More on Couric matter, etc.
The Couric matter: a compound plagiarism
Further to the issue of plagiarism at CBS, Timothy Noah talks about "The Deeper Fakery of Couric's Plagiarism": But CBS News wronged visitors to its Web site by inviting them to think that the opinions Couric expressed in these commentaries were her own. (...) In fact, however, it is McNamara remembering on Couric's behalf the time she toddled up to the library, filled out a form, and was handed her very own library card. It's a safe counterfeit because every kid gets a library card.
The issue here is that there is more than one plagiarism in the CBS case. The first plagiarism gave the matter traction. McNamara flagrantly plagiarized Jeffrey Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal. The second plagiarism has been largely ignored. Couric passed off as her own memories stuff that was written for her by McNamara. This brings us back to Posner on plagiarism. Of the first plagiarism, one looking at CBS does not expect to be reading stuff from the Wall Street Journal. Of the second plagiarism, does one listening to Couric expect her personal experiences to be written for her by someone else?
See also Katie Couric Must Share Blame in Plagiarism Case, Says Media Ethicist Bob Steele '69: "If we misappropriated the work of someone else, when we plagiarize, we should say that we plagiarized. But the journalist whose name is on it is still responsible." [quote by Steele]
Also: "It is common practice for network anchors to depend on the assistance of producers and writers," notes a story at ABC News.com.
[Further, see attached comment.]
Further to the issue of plagiarism at CBS, Timothy Noah talks about "The Deeper Fakery of Couric's Plagiarism": But CBS News wronged visitors to its Web site by inviting them to think that the opinions Couric expressed in these commentaries were her own. (...) In fact, however, it is McNamara remembering on Couric's behalf the time she toddled up to the library, filled out a form, and was handed her very own library card. It's a safe counterfeit because every kid gets a library card.
The issue here is that there is more than one plagiarism in the CBS case. The first plagiarism gave the matter traction. McNamara flagrantly plagiarized Jeffrey Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal. The second plagiarism has been largely ignored. Couric passed off as her own memories stuff that was written for her by McNamara. This brings us back to Posner on plagiarism. Of the first plagiarism, one looking at CBS does not expect to be reading stuff from the Wall Street Journal. Of the second plagiarism, does one listening to Couric expect her personal experiences to be written for her by someone else?
See also Katie Couric Must Share Blame in Plagiarism Case, Says Media Ethicist Bob Steele '69: "If we misappropriated the work of someone else, when we plagiarize, we should say that we plagiarized. But the journalist whose name is on it is still responsible." [quote by Steele]
Also: "It is common practice for network anchors to depend on the assistance of producers and writers," notes a story at ABC News.com.
[Further, see attached comment.]
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 3:14 PM
1 Comments:
Further to the issue of plagiarism at CBS, Timothy Noah talks about "The Deeper Fakery of Couric's Plagiarism": But CBS News wronged visitors to its Web site by inviting them to think that the opinions Couric expressed in these commentaries were her own. (...) In fact, however, it is McNamara remembering on Couric's behalf the time she toddled up to the library, filled out a form, and was handed her very own library card. It's a safe counterfeit because every kid gets a library card.
The issue here is that there is more than one plagiarism in the CBS case. The first plagiarism gave the matter traction. McNamara flagrantly plagiarized Jeffrey Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal. The second plagiarism has been largely ignored. Couric passed off as her own memories stuff that was written for her by McNamara. This brings us back to Posner on plagiarism. Of the first plagiarism, one looking at CBS does not expect to be reading stuff from the Wall Street Journal. Of the second plagiarism, does one listening to Couric expect her personal experiences to be written for her by someone else?
Going back to the Cha/Fertility & Sterility matter, did the readers of Fertility & Sterility seeing Dr. Cha as a lead author expect that they were reading material from a Ph.D. thesis of unnamed author? No. If the material were good, would the readers of Fertility & Sterility give credit to the unnamed author. No.
In the Couric and Cha matters, the underlying "truth" of the plagiarized material was not questioned. The question was "who was the author". In neither the Couric matter nor the Fertility & Sterility matter could the average reader identify the true author AND the reader might reasonably believe that the authors were Couric and Cha.
In the latest law review to cite the "97% patent grant rate" myth, there is a question of the underlying truth of the material. Does the latest author get "off the hook" for making a false assertion by virtue of citing the previous author? [If hypothetically the material in Fertility & Sterility were false, could Cha get off the hook by pointing to the grad student??] The latest law review article[in Florida State L. R.] actually involves a nested citation, wherein the actual cite is to one person, who in turn was citing to Quillen and Webster. Tricky, but not uncommon in the law review business. For example, in Lemley's assertion that the inventors of the transistor foresaw only a use in hearing aids, the initial cite is to an article, which in turn is an interview with a Stanford professor making the assertion with no proof.
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myfoxphilly:
A state official says police have found the driver they believe caused a car accident that left Governor Jon Corzine critically injured, and will not be charging the man.
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LEXIS version of On Patent Quality and Patent Reform, 88 J. Pat. & Trademark Off. Soc'y 1068
n32 [ILLEGIBLE FOOTNOTE]
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Separately
THE PATENTED LOOPHOLE: HOW SHOULD CONGRESS RESPOND TO THIS JUDICIAL INVENTION?, 59 Fla. L. Rev. 229 (2007):
Data suggests that the Patent Office eventually approves "as many as 97% of the applications placed before it." 294 "[I]n litigated cases [*287] that actually result in a final judgment on [patent] validity, issued patents are held invalid forty-six percent of the time." 295 When patents are "re- examined" 296 for validity, the patent is modified 64% of the time, is completely thrown out 10% of the time, and "comes through unscathed with no changes" 26% of the time. 297
But see 86 J. Pat. & Trademark Off. Soc'y 568 (2004):
The earlier QWI proposed even higher grant rates than did QWII. The 97% grant rate proposed in QWI has been quoted in a number of sources (Note, Stopping the Madness at the PTO, 116 Harvard Law Review 2164 [*569] (2003), 6 John R. Thomas, Patent System Reform, 17 Berkeley Tech. L. J. 727 (2002) and www.nberorg/CRIW/papers/encaoua.pdf) Thus, a belief in an exceptionally high grant rate at the USPTO motivates
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