Post by Sunith D VelhoIf I'm not mistaken weren't you in the thick of this debate , a few
posts ago, enlightening us with gems such as "Go Frederick, Go!"....
Plagiarism is a serious issue the world over especially in Goa and
India, where there are very few safeguards in place. If I'm not
mistaken, the ex(?) HOD of the Electronics department of Goa
Engineering College was accused of it and of misrepresenting his
educational qualifications a while ago, and the students went on strike
to have him removed.
Sunith, The "Go Frederick, Go!" was just meant to score a small point
in our complex world of cyberpolitics, and I can assure you it wasn't
targeted at you. Don't take it too seriously. Selma has, of course,
unintentionally, managed to flatter my ego, and I'm back in her fan
club :-) But that wholly another issue....
Now for the facts, as I see them:
* You'll guys have hijacked this issue and turned it into one solely
focussed on academic plagarism. (In the bargain we have also used the
occasion to score points against and pilloried Dr Gilbert Lawrence,
for a book on Goa which he wrote, and which has nothing to do
whatsoever with his reputation as a medical professional.)
* Please try and recall how this issue started, as a debate over
copying -- without acknowledging -- content on the web. Simply, the
reason for my taking up this debate is my belief is that there are
other, better, more-sophisticated ways of dealing with such issues
rather than the 'cease-and-desist' approach. The best is to make sure
that we don't mimick models meant for the big players and
profit-at-all-cost corporates, but rather make our own work in
cyberspace more easily sharable.
(It is a telling statement that after 13 years in cyberspace, I've
never once had the problem of having my work copied in a way that made
me feel cheated. Either my work is of so poor quality that it's not
worth copying, or my terms for copying it are such that people don't
need to violate them. Or both! In fact, when Dr Santosh needed some
photos for a souvenir, if I recall right, I took some time to send him
a CD of the pictures ... And he was kind enough to send me a copy or
two of the souvenir where these were published. Did I lose anything?
No. Did I gain? Sure... I always say I've gained a 100 times more by
making my content sharable in cyberspace.)
* My concern is that you guys -- who plagarise arguments from the
corporate copyright world, without even crediting where they come from
-- are distorting the possibilities of building sharable knowledge
unencumbered by the excessive deadweight of copyright which is today
blocking access-to-knowledge more than anything else.
(Oh yeah, none of my arguments are original... they're copied too. But
then, I take them from the free-to-share copyleft world, and don't
roam around with illusions like you guys that we are always creating
"original" knowlege and information, but I believe we are standing on
the shoulders of giants who worked to create knowledge before us and
were more helpful while sharing it, and we're fooling ourselves into
believing how tall "we" stand!)
[Also keep in mind the dubious origins of the copyright law, including
the Statue of Anne of 1710 and its predecessor: "The Statute replaced
the monopoly enjoyed by the Stationer's Company granted in 1556 during
the reign of Mary I which, after several renewals, expired in 1695.
Under this regime, company members would buy manuscripts from authors
but once purchased, would have a perpetual monopoly on the printing of
the work. Authors themselves were excluded from membership in the
company and could not therefore legally self-publish, nor were they
given royalties for books that sold well."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_Kingdom]
Lastly, if we think the world rotates mere because of the wisdom of
academia (or even the outpourings of the media!) then we are living in
at best an ivory tower, or at worst, a fool's paradise. This debate is
far beyond academia.
To me this approach makes more sense: "Share, reuse, and remix ? legally.
Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists,
artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the
freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your
copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved.""
And I would appeal to more authors to consider putting out their work
under such a license. Our Britto's book and BMX alumni book were both
put out under such licenses, and they have done very well for
themselves (not in terms of raking in money, but in being widely read,
which was their original purpose!) --FN
PS: Do you'll guys think you can even attempt to build a Konkani
wikipedia with a zero budget and based on copyrighted information? See
below...
--
FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please)
http://fn.goa-india.org http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
Konkani Wikipedia (under incubation) needs your help!
http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/kok