggregation. In a narcissistic digital platform where acceptance is based on inclusion in trending categories and being the first to break news, authenticity is often severely compromised and is too often blatantly disregarded.
And here's where it gets even more complicated.
There are a number of professional sources that offer legitimate, real time breaking news via their Twitter and Facebook accounts. Speaking strictly on the subject of baseball again, these are usually paid journalists, such as Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports and the MLB Network, syndicated print media columnists like Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe or bloggers like Tom Loxas and Evan Altman of Cubs Insider who are simply passionate about their subject matter. Each of these reporters have reputations to uphold, as well as salaried jobs, that explicitly require them to be credible. Failure to cite sources, or worse, the fabrication of news items, would likely cost them their jobs, their reputations, and their credibility within their professional peer groups.
This is not the case for non-professional, strictly social media aggregators. With nothing to risk you have nothing to lose. Quoting Dr. Ian Malcom [Jeff Goldbloom] from the movie Jurassic Park: "...it didn't require any discipline to attain it ...you didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it."
Plagiarism is just really inefficient hyperlinking.
— Aaron Levie (@levie) August 10, 2012Of course citing specific, referenced sources immediately indemnifies the social media poster. Journalists have an obligation to attribute the work of others when writing pieces. It is important to note that plagiarism is real theft, plain and simple, and that intellectual property theft is very closely linked to identity fraud. Social media does not require such diligence. Social stigma in the social media space only works effectively if it is able to stop the perpetrator. Clearly this represents a weak attempt to eliminate the problem because pointing out abusers only serves to increase their notoriety. Some worry that the popularity of sharing and re-posting articles through social media is only making various forms of plagiarism and intellectual property theft socially acceptable.
FACEBOOK CHANGES IN TERMS OF SERVICE AND COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
The Only Way to Decline Facebook’s ToS Is by Not Using It http://t.co/3pdvkcx95t
— Social Media Law (@SocialMediaLaw1) December 3, 2014In what is becoming a customary rite of passage, Facebook is again changing their Terms of Service Guidelines. I am not going to get too specific because most Facebook users never read the original terms of service agreement upon registering an account with the social media behemoth and posting the changes here will only result in a number of paragraphs being passed over. There are three points that need to be addressed however:
1. You probably have never fully read Facebook's Terms Of Service and User Guidelines.
2. By agreeing to create an account you willfully acknowledge Facebook's rights to update that agreement without your consent.
3. Facebook is a free social media platform.
With the obligatory change in terms of service comes the obligatory rally against Facebook's alleged oppressive stance against their users, who again, are not charged to use the platform, other than being subject to far too many media advertisements. Since the company's announcement, there has been a proliferation of users claiming ownership of their data, their words, their photos, their videos, their status updates and of course, their self-proclaimed genius, comedic or legitimate.
This has been going on for years, and it usually occurs each Thanksgiving weekend.
You've probably seen the following status update or something very similar in your news feed a few hundred times since Thanksgiving:
"Due to the fact that Facebook has chosen to involve software that will allow theft of my personal information, I declare the following: On this day, December 3, 2014, in response to the new Facebook guidelines under articles L.111, L.112 and L.113 of the code of intellectual property, I declare that my rights are attached to my personal data, drawings, paintings, photos, status updates, messages, comments, etc., published on my profile since the day I opened my account. For commercial use of the foregoing my written consent is requires [sic] at all times."
"The violation of my privacy is published by the law UCC1.1-308-308.1-103 and the Rome Statute. Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are invited to post a notice of this kind, or if you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you have not published this statement at least once, you will tacitly allow the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile update."
What the?
There are so many things wrong with that statement that I wonder if it was written by a fourteen year old. It's is written incorrectly in regards to grammar alone, and who knows if articles L.111, L.112 and L.113 or the 'code of intellectual property' (is this is Star wars thing?) actually exist. Further, the Facebook Terms Of Service explicitly states that the user "owns all of the content and information that [he/she] posts on Facebook" and that control of the dissemination of that information is governed by your privacy and application settings.
P.S. The Rome Statute established four core international crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. How that pertains to intellectual property and copyright infringement is beyond my comprehension. Go ahead. Wikipedia it. I did.
That's it. Facebook owns nothing of yours. You do give Facebook a license to use and display your content when you post it on site. That is not even close to surrendering your intellectual property rights or giving Facebook full copyright privileges, which would allow them to do whatever they want to do with your content.
Finally - YOU CANNOT CHANGE FACEBOOK'S TERMS OF SERVICE WITH A STATUS UPDATE. A mash-up of bad grammar and faux-legal terms with a reference or two to non-existent copyright codes does nothing but make you look like an idiot. That's the only crime here.
Article Sources and Reference Materials:5 Most Common Plagiarism Myths College Students Believe by JACQUELINE MYERS, Nitty Gritty English online; Did I Plagiarize? by The Visual Communication Guy; C-Net YouTube Channel; Aaron Lewis; The New York Times - Author, 17, Says It’s ‘Mixing,’ Not Plagiarism by NICHOLAS KULISH, 11 February 2010; Dictionary.com; Slideshare.com, Mike Ferrin, SXM; That 'Copyright' Facebook Status Is Useless And Absurd. Stop Posting It by ALEXIS KLEINMAN, Huffington Post, 02 December 2014; Social Media Law.