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If I forget that you were the source of an idea and fail to cite you for it if I make any form of expression about it (paper, podcast, blog post) and fail to ci

by smeej 3y ago

If I forget that you were the source of an idea and fail to cite you for it if I make any form of expression about it (paper, podcast, blog post) and fail to cite you, people pitch a fit, even if the idea wasn't all that big a breakthrough, or even if I actually didn't learn it from you, and just came up with it on my own from immersion in a similar milieu. No, I'm not technically restricted from having the same thought, but if I tell anyone about the thought, then it's apparently plagiarism.

hn_acker 3y ago
Plagiarism and copyright infringement are distinct but not mutually exclusive. Both can happen unconsciously. Plagiarism means failing to explicitly indicate which author you copied which ideas/expression from. You can plagiarise regardless of whether the author gave you permission to copy. To my knowledge, the US doesn't have laws against plagiarism per se. (The US does have laws against academic dishonesty, fraud, and copyright infringement.) Copyright infringement means copying/modifying a rightsholder's copyrighted expression 1. without a license from the rightsholder or 2. in a way which violates a condition of the license you got from the rightsholder to copy/modify the expression. Both of those scenarios are subject to fair use in court, considering that the second scenario effectively is a case of the first scenario. A copyright license may require you to provide attribution in a specific manner; failing to comply would revoke your license permanently or until you comply (depending on what the license/rightsholders say).
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>and fail to cite you, people pitch a fit, even if the idea wasn't all that big a breakthrough depends on the idea and how you expressed it. No one is making you pay royalties to Newton every-time you calculate a revenue from a line graph. No one even cares if you talk about, say, Machine Learning on a podcast. But if you say you invented Machine Learning (somehow) you'll get more scrutiny cast on you unless you are in fact an authority in that domain. But sure, if we are talking about genuinely coming up with the same idea, there are cases where two thinkers independently came across the same idea as contemporaries. Part of copyright law takes that into account.

by smeej 3y ago

hn_acker 3y ago

Plagiarism and copyright infringement are distinct but not mutually exclusive. Both can happen unconsciously. Plagiarism means failing to explicitly indicate which author you copied which ideas/expression from. You can plagiarise regardless of whether the author gave you permission to copy. To my knowledge, the US doesn't have laws against plagiarism per se. (The US does have laws against academic dishonesty, fraud, and copyright infringement.) Copyright infringement means copying/modifying a rightsholder's copyrighted expression 1. without a license from the rightsholder or 2. in a way which violates a condition of the license you got from the rightsholder to copy/modify the expression. Both of those scenarios are subject to fair use in court, considering that the second scenario effectively is a case of the first scenario. A copyright license may require you to provide attribution in a specific manner; failing to comply would revoke your license permanently or until you comply (depending on what the license/rightsholders say).

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>and fail to cite you, people pitch a fit, even if the idea wasn't all that big a breakthrough depends on the idea and how you expressed it. No one is making you pay royalties to Newton every-time you calculate a revenue from a line graph. No one even cares if you talk about, say, Machine Learning on a podcast. But if you say you invented Machine Learning (somehow) you'll get more scrutiny cast on you unless you are in fact an authority in that domain. But sure, if we are talking about genuinely coming up with the same idea, there are cases where two thinkers independently came across the same idea as contemporaries. Part of copyright law takes that into account.