Plagiarism and Wiggles
Came across two great blog posts today that I’m passing on to you. The first is a discussion of the difference - and sameness - of plagiarism and copyright violation. The post was prompted by a story of an attorney who was sanctioned for plagiarising a brief filed with the bankruptcy court in Iowa. Blogger Brett Trout goes on to give an excellent discussion of plagiarism in general. Here it is.
The second post is from a blog about stupid businesses. And here he found a good. In a happy accident with a “Wiggles” DVD, “That’s Pretty Dumb” discovered that it is impossible to actually read the full copyright notice posted at the beginning of the DVD. If that’s true, would that make a good defense to an allegation of violating the copyright? It’s a more interesting question than you might think. The DVD would be covered by copyright even if there were no notice at all on it. BUt if the owner does post the notice, and then adds a great deal of written material to the notice (which there is no question that they can do), but then makes it impossible for the consumer to discover what that material is, does it change the relationship? Is it the equivalent of a used car salesman pushing a sales contract under your nose and insisting you sign it without reading first, an action that in many cases voids the terms of the contract? Or does it mean nothing, since the copyright exists independently of any written notice on the DVD?
Hmmmm…….
It’s clearly a bad buisiness practice.
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