Anti-plagiarism software use is becoming commonplace to ensure that students do not submit other people’s work as part of their own. The method of storing submitted essays and comparing with essays submitted in the future poses a potential legal problem.
The Washington Post reports that “Two McLean High School students have launched a court challenge against a California company hired by their school to catch cheaters, claiming the anti-plagiarism service violates copyright laws.”
“The lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, seeks $900,000 in damages from the for-profit service known as Turnitin. The service seeks to root out cheaters by comparing student term papers and essays against a database of more than 22 million student papers as well as online sources and electronic archives of journals. In the process, the student papers are added to the database.
“Turnitin is used by 6,000 institutions in 90 countries, including Harvard and Georgetown universities, company officials have said.”
“According to the lawsuit, each of the students obtained a copyright registration for papers they submitted to Turnitin.”
Full article link.
Originally seen on Slashdot.
