Hello Stian,
Could you tell me where can I find the ppt that professor show us in the lecture? I want the information about the presentation.
Thank you!
Peihua Guan

Why do academic institutions consider plagiarism such a serious offense? Isn't plagiarism the same as remix?

I think that academic institutions consider plagiarism such a serious offense because by plagiarizing, we are taking credit for someone else's work. It is unfair if we are reaping benefits (e.g. by receiving a good mark) for someone else's production. Academic institutions have placed policies of plagiarism to avoid dishonesty in the process of earning educational achievements. With regards to remixing, plagiarizing is not a form of tweaking in anyway. A few weeks ago, we had a discussion in class about what thinking critically means. We've established that by gathering information, and understanding a variety of perspectives, we are able to create our own opinions. I think is is similar to the idea of "innovation" and "remixing". We take different ideas and eventually form our own and this is what makes it original work.

Further discussion: When I'm writing a paper, I always think to myself "I'm sure someone has the exact same thesis as I do, and they must have written about it already." Does anyone else have this same thought? How can we make sure that when we are producing our own work, that we really aren't "plagiarizing" is other people have the same idea as we do?

Hi Stian and Professor Chan. Everytime I try to add my response to the question asked an error note pops up and I am not able to add my comment. So, I just wanted to let you know that since it is not letting me add it here, I will just add it to the bottom of my Profile page alright? Hopefully there is no issue with this.

Hello Professor Chan and Stian ( that rhymes!)
Experiencing the same uploading issues as Chantal- kindly please refer to my student profile where my response has been pasted under a different subheading.

Why do academic institutions consider plagiarism such a serious offense? Isn't plagiarism the same as remix?

I believe academic institutions consider plagiarism a serious offence because it is equivalent to criminal offences like stealing. Plagiarism, in essence is intellectual theft, because you’re using someone else’s idea without acknowledging their ownership, therefore knowingly recognizing the idea as your own. Plagiarizing an idea in an essay is equivalent to releasing Bob Marley's song - 'One Love’ in 2013 and claiming it as your own original composition. Even if you change the title of the song, some of words or melodies, it remains plagiarism or intellectual theft if I don’t acknowledge the origins of work and there exists obvious duplication. Remixed music acknowledges its origins and are required to pay for rights to the songs, if they don’t they are most likely sued by labels/artists. I think the idea of paying royalties on music and other “indirect-life altering” properties are fair. If you want to make profit off of someone else’s creation, then the creator should receive something in return.

I think the difficulty with IP is deciding the degree of its implementation. Obviously, IP on music doesn’t affect the well-being or the lives of citizens, as much as IP on medicines. Music isn’t going to cure a person of an illness, but every innovator believes their creation to be just as valuable as the next. Form a development p.o.v, maybe there needs to be different protocols designed around IP, copyrights, patents, and royalty (amounts) that change according to its direct/indirect affects on the well-being of people.

#1
Proponents argue that strong IPRs will foster economic growth and competitiveness of national economy, because IPR incentivizes entrepreneurs to keep pushing for new advances and innovation. limited time protection on the rights of investors, and the innovator for a limited period of time, especially in the innovation economy where risks are high and failures are occasional. To put this into world context, developing countries, weak in connections and knowledge will never be able to access because inventors would be reluctant to share their works broadly, especially given that investment, time spent is enormous, and the new knowledge would be treated as trade secrets. Consequently, it would in deed impede the capacity of knowledge globally. Lastly, if IPR is not implemented, the products (especially medicines) will result in the fake or poor quality, fail to perform as an IPR requires, and thus consumers are suffered the most.
However, IPRs does not not necessarily foster the ideal environment of innovation, especially for developing countries. IPRs in fast moving sectors like technology, where even very tiny, essential parts in the machine are patented, or trademarked, burden the Global South innovators with patent searches, licensing, and the risk of litigation. These innovators do not have the sources to search for, and relying on their government is insufficient. They feel barriers to entry, high transaction costs, and this in result reduces innovation. Also, IPRs do not recognize, nor protect the indigenous knowledge, and consequently it gives detrimental effects to commercialization of their heritage exports (teas, beans) in developing countries. As indigenous people's ownership of the traditional knowledge inherent in the uses of their indigenous products are not formally recognized, and their knowledge is reconverted to foreign owned private property, and therefore, only the western manufacturing or processing factories will be benefited in practice.

What does the “enclosure of the commons” refer to? What are some of the counter measures to this enclosure?

“Enclosure of the commons”, according to the video lecture by Professor Chan, is the restriction of access to knowledge even with the broadening of the internet. It involves the appropriation, monopolization and privatization of intellectual property by corporation as they are driven by capitalist and profit motive. These corporations lock up knowledge as they turn it to private goods for profit extraction. This is characterized by the maximalist agenda and extension of copyright to hold on to their “own” intellectual property to further extract profit and pushing it to other parts of the world. Royalty fees also demonstrate disproportionate distribution. According to an article by Mick Brooks (link provided at the end of the comment), he refers to Intellectual Property Rights as the modern day enclosure of the commons in the Marxist perspective.

Intellectual property has a non-rivalist and non-excludable nature, meaning that the usage of an idea does not diminish the usage of an idea by another person and that increased usage and sharing of knowledge does not diminish any benefits respectively. With this arises the issue of incentives for innovation due to easy reproduction of these ideas/knowledge. Therefore government intervention and provision of this knowledge such as education is necessary to ensure equal access to public goods as incentives for private companies will be eliminated. They cannot extract any profits from it anymore, the same way they can extract financial gains with physical, finite property.

http://www.marxist.com/intellectual-property-rights221105.htm

The enclosure of the commons refers to the 16th century European history of traditional common lands used for grazing in an open field system. These lands then became fenced/enclosed and claimed to individuals. Common public goods like grazing land taken away contributed to exaggerated poverty.
The enclosure of the commons in this context refers specifically to ‘the commons’ of technology. Technologies like the internet are considered public domain. Many resources have been contributed by people over the years from all areas of creativity, to help further the knowledge of humanity. But these intellectual commons are being closed by copyright punishment, but some of the same people that have benefitted. For instance, though we can freely consume information on many pages using hyperlinks and images could put one at risk for infringement.
There are many counter actions against these enclosures, one that we have talked about a lot of Wikipedia and Wikimedia. Another form of counter action we have talked about is the creative commons. The creative commons gives those who want to share their work and allow others to create and collaborate on past works the have produced the option through free copyright licenses. This allows information to be freely consumed, traded and built upon, all in the name of innovation, education and growth.

In the Knockoff economy argument, Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman address Tweaking as a very prominent part of the creative process and states many of the most significant and enduring innovations rest on tweaking. I think Academic instituions consider plagiarism such a serious offence because the ideas are being used without ackowledging the originator of the idea. plagiarism is considered an intellectual theft and i think it benefits the students in a way where they are forced for new innovation. I don't think Academic instituions are saying you can not use other's idea for you work (paper), rather they are telling the students if you are using other's idea make sure to credit them in your work by proper referencing. in other words, in academic work you are free to use other's idea with a proper acknowledgement. Having plagiarism in academic institution also enable students to lookout for the exsisting ideas in their selected topic and encourage them to elaborate and advance beyond the current findings on a topic. Similar idea is being used in music industries you are free to use other's innovation however you need to pay the originator which according to me is fair. It was mentioned in the knockoff economy's argument, there is no evident tweaking have suppressed the innovation of new music, just like that i don't think using other people's idea with proper ackowledgement will limit new innovations in academic world.

The rights to tweak, to remix, to copy, and to reuse existing cultural expressions is considered by some as central to innovation (see the knockoff economy argument). If that is the case, why do academic institutions consider plagiarism such a serious offense? Isn't plagiarism the same as remix?

Academic institutions consider plagiarism as a serious offense, and reuse existing cultural are different we cannot compare them with the same manner. As there may be million of paper on the same topic, and it's hard to distinguish, who did the study first and after, if people just copy what others had do, when people read their work, they may just think they did the research and stuff. And getting all the credits, and this will hinder the research work on the field. Making citation, giving credit of what other has did, having innovation on top of the knowledge are the most important things of the academic institutions. It is different to existing culture, as it is hard to say that who create or starting this cultural, so it cannot compare to academic institution in the same manner

I think that academic institution consider plagiarism as a serious offense because it is unfair to steal others’ own idea without let the original writer know and lie about it afterward. Due to the advanced technology, the range of communication and the speed of sharing information is increasing, which makes copying ever easier. The most important thing about coping is that it is not just a negative force, it can also be productive, which means that copying can refine, build up and modernize the existing innovations into a new one. For example like songs, as long as the cover artist pay something to the original songwriter and the former one add his own variation into the new song, he can put the song out in the marketplace without permission.

With regards to remixing cultural expressions or academic plagiarism, as is the case with almost anything that can be debated, it really comes down to context. For the purpose of asking “why do academic institutions consider plagiarism such a serious offense?” the context is established by money and power. For academic institutions there is a proposed mandate of academic integrity that is meant to foster free enquiry, integrity and legitimacy. While these positions are valid they are hardly extensive. These qualities are only important or held in such status because of what is at stake. Institutions of higher learning have too much to lose if one of their representatives were to be caught plagiarising. The same can be said by owners of cultural expression. The reported views of Kal Raustiala expressed in the YouTube clip and the Knock of Economy in regards to tweaking or remixing in cultural expression is somewhat limited. While Raustiala shares some views by fashion designers and musicians that establish a sense of nobility in tweaking work he ignores the obvious multimillion dollar cases of plagiarism that are constantly surrounding the music industry. Raustiala’s views seem to be more representing an idealistic music industry of days gone by. But that was a time where blues musicians had their work stolen by the big acts like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones without any financial compensation. That would not happen today. The record companies are too large and too aware of what is at stake. If one artist uses the work of another musician without the proper arrangements already in place it can be certain that there will be lawyers, agents, and management seeking reparations.

#2. The "enclosure of the commons" ? The ability to "tweak" and to remix existing material is being sacrificed in order to promote incentives for the pioneers of new work. Putting pressure on Internet Service Providers to police users ensures that no infringement takes place, which has a chilling effect on innovation. It is important to realize that most good ideas (ex.Itunes) are the products of copying other technology, and applying it in a new way. Enclosing information through intellectual property rights in various countries has negatively impacted cultural expressions, which further inhibits civic participation. This blocks the innovation of "knowledge embedded goods", which use existing knowledge in potentially transformative way; examples of this can be found everywhere and are typically extremely useful, such as medicine or using existing knowledge platforms to create better learning systems in developing countries. These are just some of the examples of how knowledge embedded goods can alter preexisting norms and push development forward.
What are some of the counter measures to this enclosure? Allowing each country to set their own intellectual property rights according to their needs and traditions. As well, MOOCS goes against this restriction by providing lectures and course materials for people worldwide. The company discussed in class, "Creative Commons" is service that provides legal licensing however it also promotes creativity and innovation through the sharing of this knowledge; it simply allows the pioneer to be recognized if someone is incorporating their work in a new way.

Why do academic institutions consider plagiarism such a serious offense? Isn't plagiarism the same as remix?
Academic institutions consider plagiarism such a serious offense because it is a form of academic dishonesty. It is an attempt to take credit for the culmination of research, time and resources without acknowledging that the work was done by by someone else.At the same time, building on work done by others is a key way that academia progresses. Cooperation and information sharing is key to breaking new ground. Plagiarism is fundamentally different from remixing because plagiarizers fail to acknowledge the work of the creators of the original. A remix acknowledges that the remixed version is based on the original while plagiarizers attempt to pass off the entirety of the work as their own. Open access academia along with proper citations by new academics are a way to combine the benefits of drawing on previous work, with the importance of giving due credit.

#3 response answer
Plagiarism is an academic offence because it basically is stealing another individual's hard work and time and effort in order to pass of academic work of their own. It's understandable to research and form ideas looking at another's work but without giving them the due credit for it, it's dishonesty. Groups and organizations that work together to produce an idea or a multitude of ideas are able to share their work and allow people to use it so that society benefits is an altruistic motion and one that is slowly picking up globally. Sharing ideas and theories allow people all over to mutually gain information and knowledge but its important to remember that it started at a single point of beginning. And acknowledging the source while sharing knowledge is a situation where both parties win. Unfortunately some sources aren't open to sharing and allowing others to learn from them, thus leaves a knowledge gap that needs to be bridged.

#3 The rights to tweak, to remix, to copy, and to reuse existing cultural expressions is considered by some as central to innovation (see the knockoff economy argument). If that is the case, why do academic institutions consider plagiarism such a serious offense? Isn't plagiarism the same as remix?

There is a major difference between plagiarism and referencing someone else's work. Academic institutions consider plagiarism to be such a serious offense because this is a breach on academic integrity and a form of lying. The student is officially saying that the quote or idea that they used is theirs and their own. In a way, they are taking credit for someone else's idea. But referencing a work is, in a way, using the idea but giving credit to the one who thought of it. If a student takes credit for something that they did not do, it is also a breach within copyright. Everything that we post or even simply commenting on Facebook is copyrighted to the writer. Especially U of T, takes this very seriously. Under copyright, taking credit for someone else's work is illegal and every academic institution does not want to have to deal with legal infractions because a student has plagiarized work from another author.

What is the common justification for the argument that strong IPRs are important for innovation? What are the counter-evidence to this claim?

Strong IPR's create incentive for people to innovate by knowing they can invest indefinitely into the creation of a product and be guaranteed a monopoly over the market to recover this cost (time, effort, physical capital) and profit. It can be argued that IPR’s are the seeds of innovation for inventors because of the potential income that can be extracted from the final product. In addition, IPR’s give power to inventors to exclude parties from using their product also.
Ironically, using IPR to your benefit requires you to disclose your product and make claim to your product. In addition there is only a limited period of time where you have autonomy over distribution of your product or knowledge until this knowledge becomes a “free for all”. After the patent or copyright period is over, users cannot be excluded access to your product and you can no longer block access to your product through user fees for example. Without forever guaranteeing monopoly over the market, disclosing and making claim to your knowledge/product guarantees that once your patent period expires, you will no longer own this property nor extract income.

The big difference between innovation and plagiarism is that plagiarism is more associated with "stealing" where it deals with stealing intellect and ideas of scholars in many cases but of professors and student as well. Where innovation, more specifically remixes sheds light on the consumer markets of the "knock-off" which is more along the lines of a free market where capitalism may come into play; the example given about Nordstrom and their knock-off brands is a good example of a retail giant embracing the free market where each manufacturer has the freedom to remix and compete freely amongst other companies. Although there may be corporatation governing bodies which monitor other ethical matters, there is no governing body which monitors the remix of each corporations products or services, in fact the market encourages competition and limiting the ability for a corporation to come close to a oligopoly/monopoly type figure. And example of this would be the Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy smartphones.

Whereas, plagiarism whether it be among peers or through scholarly journals tends to have governing bodies attached to it, like for exampe University of Toronto has a strict policy against student not sourcing their material properly and take offenses very seriously. The idea here for example is not to discourage students to be innovative but rather to understand that credit is to be given where it is due and the effort and research conducted by a person should be acknowledged.

It is fine to take an idea and make it better whether it be a change in price or design, thats innovation but it not right to an idea or material and claim it to be yours. What plagiarism can be better compared to is copyright infringement or patent laws.

The justification of the requirement lies in the definition of IPR itself that Ismail and Fakir used in their article. They have defined it to be a protection and means of reward for individuals looking to produce innovations. Strong IPRs allow innovations to be protected from massive use and often allow industrialised communities and owners of such rights to have high amount of profits. Even if it is a means of protection of ideas and often act as an incentive to come up with new ones, they are expensive and lengthy process. For developing regions, having the knowledge of unique characteristics of a natural resource may not be something extraordinary for them. They would therefore neither have the education, nor the money to protect these knowledge and resources from the rich and industrialised world. Therefore they have taken full advantage of the developing countries and the indigenous people not being able to protect themselves. This contradicts with the justification that IPR protects innovations, as it often does not protects the indigenous or the developing communities, whose ideas maybe taken by the rich companies and countries and be used for their own profit. Furthermore they maybe selling products made out of such resources back to the country where it originates from at a high price. The example of the Pacific islanders' discovery of the unique properties of Kava, that US and European companies began to register and patent, shows how IPR only protects those who can afford it and often the wrong party. The Basmati Rice example in the reading also explains the developed and the rich countries has both taken up the market of the developing countries and are involving them in lengthy and expensive court cases by producing their commercially important goods.

#1. What is the common justification for the argument that strong IPRs are important for innovation? What are the counter-evidence to this claim?

The most common justification towards strong IPRs being important for innovation would be the incentive the IPRs create for the individuals. It is meant to protect the individuals and reward them for their knowledge and innovation which are artifacts of modernization and industrialization.

However, when looking that IPRs in the context of indigenous people from Africa, it is clearly evident that such arguments for IPR does not operate the same way as desired. First, in economies where they're still yet to develop and advance, larger population (community) interests supersede individual prosperity. Having said that, the indigenous people are heavily influenced by the interest of the state, that they are not parttaking in aiming for IPRs. Also, there is a heavy cost for affording legal rights such as IPRs. For individuals who are fighting to earn money on a daily basis for simple accomodations, purchasing legal actions may be too much of luxury for them.

Although, IPRs sound like it works in favour of all individuals under its international IPR law with no discrimination, it may not be accessible to everyone who are in interest. Its tendency to favour the wealthier population counter-acts against its terms.

However the whole concept of IPR cannot therefore be explained as negative as it has been used appropriately in a lot of cases. They may actually act as an incentive for an individual to come up with genuine innovations and receive the rightful benefits of the work. For example, patent is a good way of raising the cost of the creating the innovative project as it only protect one for 20 years, given the idea is genuine.

The last comment is a continuation of the first answer.

1.

As explained by Professor Shiva IPR's are an outcome of industrialization and modernization. In the implementation of IPR lies the assumption that these legislative protections are a key aspect of promoting creativity, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship. The reasoning is that creating barriers on the ability to use previous ideas creates incentives for entrepreneurs to develop new ideas. Another part of the reasoning is that providing a legal framework that allows inventors to rip the benefits of their creations also ignites economic incentives for creativity. In the context of development; IPR have become an important part of the economic globalization process that we have seen. With multinational corporations, (specially pharmaceuticals, information technology, biotechnology, and communication sector) realizing that a global implementation of IPR was necessary to ensure profit as markets globalized. One of the ways that IPR was globalized was through trade, a clear example are the TRIPS. One of the results has been the massive implementation of patents especially by western corporations, that make it really hard to live by the law. As discussed in the reading the implementation of IPR in a global scale has not been fair to all the players. For example: there is a big problem that arises from the way that IPR's fail to take into account the knowledge of indigenous cultures. (In the creation of Biotechnology: the genetic information has left the south under the title of a free human kind heritage, yet the product usually enters the south again as expensive consumption products heavily protected by IPR).

Historically speaking, Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) have been used primarily in the developed world as a mechanism to encourage the growth of new ideas and inventions. As discussed in the Ismail Fakir reading, those who innovate can profit through various forms of IPRs, such as copyrights, patents, and trademarks. In the case of patents, it is often argued that this form of IPR protects inventors from 'free-riders', ensuring that they will be rewarded for their technological advancement or improvement on an industrial product. The importance of IPRs in the West has been a central issue for decades, as many have worried their invention(s) would be copied, this evidenced by the $200 million that U.S. businesses lost in 1996 due to counterfeiting. For these reasons and more, we have witnessed the widespread proliferation of IPRs throughout the developed world.

While IPRs have proliferated in the West, this has not necessarily been the case in the South, and it is here where we may see counter-evidence claims. As stated by Fakir, for many communities within the developing world intellectual property rights are not a common component of social traditions, as community needs are prioritized over that of the individual. This, combined with the reality that respecting IPRs would drastically increase the price of products, makes them a possible unpopular mechanism for innovation in the developing world. Finally, there have been substantial claims of bio piracy performed by multinationals and pharmaceuticals through their use of IPR. Here, organizations have been accused of stealing local indigenous knowledge on medicinal plants in the name of 'innovation', however in the process have refused to adequately compensate the aforementioned local communities which they acquired the knowledge from. Through this we see that while IPRs may be important to protect one's scientific advancement in creating a product, they have often exploited the marginalized populations.

The debates of whether the creation base on using the old things is legal as it is not the innovation by something unknown that no one has been done before. For developing countries, most of innovation is base on the old innovation from other countries, as they do not have as much as materials and knowledge to create new things, they will usually create something base on other people’s creation.
Can developing countries turn western notion of IP into a development tool? It depends, IP on the one hand protects the creator’s rights of their innovations, it can bring incomes from the innovations by lending the right of producing the innovations. On the other hand, it also limits the rights of using other creators’ innovation, and the only way to use their innovation is to pay sufficient fees to them. Therefore, if the developing countries have more innovations then IP can be the development tool for them.
In my opinion, the North will use the open development approaches to create further inequality gap in access and control over IP for the South. Because most creations are created by the North people, and the legistration of IP are formed by the North, therefore, the North will be the biggest beneficiary in IP.

The rights to tweak, to remix, to copy, and to reuse existing cultural expressions is considered by some as central to innovation (see the knockoff economy argument). If that is the case, why do academic institutions consider plagiarism such a serious offense? Isn't plagiarism the same as remix?

Academic institutions consider plagiarism a serious offence because while remix changes something previously created into something new. The key is that a remix involves tweaking the "product" (whether it be a song, image, essay...etc.) into a new item that has its own significance. Plagiarism is different because it does not acknowledge the original work and rather, just attempts to take the same material and pass it off as one's own. On a very basic level this is serious because it does not respect the work that went into the initial product and is essentially lazy to take material that someone invested time into creating and copy and paste it without contributing anything to the growth of the content. Elaboration on work, like what is seen when a student cites previously produced material within an essay of their own creation, furthers the advancement of knowledge or the product of the essay and therefore, this would be considered remix because it involves tweaking the material to create something new and original to the student/author of the material.

In a somewhat unrelated sidenote, this week's discussion reminded me a lot of the http://www.hitrecord.org website. The site was founded by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt and provides a platform for people to contribute to projects using their own skill sets with the purpose of collaboration. This would be a good example of remix over plagiarism because plagiarism would be if someone uploaded a short story and someone took that material and submitted it somewhere else without crediting the original author, however if someone saw the story and made an animated video of the story on the site it would be remix.