More copying allegations in Matthew Whitaker affair in Arizona

"Re-purposing" of previously written material, without citation, has stirred controversy, for example in the Slavoj Zizek and Wendler/SIU affairs. See New York Times on self-plagiarism . Now it has arisen in the Matthew Whitaker matter.

Note the text from KPHO:


Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio wants a consultant to pay back the city $21,800, for monies paid to develop a course to teach police officers cultural awareness. DiCicco said Dr. Matthew Whitaker does not deserve the money he was paid after billing the city 66 hours of preparation work because the material was copied from a course already developed by the Chicago Police Department.

"Professor Whitaker charged the city for training materials that were largely copied from the Chicago Police Department," DiCiccio said. "He ultimately was paid more than $21,000 in taxpayer money for work that he didn't do, and he needs to pay it all back."

The councilman’s slide-by-slide analysis of the PowerPoint presentation Whitaker created for the Phoenix Police Department shows that of the 84 slides, 52 were exact copies or slides with only minor changes from the presentation compiled for the Chicago police course.

“The City of Phoenix paid him $21,000 to basically copy somebody else’s work," DiCiccio said. "Then he then went on to want to copyright it to make sure that no one copied it."

On the bottom of each slide Whitaker created, there was a copyright symbol followed by The Whitaker Group, L.L.C.

DiCiccio called on city management to pursue a refund from The Whitaker Group.



Link: http://www.kpho.com/story/29829167/more-plagiarism-accusations-against-asu-professor#ixzz3jJKM5Vc4

Re-purposing also arises in the patent law area, wherein a law firm may sell an opinion on a given patent to more than one client.