From Lady Gaga to Leona Lewis, there’s a motley crew in the world of plagiarism news this week. Enjoy this round up and don’t forget, plagiarismchecker.net Plagiarism Checker offers a low cost secure way to detect and avoid plagiarism for essays, dissertations, articles, websites and much more.
The Thai Press Reports (August 10) state that Thailand has stopped using its logo for the World Expo 2020 bid amid claims of plagiarism. Pantip.com compares Brasil Telecom’s logo and the award-winning logo for the 2020 World Expo bid created by a Thai designer.
The New Zealand Herald (August 9) reports that a TVNZ journalist at the centre of plagiarism allegations could not have acted alone, according to media commentators, and has been “made a scapegoat and hung out to dry” by the Company. According to the Herald, others say there is no room for “lazy journalism” in the industry and the network’s disciplinary action was fair. The Herald explains that in July, Close Up ran a story by Kate Lynch entitled Made in New Zealand. The piece was virtually identical to a report the American network ABC aired in January.
Werina Griffiths has written an interesting piece in Business Day (South Africa) called Creativity and copying dissected – crediting owners of the original copyright work is not sufficient to escape a possible infringement claim (August 8th). It starts by looking at the latest single from Coldplay, Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall, which had been released for only hours, if not minutes, before accusations of plagiarism surfaced from all corners.
The UNC are examining their honour court after McAdoo case. Following embarrassing revelations about a former football player’s plagiarized term paper, UNC chancellor Holden Thorp told the school’s board of trustees today that the University is working on improving the school’s student-run academic honour court. “Regardless of our situation with football, it makes good sense to look at the honor system and discus how we could provide resources to the students and faculty to help them in their academic work and understand academic honesty in the electronic age,” Thorp told the Board of Trustees today. Perhaps they could also look at using a plagiarism checker like plagiarismchecker.net.
The West Australian (Perth) (August 8th) muse how plagiarism is a serious issue for any journalist, author or academic, but they hadn’t realised it was a problem for politicians, too. Perhaps they should read this blog more often! According to the Paper, on Thursday, Premier Colin Barnett opened Lynas Corporation’s Mt Weld mine, prompting the usual press release from the Government Media Office in which he was effusive in his praise of the company for its vision and commitment to the $100 million project. And the hardworking Mark Sneakers McGowan discovered that direct quotes attributed to Mr Barnett had been lifted straight from the Lynas website. It’s nothing new to us!
The International Business Times News (August 6) report on Lady Gaga Song “Judas’, asking “Plagiarism or From God?”. Are those the only two options, we ask? According to the Times, the American pop singer and songwriter Lady Gaga has been sued for plagiarizing her Song “Judas.” The plaintiff Rebecca Francescatti, a Chicago singer, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in the Northern District of Illinois against Lady Gaga, claiming that Lady Gaga stole her song ” Judas “, which she wrote in 1999.
Future News – Media Planner reports (August 5) that a swedish DJ is seeking an injunction against Leona Lewis over plagiarism. Swedish DJ Avicii, 22, aka Tim Bergling, is seeking an injunction against X Factor winner Leona Lewis and her record label – Simon Cowell’s Syco – over alleged plagiarism of his song “Fade Into Darkness’ claiming that the instrumental from her forthcoming single “Collide’ is copied from the song. If the injunction is upheld the 4 Sep release of “Collide’ is likely to be postponed
The Standard (August 5) reports that Jimmy Lai Chee-ying’s Next Media was fined HK$40,000 yesterday for online copyright infringement – the first such conviction in Hong Kong. Next Media Interactive admitted eight out of 33 counts of distributing unauthorized copies of copyright work. The prosecutor offered no evidence on the remaining charges brought by the Customs and Excise Department.
The Times of India (August 5) happily report that JNTU-H have deployed a new plagiarism detector. Research scholars of Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) “will have to be careful” while turning in their theses and dissertations, as the university can now find out if they have plagiarised. The R&D cell of JNTU is using a software “Turn It In’ to check if the students have copied any content in their research submission, be it a term paper or an entire thesis. The university has taken this step following several complaints about plagiarism by the research scholars. It’s a shame they didn’t come to us first – we know Turnitin’s terms and conditions well, and we could also have saved them a fortune!
Gizmodo (August 3, 2011) reports that Ukraine’s Secretary of National Security and De-fense stole Mr. Apple’s (Steve Jobs’) Stanford speech.
Michael Bodey reports that the producer of hit series The Gruen Transfer, which returns to the ABC this week, has engaged lawyers over what appears to be another plagiarism case featuring a British broadcaster. British government-owned TV broadcaster Channel Four has commissioned a pilot for The Mad Bad Ad Show, a panel show hosted by comedians Micky Flanagan and Mark Watson and with panellists from the advertising industry. Media understands the producers of The Gruen Transfer, Zapruder’s Other Films’ Andrew Denton, Anita Jacoby and Jon Casimir, are extremely annoyed with the development, particularly as its format has been pitched at global TV markets and a pilot was made for BBC3 in 2009.
The Monterey County Herald (California) (July 30) reports that Salinas political consultant Andrew Russo blasted a very public email accusing a San Luis Obispo competitor of plagiarizing Russo’s promotional material. Apparently, the heat of the political climate tends to boil the jaundice these days, judging from Russo’s outrage over the matter. Russo identified the culprit as Cory Black, who he referred to as a “so-called San Luis Obispo “political con-sultant.'”
Russo claims that Black has copied, word for word, Russo’s text explaining the campaign services Russo’s firm, Paramount Communications, provides.
Finally, a less dry piece on plagiarism – The Times (July 30th) ran a feature called ‘5 minutes with Milton Jones’ and one of the questions was “Do you think there is much plagiarism in comedy today?” Milton answers: “It is a fact that it goes on. Either comedians are nicking word for word what you’re saying, or they are making your idea their own so it’s less traceable. Certain comics, who have their own TV shows, send their writers out to pilfer other people’s stuff who are less famous than them. People will always assume that the person who did it on telly wrote it. Within the industry we know who the magpies are, and who does what. Usually if they steal one joke they steal several, and if there’s a clunk in the set it’s the joke they wrote themselves. There are also comics around the world who pilfer comics from other countries – I’ve heard of South African acts who do whole Eddie Izzard routines translated into Afrikaans”.
You better believe it – there’s plagiarism everywhere, just read our news round ups every 1-2 weeks!
