For example, in politics, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, John McCain and Joe Biden have all faced allegations of plagiarism but, with the possible exception of Biden, all the scandals had more to do with politics than plagiarism.

While some plagiarism scandals do hold up, such as the Ben Domench scandal, the Kaavya Viswanathan scandal in literature and the Nick Simmons plagiarism scandal in Manga, most are like the Chris Anderson scandal or the Maureen Dowd scandal and are either blown out of proportion or are backed by weak evidence.

But whenever I debunk or even tame a plagiarism scandal, I am always asked ‘What does it take to get you on board?” or “What would convince you (person) is a plagiarist?”

There’s no easy answer to that and every scandal has to be taken on its merits. But there are some things I must have for me to consider a person a plagiarist, at least in the sense of the word that those pushing the scandal would like me to believe.

With that in mind, here are my five rules to consider and what I would say have to be met for me to believe that a person is actually a true plagiarist.

1. Proof of Copying

This one seems simple enough, but it’s the grounds on which the recent George W. Bush scandal fell apart. You have to be able to prove that the alleged plagiarist copied something.

While it’s true you can copy ideas, the idea has to be original enough and specific enough that it could not have been thought up independently to prove plagiarism. This is why most plagiarism scandals that stick focus on physical copying, whether its verbatim text reuse or tracing images or just outright copying files.

If the similar material could have easily been created independently, there can be no way, with certainty, to call one a plagiarist with any certainty.

2. Proof They Were Involved

While I agree that when one is a political candidate or other public figure they have ultimate responsibility for their speeches, books, etc. distributed under their name. But when you say someone is a plagiarist, you are accusing them of the act of plagiarism. To say that, you have to show they were at least involved in the act of creating the work.

When and if a politician gives a plagiarized speech, he or she probably had little to no hand in writing it. Though they have responsibility for it, it’s hard to call them a plagiarist though you may be able to argue they were sloppy in their handling of their speech or lazy in having others ghostwrite it without first checking it.

To really rake someone’s reputation over the coals over a plagiarism allegation, one needs to show that they were directly involved in the act, and not merely handed the work.

3. Violation of Ethical Standards

Next, it has to be shown that the copying and plagiarism was a violation of relevant ethical standards and, surprisingly, these standards can be very relative.

For example, those who work in the legal profession are held to a very different standard than those in the academic or literary profession. The copying and use of content has to go above and beyond what would be considered acceptable in the field it was in.

This was a part of why the Nick Simmons scandal was so egregious and the Obama scandal much less so. Not only was the amount and severity of the copying different, but the differing ethical standards between creating an original Manga and political speechwriting set the bar higher in the Obama case.

4. No Attempt at Attribution

This one seems straightforward, but there are constantly scandals that seem to tread into the gray area of what is or is not acceptable attribution.

What if you attribute a quote in a speech but leave off the attribution by accident once after giving it half a dozen times? What if the goal isn’t plagiarism, but homage and you feel your readers are smart enough to understand what you’re trying to do? What if you don’t provide proper footnotes but, instead, only offer a bibliography or a nod in the introduction?

There are very few areas where a citation standard is set in stone, the academic arena being one. If the citations standards fail to meet the ethical requirements of an industry, that is one thing (as per item 3), but if its a gray area issue with no set or even common practice, I’ll be more hesitant to use the “p word”.

I may call them sloppy and question their methodology, but if there was an honest attempt to attribute the work, I’m hard pressed to call someone a plagiarist because it fell short of a non-codified standard.

5. More Than Just a Goof

Though I don’t believe plagiarism requires malice, I also recognize we’re all human and will make mistakes. One omitted citation, especially when the rest of the work is cited properly, does not make a person a plagiarist. Go through anyone’s lifetime of works, including my own, and you’ll find mistakes and errors made in citation.

To convince me to join the mob and shout someone down as a plagiarist, one has to be able to show that they at least are guilty of negligence or recklessness. Someone who makes a good-faith attempt and gets most of the citations right should be forgiven for the rare mistake.

After all, we’re all human and if we shout each other down for making mistakes soon there won’t be anyone left standing.

Bottom Line

To be clear, these are just the rules I have for calling someone a plagiarist in the sense those caught up in a plagiarism scandal are doing so. There’s a whole wide gray area between this kind of “grab the torches” anger and someone who is completely innocent.

Most plagiarism scandals are, quite frankly, blown well out of proportion. Some are outright fabrications but most are built on some grain of truth that gets expanded beyond all reason. Whether it’s a coincidence, a mistake, a minor infraction or just a one-time incident, most scandals start somewhere just a shade gray of innocent and wind up being blown up until the subject’s reputation is destroyed, often needlessly.

While some plagiarism scandals do pan out, as mentioned at the beginning, most do not. It’s important to not get too carried away with calling people a plagiarist not just because it ruins lives and diminishes the meaning of the word and the act itself.

After all, if everyone can be accused of plagiarism, then being a plagiarist is not such a bad thing at all.

1: Prosecution Alters Pirate Bay Charges in Bid to Win Conviction

Yesterday, prosecutors in The Pirate Bay trial in Sweden amended the criminal complaint to remove a portion of their description of The Pirate Bay that claimed that “All components” of the site were necessary for file sharing. Observers and legal scholars believe that this will make it easier for the prosecutor to obtain a conviction, provided they are able to show that the actions of the site’s owners live up to the standard of a crime.

The complaint refers to three components, a Web-based search tool, a database of information and a tracker of connections, but now the prosecutors no longer need to prove or show that all three are necessary for file sharing as the court could, theoretically, decide that two or even one is enough to prove complicity.

2: Messed over by Adam Sandler’s ‘You Don’t Mess with the Zohan,’ sez author’s suit

Robert Cabell, the creator of the gay comic book superhero Jayms Blonde, has sued Adam Sandler, his parent company, Sony and Columbia pictures alleging that the movie “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” is an infringement on his character and comic book.

In both the movie and the comic book, a trained counter-terrorist works as a hairdresser though in Sandler’s movie it was a bid to start a new life and, in the comics, it was a cover. Cabell claims that he created Jayms Blonde in 2000, with “Zohan” being released a full seven years later.

3: Infringement Case Against McCain Advances

Finally today, a lawsuit against John McCain that started back when the Senator was running for President has been allowed to move forward. A judge has denied McCain’s request to be removed from the lawsuit, filed by Jackson Browne over McCain’s use of his hit song “Running on Empty” as part of a commercial.

McCain has asked to be removed from the suit, saying he had no knowledge of its use and played no role in its selection. However, the judge has denied that motion but is allowing McCain to attempt and show if using the 20-second clip was a fair use.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

However, there are a lot of other great copyright stories including several candidates for “Weird Story of the Week”.

Remember, as usual, this week’s linkroll is a “raw” link list. Some stories are duplicated, some do not point to their original sources and some may not be accurate. A great deal of refining goes into producing the show notes for the Copyright 2.0 Show.

This election cycle has been an especially tough one for copyright issues and the word plagiarist has been used as an insult by both sides. This has put people who write about plagiarism, such as myself, in a no-win situation.

I tried, to the best of my abilities, to look objectively at the three scandals. I didn’t find that much of concern with either Obama or McCain though I did express greater concern over Biden’s history.

I have no political axe to grind and no real interest in mud slinging, but as some of the comments to the pieces, both on the site and in my inbox, have shown, others do.

However, I didn’t tackle the issue of plagiarism to become a political pundit. I took it on for my benefit as a writer, the benefit of other content creators and for the benefit of the public so often deprived of the truth.

But I’ve watched in horror as those issues have been pushed aside and the word “plagiarism” has become just another blade in a political knife fight.

Politically Motivated

My greatest problem with these attacks is that they are, generally, not motivated out of outrage at the offense or because anyone is genuinely upset at the infringement. Rather, they are motivated out of political means.

In my experience, how you feel about the Obama/McCain plagiarism cases says less about one’s views of plagiarism and more about one’s views on the politicians themselves. People that were outraged by Obama’s alleged plagiarism, generally, didn’t like him before the scandal. The same is true for McCain.

To me, the use of plagiarism accusations in these cases is just as worrisome as cases where organizations, including the Church of Scientology, use questionable copyright claims to silence critics. Both are examples of one side of a debate using plagiarism and copyright issues to address other grievances and hurt those that are against them. These situations hurt legitimate copyright holders, make it harder for legitimate claims to be heard and, in many cases, stifle free speech.

If there is a copyright infringement, it should be dealt with. Similarly, if there is a plagiarism from a politician and it appears to be wholly intentional, it should be looked at and discussed. However, the word “plagiarist” should only be thrown about with severe caution and only when the evidence wholly supports the accusation and the alleged copying goes beyond what is typically acceptable in the field.

These politically motivated attacks do nothing to help the cause of fighting plagiarism and, in truth, greatly hurt the efforts of legitimate artists to protect their works.

After all, no matter who wins, it is almost certain an accused plagiarist will be President after the election.

Reshaping the Debate

Even though my presence and this blog mean nothing in the larger political debate, I would like to ask both sides to please give the chant of “plagiarist” a rest. These political fights play a major role in shaping both America’s and the world’s opinions of terms and ideas. Throwing around insults so carelessly can have horrible unintended consequences.

For the sake of artists, musicians and writers who deal with plagiarists every day, I urge the pundits to be more careful with their words and their accusations.

Like most Americans, I would rather see this debate be about issues that are important, not largely unfounded accusations designed to slander one’s character.

As I’ve repeated many times, I have no political axe to grind here. I created this site for Webmasters to help them protect their content. I have helped all comers including sex bloggers, churches, gay and lesbian groups, right-wing blogs, left-wing blogs, mommy blogs, sports blogs, crochet sites and much more. I have extended my hand to all who have needed it, regardless of their politics, so long as their content was legal.

This site is not about a certain political or philosophical affiliation, but about protecting hard work. That is why I write this piece, to help the creative people I care about.

Conclusions

I realize that my post here will not stop the accusations of plagiarism or even put a dent in them. But if it helps one person think twice before speaking, then it will be worthwhile.

However, I know well how the rush of politics can make people forget what is important and how the words that they say can damage those that they claim to be trying to represent and help. I know how easy it is, when your heart is dedicated something, to fool your head into believing an idea the evidence does not wholly support.

This is not a debate that can be resolved with insults. It must be one about ideas and information. I hope that, maybe, some of that can be salvaged in this debate.

Of course, this isn’t really the beginning of Biden’s plagiarism controversy, but rather, a continuation of a scandal that began over twenty years ago.

The Biden case is different from both the Obama and the McCain one in several ways, the first of which is that the evidence both for and against is over two decades old, before the era of YouTube, and, in Biden’s case, the accusations already helped to sink one of his earlier presidential campaign.

So what actually happened and what can we learn from it? Here’s what I’ve been able to learn about Mr. Biden and his plagiarism controversies.

Background

Biden’s trouble with the plagiarism began a stump speech in Iowa. At the end of the speech, Biden used a series of phrases that closely mirrored a previous speech by that of British politician Neal Kinnock. Though there are several reports that he had previously used and cited the source of those words, there seems to be a clear understanding that, in this one case, he did not.

The result of this was that his Democratic challenger Michael Dukakis created an attack video splicing together Biden’s speech with that of Kinnocks.

The attack was remarkably effective and can be described as a classic example of “YouTube politics” before the Web even existed. Not only was Biden’s reputation hurt by the initial scandal, reporters from Newsweek also turned up allegations of plagiarism dating back to when he was a student at Syracuse Law School, where he failed and was forced to retake a course due to an allegation of plagiarism.

The end result was that Biden, who was already lagging in the polls, was forced to drop out of the race. Though Biden continued to serve in the Senate, these allegations have stuck with him for pretty much his entire career since then.

In fact, when I first started Plagiarism Today, the most popular blog about plagiarism on the Web wasn’t about content theft or academic dishonesty, but about Joe Biden.

This is why, when I heard that Biden was Obama’s VP pick, I knew immediately that this issue would come up in a very big way.

Biden’s Side of the Story

Back in 1987, Biden called these scandals a “Tempest in a Teapot” saying that he had routinely credited Kinnock for the speech and simply had forgotten to do so during the stump speech from which the tape was made.

Regarding the law school controversy, Biden and his supporters have pointed out that the incident was stricken from his record.

Furthermore, as Biden’s supporters are quick to note, all of the allegations are either 20 or 40 years old. To some, this makes those allegations irrelevant in the current election and, accordingly, should be dropped.

However, I am not so quick to dismiss these allegations. Simply because they are old does not mean that they are not worth a closer look. Unfortunately, a closer look is very tough to get.

My Analysis

Biden’s case is different from both the Obama and McCain scandals for two reasons:

1. He has admitted to using Kinnock’s words without permission, it is a question of whether he had previously attributed them and intended to do so in the speech in question.
2. We have at least one allegation of plagiarism that withstood some scrutiny in an academic environment.

Unfortunately, the age of the allegations have made it very difficult to find actual copy from the speeches. After multiple searches, I was only able to find one pair of comparison quotes.

First is Kinnock:

Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Was it because our predecessors were thick? Was it because they were weak, those people who worked eight hours underground and then come up and play football, weak? It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand.

Now Biden:

Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family to ever go to a university? Was it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? Is it because they didn’t work hard, my ancestors who worked in the coal mines of northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours? It’s because they didn’t have a platform upon which to stand.

As you can see in the highlighted passages, there are some very strong similarities between the two speeches. Though the theme of coming up from humble hard-working roots is a common one among politicians the world over, the details about working for hours in a coal mine and then playing football are, indeed, suspicious.

However, Biden has never denied that he paraphrased Kinnock’s speech. Rather, according to him, it was a simple mistake, one where he had repeatedly attributed the speech time and time again but failed to do so one time.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to confirm that, though a recent article in the Chicago Tribune seems to vouch for that perspective.

Indeed, it is true that candidates routinely give the same or similar speeches over and over again and it is possible to omit or add things to them over time. Still, there is little doubt that forgetting attribution is a potentially very serious blunder but, as the Obama case showed, it is not always a campaign-ender, especially when the “victimized” party gave permission.

The law school allegations are, unfortunately, older, tricker to analyze and potentially much more severe, without the actual samples in front of me I can only trust the verdict that the school came down with (though I know from recent experience such rulings are often misguided).

However, according to a New York Times article from the era, the controversy involved over five pages of copy in a 15-page paper. Biden, however, plead ignorance saying he did not know how he was supposed to properly cite his sources.

Pleading his case to stay in the school, Biden said that “My intent was not to deceive anyone. For if it were, I would not have been so blatant,” and that, “If I had intended to cheat, would I have been so stupid?”

The end result of both cases is that Biden has effectively admitted to the copying but has claimed that both cases were accidental.

The Accidental Argument

In my experience with plagiarism the vast majority of claims to have accidentally plagiarized are either outright lies or a sign of someone with very little understanding or respect for other people’s work.

However, in the case of his speech, Biden actually seems to have a strong case here. If it is true that he had historically attributed his quotes, the fact he failed to do so in one speech should not be alarming. If it had become a pattern over multiple speeches, I would be much more concerned.

In the end, the plagiarized speech seems to be a likely accident and, by itself, probably is not worth discrediting Biden.

The law school case, on the other hand, is a bit more dubious. Copying approximately five pages of material with only one foot note and pleading ignorance seems to be a bit of a stretch. Most academic plagiarism cases involve significantly less copied material and, generally, carries far more severe consequences.

Please note that this is not a personal opinion on what should have happened to Senator Biden, just an observation about what I have seen in recent years.

Personally though, as offended as I am about plagiarism, it would be fairly easy for me to dismiss either case of alleged plagiarism by itself. However, it is a bit harder to swallow both at the same time.

This difficulty is made worse by the fact that he has also been accused of lifting speeches from other sources, including Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. Though I have not been able to find examples of those alleged infringements, the article linked above claims that the Kennedy case involves over “four sentences” of materials.

The bottom line with Biden is that he has admitted to using other people’s words without attribution many different times and, in each case, has attempted to explain it away. Whether you believe those explainations or not, I’m willing to wager, most likely stem as much from your political viewpoint as it does your intellectual one.

A Second Opinion

A close friend of and colleague of mine Dr. John Lesko of Saginaw Valley State University not only runs Plagiary, the only scholarly journal on the topic of plagiarism, but also Famous Plagiarists, a site dedicated to chronicling the plagiarisms of the well-known.

Dr. Lesko has a very thorough write-up on Senator Biden. At the head of it, he give Biden a “Threat Level” of “Red: Severe Risk”, which is the highest level of risk that the site can award.

This is higher in standing than other well-known plagiarists including Kaavya Viswanathan and on par with Jayson Blair.

Though these “threat levels” were never intended to be taken as true fact and are intended to be a bit humorous, it is interesting to see that one of the world’s foremost experts of plagiarism feels that Biden is such a serious threat.

Unfortunately for Biden, I find it very hard to disagree with Dr. Lesko. Though I may not take it to the extreme he did, I have to agree with Dr. Lesko that this is very different from the Obama and McCain cases.

In fact, at this time, Famous Plagiarists doesn’t even have a section on either of the two presidental front-runners, just one of their VP candidates.

Conclusions

As I’ve said before, I am very wary of politics-based plagiarism scandals. They are, almost always, brought to light not in the best interest of the author or artist, but of the opposing political side.

With Biden, this is no different. Republicans are moving to take this issue front and center while Biden’s supporters are moving to write it off as a fabrication. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between.

However, it is much more difficult for me to dismiss Biden’s case than it is Obama’s or McCain’s. The repetition, the severity and the excuses do not sit well with me.

The one thing Biden does have going for him is that the allegations are old. The law school incident took place in the sixties and the latest one in the late eighties. Nothing has come up in the time since then that I have been able to find.

I don’t think the allegations of plagiarism should prevent Biden from being taken seriously as a VP candidate nor should it distract from the other issues and debates that are much more important in this election. As with Dr. Martin Luther King, plagiarism allegations, on their own, should not distract from other parts of his legacy.

Still, it is clear that these allegations are different than the ones that were thrown at either Obama or McCain. These are definitely more serious and have already stuck enough once to help end a campaign of his.

Once again, I find myself pleading that plagiarism will not be a distraction issue in this campaign, however, once I heard that Biden was Obama’s choice for VP, I knew instantly that it would not the case.

Plagiarism is now front and center in presidential politics. Unfortunately, I don’t see that helping victims of plagiarism nor do I see it helping advance any of the other issues that are on the table this election.

Related Links

• The Slate (Feels that the matter should not be forgotten)
• Newsbusters (A thorough overview of Biden’s history with a comparison to his Wikipedia entry)
• The Huffington Post (A Supporting View of the Matter)
• Media Matters (A look back at the media coverage of Biden’s downfall)
• The Hoosier Pundit (An accusation of plagiarism over Obama’s logo, not convincing to me)
• Lame Cherry (Accusations of plagiarism on the Senate floor)

Further Discussion

• What are your thoughts on the accusations against Biden?
• Do accusations of plagiarism cause you to think less of a political candidate?
• Would you change your vote based upon a plagiarism allegation?

I am a bit late this week as a combination of a Diigo outage due to planned maintenance and me moving this site to a new host put me behind schedule, yet we pressed on, trying to convert all of this week’s copyright news into a bite-sized digest.

All in all, there were eighteen stories this week including news from all over the copyright world including our “Weird Story of the Week”.

This week’s stories include:

• Open Source Scores a Major Victory
• The RIAA Suffers a Pair of Defeats
• McCain Has a Bad Copyright Week
• The Record Industry Explores New Models
• Anti-Piracy Tool Gets Discovered, Then Pulled
• And Many more…

You can download the MP3 file here (direct download). Those interested in subscribing to the show can do so via this feed.

Show Notes

In more traditional copyright news, the RIAA is having some serious money in the Anderson case, a major court win for open source and a game developer gets an earful from pirates.

Remember, as usual, this week’s linkroll is a “raw” link list. Some stories are duplicated, some do not point to their original sources and some may not be accurate. A great deal of refining goes into producing the show notes for the Copyright 2.0 Show.

For the past few days, the Web has been very busy discussing the McCain plagiarism controversy and several people have asked me via both email and Twitter what I thought about it.

However, I am always inherently suspicious about plagiarism scandals in politics because, almost always, the people who are bringing the accusations have self-serving motives.

Also, as with the Obama case previously, there is a tendency to take things to an extreme, either declaring it a hideous injustice or mere vapor.

However, typically speaking, these types of scandals are never as simple as “Yes, he plagiarized” or “No, he didn’t”. The truth is almost always more complicated than that and, if you want my thoughts on the case, it is going to take a few moments to explain them.

What Supposedly Happened

According to Political Wire, a political blog founded by Taegan Goddard, a Wikipedia editor emailed the site to let them know he noticed some similarities between a recent McCain speech about the crisis in Georgia with Wikipedia’s article about the country.

Specifically, the article cites three comparisons that involve suspicious similarities.

Though the story has not garnered as much attention as the Obama scandal did earlier, Google News is only showing about 30 stories referencing both “McCain” and “Plagiarism” as of this writing, it’s gotten mentions on some late-night talk shows and seems to have become the subject of a lot of political humor.

However, the comparisons themselves are not exactly cut and dry cases of plagiarism. They are short passages that center on facts about the country that have very little verbatim copying.

The McCain scandal, like almost any non-cut-and-paste plagiarism case, is not simple nor can it be painted in broad strokes.

My Thoughts

Whenever I do a plagiarism analysis, either on cases such as this or for my consulting services, I have two standards that I follow.

1. The Academic One: Would I expect an average university or other school to be concerned with or discipline a student that turned in this work?
2. The Personal One: If the original work were my own, would I be considering taking legal or other action against the person that reused my content?

The second standard does not apply here. The accusations are more academic than legal in nature so there would be no reason for anyone to consider taking legal action.

So, with that in mind, we’ll use the first standard in this case and look at each quote separately.

Quotes provided by Political Wire.

Comparison 1

one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion (Wikipedia)

vs.

one of the world’s first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion (McCain)

This one is impossible for me to say anything about. Both quotes deal with a known fact about the country of Georgia and information about this can be found in many places, including being alluded to in the CIA’s World Factbook.

Though it is always a good idea to cite your sources, we don’t expect politicians to do so in their speeches so, without any verbatim copying, there seems to be little to this quote.

Comparison 2

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of independence as a Democratic Republic (1918-1921), which was terminated by the Red Army invasion of Georgia. Georgia became part of the Soviet Union in 1922 and regained its independence in 1991. Early post-Soviet years was marked by a civil unrest and economic crisis. (Wikipedia)

vs.

After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises. (McCain)

The strongest of the quotes in terms of evidence of plagiarism, there is still not a great deal of verbatim copying. Once again, all of the information is well-known facts about the country of Georgia available from a variety of sources.

The last sentence of the quote is the most interesting, especially the inclusion of the phrase “economic crises”, which is a fairly unique way of saying “economic troubles” or “financial problems”. However, it is not so uncommon that it could not have been a coincidence.

There are a lot of similarities between the two passages but, since most of both quotes are pure facts, it is hard to separate the information from the expression.

Comparison 3

In 2003, Shevardnadze (who won reelection in 2000) was deposed by the Rose Revolution, after Georgian opposition and international monitors asserted that the 2 November parliamentary elections were marred by fraud. The revolution was led by Mikheil Saakashvili, Zurab Zhvania and Nino Burjanadze, former members and leaders of Shavarnadze’s ruling party. Mikheil Saakashvili was elected as President of Georgia in 2004. Following the Rose Revolution, a series of reforms was launched to strengthen the country’s military and economic capabilities. (Wikipedia)

vs.

Following fraudulent parliamentary elections in 2003, a peaceful, democratic revolution took place, led by the U.S.-educated lawyer Mikheil Saakashvili. The Rose Revolution changed things dramatically and, following his election, President Saakashvili embarked on a series of wide-ranging and successful reforms. (McCain)

This, even by the blog’s estimation, is the weakest of the three quotes. There are very few similarities, the order has been changed and the two quotes focus on different things.

Once again though, we are dealing with facts and information, not expression, that could have come from almost anywhere. Since we don’t expect political candidates to add footnotes to their speeches, it seems unfair to accuse McCain of plagiarism in this quote.

Wrapping Up

If we take this plagiarism out of the context of a political speech and put it in a proper student paper with footnotes, I doubt anyone would have raise an eyebrow. While it is true that McCain has not offered any attribution at all, something that might have cleared this matter up much sooner, most political candidates don’t.

Though I admit openly there are similarities, the truth is that the level of copying would probably not warrant suspicion in an academic environment, especially if the sources were properly cited.

To be fair, I was not able to perform some of my standard tests, including using automated plagiarism detection tools, as the quotes involved were too short for such tools to be effective.

This is just a personal opinion based upon my own reading.

Conclusions

The entire matter could have been avoided completely, most likely, if McCain and his staff had just provided proper footnotes for his speeches.

Politically, it makes sense anyway. Politicians routinely throw out fact and ideas that we, as voters, have no idea where they got them from. We have no clue if our future leaders are using reliable sources or are listening to smart people.

If politicians and other public figures wanted to better serve us, as well as avoid these kinds of scandals in the future, they would provide such footnotes for everything they offer publicly. Whether it was a speech, a report or anything else meant for us to consume.

Though most people likely wouldn’t care to trudge through a mess of footnotes, those who are interested would likely do a good job letting the rest of us know when something is amiss.

Though some are already providing valuable fact checking of politicians, there is clearly a need for more and a need for politicians to assist with the process.

The faster we all get to the truth, the better off we’ll all be.

There are so many great stories this week including major progress on controversial copyright legislation, McCain’s copyright scrape, the “Bratz trial” getting halted, a new DVR blocking directive, Redlasso stopping its service and much more.

Remember, as usual, this week’s linkroll is a “raw” link list. Some stories are duplicated, some do not point to their original sources and some may not be accurate. A great deal of refining goes into producing the show notes for the Copyright 2.0 Show.