March 24, 2006
I am by profession a designer. I work in marketing and advertising. I have overt the years conducted many interviews and reviewed many portfolios but there is one that I am sure I will never forget.
A candidate for a freelance position was taking me through his portfolio telling me the story behind each project he chose to include. He told me a very interesting and amusing story about some pieces he did in conjunction with a promotion for a major imported beer. I asked a few questions to try to get a little more information about why he designed the work the way he did, and he had perfectly reasonable answers. The problem is, none of it was true. He was lying through his teeth.
How did I know this? Do I have some sort of special ability to detect untruths? No. I knew he was lying because the work he was showing was work that I had done.
I explained this to him and insisted that he remove the pages from his book before he got the hell out of my office. I called the agency that sent him and read them the riot act too.
Plagiarism is theft pure and simple. It is no different than stealing someone's television. Yet strangely enough it is not illegal. I don't recall anyone ever being tried and sent to prison for stealing someone's words or ideas.
The plagiarist once discovered, however, does not go unpunished. They are ridiculed, scorned and usually very quickly unemployed.
Such should be the fate of the Washington Post's token conservative blogger Ben Domenech.
Since the Red America blog was launched it has been under constant attack form the left. Conservative bloggers were quick to defend Domenech from the frivolous ad-hominem crap that was being flung at him. But the instances of plagiarism that his atackers unearthed are indefensible.
If these charges are true, Domenech should call upon whatever sliver of integrity and honesty he has left and resign. Better yet, I hope the Post acts first and fires him.
More at:
Michele Malkin
The American Thinker
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 08:00 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
http://www.ualr.edu/cmbarger/LWI_plagiarism_brochure.htm
I have also spoken to copyright and intellectual property lawyers in the past and most cases of plagiarism that are pursued are pursued on copyright grounds. Registering a copyright does yield greater protection in that it raises the possibility of harsher judgements on the thief, but any work that can be shown to have been created by one person and stolen by another, whether registered by the Copyright and patent office or not, is afforded protection, as a civil matter.
IF the person stolen from pursues it.
All that it really takes to satisfy fair use, in cases of quotations for comment, parody or support, is FIRST acknowledge the source, THEN make substantial contributions, expansions, commentary, critique or recognizable parody of the cited source. Even if one gives credit and proper citation, etc., if the cited source forms the bulk of one's own article, Fair Use is likely not going to be recognized by a court.
Plagiarism. Pursued under copyrights.
Yep. Can be done.
Posted by: David at March 24, 2006 09:53 AM (s499z)
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at March 24, 2006 10:49 AM (UquFN)
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