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Yes! I've been trying to tell people this since high school almost 10 years ago. Many educators force students to submit their papres to Turnitin or else take a

Yes! I've been trying to tell people this since high school almost 10 years ago. Many educators force students to submit their papres to Turnitin or else take a failing grade on the assignment (which is often a final project which can cause you to fail the course). 1. Turnitin cites fair use ("it's educational"), but one of the metrics of fair use is the extent of use (they use the whole thing), if it's used for profit (they are), and the affect of merchantability. As shady as it sounds, paper mills are not illegal, copyright infringement is. If a paper mill rejects your paper because it's been through turnitin, that hurts me as an author. 2. Another aspect of the monetization that really grinds my gears is that every paper I am forced to submit benefits turnitin by making their database larger and thus helping grant them a monopoly in this market. I am being forced to write articles for the monetary benefit of a company. If they're making money off my paper I want a cut. 3. Turnitin does not offer any way to remove one's documents from their database. If it was merely being used temporarily to compare for plagiarism against internet or book sources then that'd be reasonable. But they keep my papers forever and will continue to monetize them for years after the fact. I understand the plight of educators that want to stop plagiarism, but forcing me to irrevocably offer royalty-free licenses for my work to a for-profit company that is then charging the school (which if it is public is being funded by my tax dollars) is just insane any way you slice it. Unfortunately the courts sided with Turnitin on this issue back in 2007 and 2009 and somehow ruled that their for-profit use was fair use.

Wingman4l7 15y ago
More information on this unfortunate precedent-setting litigation is available on Turnitin's Wikipedia entry. I was very much dismayed but not entirely surprised by the rulings.
- kijinbear 15y ago
  So, when you copy somebody else's work (e.g. a song) for personal enjoyment, it's an outrageous crime; but when you copy a student's essay for profit, it's fair use. You're right, it's not at all surprising.
  - jbermudes 15y ago
    I couldn't have worded it better myself :)
  - icebraining 15y ago
    When has Turnitin ever copied the essay? They just received a copy and stored it, but never made one themselves.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - krakensden 15y ago
      By that logic, me e-mailing you a Lady Gaga MP3 is not copyright infringement. But I'll bet I could find a gaggle of lawyers willing to take you up on that.
      - starwed 15y ago
        No such thing follows from icebraining's logic.[1] If you think otherwise, lay out explicitly how you think the two cases are similar. [1]Err, unless you are Lady Gaga.
        chc 15y ago
        You never made a copy of the MP3 yourself — you just received one and stored it. Ditto for people who receive copies from MegaUpload.
        icebraining 15y ago
        Has anyone ever been convicted for just downloading MP3s? Besides, there's obviously a difference between receiving a random essay from a person who claims to own the rights (that's obviously in their TOS), and asking to download an MP3 of some band. In the latter case, the downloader obviously knows the copy is illegal and it can be argued that (s)he's abetting the infringer.
- elithrar 15y ago
  You can find that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnitin#Controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnitin#Controversy Turnitin has always been a concern of mine; not just the copyright/fair-use conundrum, but the privacy issues too.
syllogism 15y ago
Oh get real. The university has the right to ask you to submit your work however they want as a condition to course completion. If you don't want to submit your work to turnitin you don't have to complete the course. Nobody's forcing you to. If the extent of your objection is that turnitin robs you of potential financial benefit of selling your work, then that's by design: that's exactly what the educational institution wants to do! It doesn't matter that selling your work to a paper mill is legal. It's against the interests of the institution, so they're not going to let you go through their programme and keep that right.
- JadeNB 15y ago
  > If the extent of your objection is that turnitin robs you of potential financial benefit of selling your work, then that's by design: that's exactly what the educational institution wants to do! I know of no university that explicitly prohibits students from selling papers to paper mills (although I haven't checked). Prohibiting students from using papers from paper mills is a different thing entirely.
  - eli 15y ago
    Seriously? I am 100% certain that selling papers for other students to use would have violated my university honor code. I would be surprised if there are any schools where that isn't the case.
    - true_religion 15y ago
      Aiding cheating is against the honor code, however no one is going to say "sell me your paper so I may turn it in for a grade against the code". Rather they'd say they want your paper so they can see your thoughts. That's fair because they could get the same effect from merely talking to you about your paper. Or they'd say that its okay to use outside sources (such as your paper) so long as they cite it. This is also true in many cases.
      - Robin_Message 15y ago
starwed 15y ago
If they're making money off my paper I want a cut. They don't make any money by distributing your work. Nor does the quality of your work in any way affect how they make money off of it. I can't know if this is technically a violation of copyright, but -- it doesn't seem like it is against the spirit of copyright. Anymore than the requirement that you give a copy to your professor to grade. I understand the plight of educators that want to stop plagiarism, but forcing me to irrevocably offer royalty-free licenses for my work to a for-profit company that is then charging the school (which if it is public is being funded by my tax dollars) is just insane any way you slice it. I could be misunderstanding the situation, but from your own post you are granting no such license -- they are legally allowed to archive these. Copyright applies when you make and distribute a copy of the work, and they aren't (that I know of) doing any such thing. (Disclaimer: I don't know anything about turnitin, so I'm not defending them in particular -- just responding to the objections of their model raised by OP.)
- jbermudes 15y ago
  you are granting no such license Yeah, that's the dirty trick. Turnitin hides behind the fact that your professors are the ones that force you to use it, and to use Turnitin you have to register and agree to their terms, which includes letting them use and keep your stuff. So in reality half the battle is trying to persuade you professor to respect your copyright. I don't mind granting my professor a temporary license to evaluate my work, but I don't wish to give him permission to turn around and give a copy to someone else. In the court case surrounding this issue the judge basically ruled along the lines of "minors in school don't have rights anyway so this is a moot point", but in university this probably a more legally viable issue.
  - starwed 15y ago
    >I don't mind granting my professor a temporary license to evaluate my work That's a weird thing to say, and I'm not sure you understand when a license is and is not needed. If you write an essay and hand me a physical copy, I can then do whatever I want with that copy. I can read it, I can shred it, I can put it in a filing cabinet to gather dust for 20 years.[1] I can even give, sell, or lend it to a friend! I can do all this without needing any special license, because I own the copy you have given me. What copyright prevents is me photocopying, scanning, or even laboriously hand copying it, and then passing those copies to other people. But while you own the IP, I own the physical copy. With digital works, the rules are a little different -- if you e-mail me a PDF, sending it to someone else would count as creating a copy, and I'd need your license to do so. But the essential fact is I don't need a special license to hold on to a copy of it. And if you give me permission to send it to someone else, once they have it they can hang onto it as well. [1] Universities will of course have policies on how faculty handle student work, but that's an orthogonal issue to that of copyright.
DanielStraight 15y ago
I would add: 4. Privacy. Submitting a paper to Turnitin makes the student's work vulnerable to a breach of Turnitin's servers. Data breaches have become so common that it is probably more accurate to say when Turnitin's servers are breached rather than if they are breached, the student's work could be made public contrary to their wishes. I am grateful that my professors did not use Turnitin. Some at my school did, but I simply didn't take their classes. Had one of my professors announced they were using Turnitin, I would have dropped the class. If you suspect me of cheating, talk to me. Put me to any test you like. Have me write my papers in front of you and defend them in an in-person interview. I don't care, just don't ask me to give my papers to Turnitin, because I won't. I don't like them, I don't agree with what they're doing, and I don't trust their ability to secure their servers. Further, I find the idea offensive that I need to prove my innocence when there is no evidence to indicate my guilt.

Wingman4l7 15y ago

More information on this unfortunate precedent-setting litigation is available on Turnitin's Wikipedia entry. I was very much dismayed but not entirely surprised by the rulings.

kijinbear 15y ago
So, when you copy somebody else's work (e.g. a song) for personal enjoyment, it's an outrageous crime; but when you copy a student's essay for profit, it's fair use. You're right, it's not at all surprising.
- jbermudes 15y ago
  I couldn't have worded it better myself :)
- icebraining 15y ago
  When has Turnitin ever copied the essay? They just received a copy and stored it, but never made one themselves.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - krakensden 15y ago
    By that logic, me e-mailing you a Lady Gaga MP3 is not copyright infringement. But I'll bet I could find a gaggle of lawyers willing to take you up on that.
    - starwed 15y ago
      No such thing follows from icebraining's logic.[1] If you think otherwise, lay out explicitly how you think the two cases are similar. [1]Err, unless you are Lady Gaga.
      - chc 15y ago
        You never made a copy of the MP3 yourself — you just received one and stored it. Ditto for people who receive copies from MegaUpload.
        icebraining 15y ago
        Has anyone ever been convicted for just downloading MP3s? Besides, there's obviously a difference between receiving a random essay from a person who claims to own the rights (that's obviously in their TOS), and asking to download an MP3 of some band. In the latter case, the downloader obviously knows the copy is illegal and it can be argued that (s)he's abetting the infringer.
elithrar 15y ago
You can find that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnitin#Controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnitin#Controversy Turnitin has always been a concern of mine; not just the copyright/fair-use conundrum, but the privacy issues too.

syllogism 15y ago

Oh get real. The university has the right to ask you to submit your work however they want as a condition to course completion. If you don't want to submit your work to turnitin you don't have to complete the course. Nobody's forcing you to. If the extent of your objection is that turnitin robs you of potential financial benefit of selling your work, then that's by design: that's exactly what the educational institution wants to do! It doesn't matter that selling your work to a paper mill is legal. It's against the interests of the institution, so they're not going to let you go through their programme and keep that right.

JadeNB 15y ago
> If the extent of your objection is that turnitin robs you of potential financial benefit of selling your work, then that's by design: that's exactly what the educational institution wants to do! I know of no university that explicitly prohibits students from selling papers to paper mills (although I haven't checked). Prohibiting students from using papers from paper mills is a different thing entirely.
- eli 15y ago
  Seriously? I am 100% certain that selling papers for other students to use would have violated my university honor code. I would be surprised if there are any schools where that isn't the case.
  - true_religion 15y ago
    Aiding cheating is against the honor code, however no one is going to say "sell me your paper so I may turn it in for a grade against the code". Rather they'd say they want your paper so they can see your thoughts. That's fair because they could get the same effect from merely talking to you about your paper. Or they'd say that its okay to use outside sources (such as your paper) so long as they cite it. This is also true in many cases.
    - Robin_Message 15y ago

starwed 15y ago

If they're making money off my paper I want a cut. They don't make any money by distributing your work. Nor does the quality of your work in any way affect how they make money off of it. I can't know if this is technically a violation of copyright, but -- it doesn't seem like it is against the spirit of copyright. Anymore than the requirement that you give a copy to your professor to grade. I understand the plight of educators that want to stop plagiarism, but forcing me to irrevocably offer royalty-free licenses for my work to a for-profit company that is then charging the school (which if it is public is being funded by my tax dollars) is just insane any way you slice it. I could be misunderstanding the situation, but from your own post you are granting no such license -- they are legally allowed to archive these. Copyright applies when you make and distribute a copy of the work, and they aren't (that I know of) doing any such thing. (Disclaimer: I don't know anything about turnitin, so I'm not defending them in particular -- just responding to the objections of their model raised by OP.)

jbermudes 15y ago
you are granting no such license Yeah, that's the dirty trick. Turnitin hides behind the fact that your professors are the ones that force you to use it, and to use Turnitin you have to register and agree to their terms, which includes letting them use and keep your stuff. So in reality half the battle is trying to persuade you professor to respect your copyright. I don't mind granting my professor a temporary license to evaluate my work, but I don't wish to give him permission to turn around and give a copy to someone else. In the court case surrounding this issue the judge basically ruled along the lines of "minors in school don't have rights anyway so this is a moot point", but in university this probably a more legally viable issue.
- starwed 15y ago
  >I don't mind granting my professor a temporary license to evaluate my work That's a weird thing to say, and I'm not sure you understand when a license is and is not needed. If you write an essay and hand me a physical copy, I can then do whatever I want with that copy. I can read it, I can shred it, I can put it in a filing cabinet to gather dust for 20 years.[1] I can even give, sell, or lend it to a friend! I can do all this without needing any special license, because I own the copy you have given me. What copyright prevents is me photocopying, scanning, or even laboriously hand copying it, and then passing those copies to other people. But while you own the IP, I own the physical copy. With digital works, the rules are a little different -- if you e-mail me a PDF, sending it to someone else would count as creating a copy, and I'd need your license to do so. But the essential fact is I don't need a special license to hold on to a copy of it. And if you give me permission to send it to someone else, once they have it they can hang onto it as well. [1] Universities will of course have policies on how faculty handle student work, but that's an orthogonal issue to that of copyright.

DanielStraight 15y ago

I would add: 4. Privacy. Submitting a paper to Turnitin makes the student's work vulnerable to a breach of Turnitin's servers. Data breaches have become so common that it is probably more accurate to say when Turnitin's servers are breached rather than if they are breached, the student's work could be made public contrary to their wishes. I am grateful that my professors did not use Turnitin. Some at my school did, but I simply didn't take their classes. Had one of my professors announced they were using Turnitin, I would have dropped the class. If you suspect me of cheating, talk to me. Put me to any test you like. Have me write my papers in front of you and defend them in an in-person interview. I don't care, just don't ask me to give my papers to Turnitin, because I won't. I don't like them, I don't agree with what they're doing, and I don't trust their ability to secure their servers. Further, I find the idea offensive that I need to prove my innocence when there is no evidence to indicate my guilt.