Forum Moderators: not2easy
It appears as if the teacher (it is on the directory of a teacher's site) plagiarized one page, took the illustrations I used on my site. He did, however, edit my writing a little—improved the writing style a tad and corrected my grammar in a few spots! (I find this absolutely HILARIOUS!) It's clearly a copy of my page, and the majority of the text is word-for-word copied from my page.
This just happened a few days ago. I emailed the school. I called the school up. (The lady I talked to was very busy and basically blew me off. Not that I blame her—she did seem very busy. But she didn't seem to comprehend what I was saying.) I have emailed the supervisor of the school district. I haven't been raving or raging, but just expressed concern. So far, I haven't heard back from anyone. (It's still a little too soon to say that they're ignoring me, though.)
To be honest, I am so amused by the "editing" and "fixing up" of my grammar that I can't really be too outraged. Something about it strikes me as screamingly funny. Mr. Schoolteacher swipes my writing, but he's got to fix it up first, because it doesn't quite meet his high standards!
Part me me almost wants to let the matter drop (if no one gets back to me from the school). Then I could link to the plagiarized page and explain (in amused terms) what I discovered. I am not really livid about this. I'm feeling more amused and bemused. Look what the public school system is like! Oh my gosh! That's the tone I'd like to take.
Is this a stupid idea? I don't want to go out for blood—I really don't. But I don't want this to just vanish as if it never happened. Unless this teacher has a really good explanation, there is no excuse. I'd almost like to think that a student wrote the page, but the web design is similar in style to the rest of the teacher's site. Part of me wants to think that the teacher never meant for the page to be spidered. But it was, and he didn't credit my content. Why didn't he? There's no scenario I can imagine that makes the teacher's actions acceptable.
Even if he had credited your site as the source, it doesn't change anything.
He hasn't asked permission. Your work is not free for all to use as they see fit. It's yours, and this is a clear breach of copyright. Would you be as amused if a large company had taken your page and used it for its own ends? I think not.
Don't let the matter drop. If nothing else, you could end up penalised by Google for duplicate content, which, if your site is monetised with Adsense or similar, could have a detrimental effect on your income.
FWIW, school teachers can be as naive as anyone when it comes to content on the web.
I'm not saying that ignorance is a defense, but if you don't want to spend an hour explaining what DMCA stands for, I'd try to communicate with the teacher directly.
If the teacher did steal the article—and one definitely has to really suspect that he did, since the pages are on a directory of the site set aside for him—then he HAD to know that he was plagiarizing. He wasn't just "reprinting" and forgetting to give my site credit. Actually, he "wrote" (well, probably stole) a whole tutorial about the subject, consisting of several pages, and my content was present on the last two pages. I don't know if he authored the other content in the tutorial or stole it from somewhere else.
Perhaps he just meant to write a little page to inform his students on the subject, and meant the article to be just for them. But he STOLE the content. And he didn't give credit. AND he edited the writing—presumably because he didn't quite think my writing was up to snuff and he didn't want those who read the tutorial to think unfavorably of what they would presume was "his" writing. (This is the conclusion I'm coming to, anyway.) I also have to assume that the teacher is at least marginally web-savvy (or at least should be). It wasn't like he created some clunky, awkward little site. His design was rather sophisticated. This is a guy who knows his way around HTML.
What I have done now is link to the page that was plagiarized, explaining what I found. I didn't claim that I knew who plagiarized the pages (because I really don't know for 100% sure), but I did state simple facts: The page is obviously plagiarized. The page is hosted on a school site, on a directory set aside for a teacher. I also made it clear that I had already contacted the school and there was no response yet. I did this because I don't want the whole thing to vanish like a puff of smoke. I want others to see it. I see no reason why they shouldn't.
What I'd like is some accountability. I don't necessarily want whoever did this to be reprimanded severely—I really have no firm idea about what should happen to the person who did this. I'm not "out for blood." But I DO NOT want it all to be swept under the rug like it didn't happen. I DON'T want an "oops! my bad!" and then all evidence is erased and no one ever addresses the underlying issue (plagiarism) or never acknowledges that this was a damaging, awful, unlawful thing to do to me. I don't want the school to pretend it never happened and ignore me. The person who did this MUST understand that what they did was wrong, unethical, illegal, and they MUST realize how serious it could have been for them had I really been livid about it and out for blood.
Regarding my contact with the school: Sure, the people I contacted might be clueless about the web, but they cannot possibly be clueless about plagiarism. I don't believe for a second that they couldn't comprehend what I was getting at in my email, or why it was serious. And I won't be letting the matter drop. I'm not just doing it on my own behalf—I'm really troubled by the fact that this plagiarism happened on a school site (and might have been commited by a teacher). It concerns me. It isn't right.
If so, make a note of them and use them as additional ammunition when contacting the school board. Additionally, you may want to alert the other owners of the plagiarized material and encorage them to write their own complaints.
One complainer is a squeeky wheel that might be ignored. Several squeeky wheels is a problem.
Also, you may want to send a certified letter to the district superintendant instead of relying on e-mail or phone messages. That way you have a paper trail of receipt of your complaint. If you never get a response after that (assuming you still want to go forward), contact the local newspaper.
I did a search, and BINGO! The site also plagiarized from a tutorial belonging to a very large online community. I have been a member of this community for ages, so I have posted a message there, alerting them of the issue.
I'll keep you updated . . .
But for excerptation, copying, or creating derivatives to be educational "fair use", it still has to be, among other things, "immediate" (not a permanent part of the course), "limited" (not web-viewable), not damaging to the marketability of the original, and -- most important -- "transformative". That is, the educator can't take an English lesson and post it as an English lesson, as such a "use" would not be a "transformation" of the original purpose (as, say, a book review or a satirical work might be).
If you take a lesson and use it as a lesson, this is a copyright violation. It doesn't matter if the copy comes from a publisher's textbook original or your web site original. It's still a violation.
Working from my experiences, I have created a "Terms of Use [purplemath.com]" page which leans toward the educational side of things.
Also, since "marketability" was the only "out" most plagiarizers had, I created a site license process, which prevents educators from using that loophole. (If a site license is available, then, yes, the educator's copy does affect marketability, and, yes, he did too have a way of obtaining access legitimately.) I don't get much "business" from this, but it does seem to prevent the "no other way" argument from being tried.
I have also found that posting the "Copyscape [copyscape.com]" logo on my pages has cut down on a lot of "fair use" attempts.
Reply or "sticky" if you would like further information.
Eliz.
