Wow, for a thread that progressed this far, I'm surprised I wasn't invited to it earlier given how many times my handle was used.
First of all, let me start by saying I am not a lawyer and I am not an academic. I am certainly not
your lawyer or academic career guidance representative. But it seems to me that the OP has gone about things in seriously wrong manner.
From
Post 1:
The OP confuses copyright infringement with plagiarism with the violation of the forum rules.
Copyright infringement is the act of violating laws that protect authors of original material to exclusively profit from the reproduction of that original material. Plagiarism is the social gaffe of hiding that ideas you present as if they are your own were obtained somewhere else. Forum rules are the rules you can expect moderators to try to enforce, and may derive from basis in criminal law, civil law, custom, civility, economics or any goal of the forum owners.
Copyright infringement: legal protection of authors' economic interests by forbidding unauthorized duplication of material
Plagiarism: society protecting assessment of reputation by forbidding silently copying ideas
Violation of rules: forum owners protecting goals by forbidding actions detrimental to goal of running an esteemable forum
In the academic community, the magnitude of the breach of civility represented by plagiarist is right up there with public urination on some elderly close relation of the head of state. It does not get you invited to parties. In an educational or employment setting, serious penalties are typically imposed upon those found to plagiarize. Termination and expulsion are to be expected.
Post 1 begins with an unattributed excerpt of section F of
this general announcement and ironically highlights line 5 which concerns the forum requirement for attribution of materials. One may well question what line of thinking went into this post.
The next paragraph asserts that "other members" copy equations from textbooks. Nothing about the
link to prometheus' post is obviously copied and no textbook is cited by Mister to make anyone think otherwise. Prometheus' only action appears to be demonstrating a knowledge of special relativity, a physical theory he cited in post #220, just 5 posts earlier. Nowhere is prometheus claiming to originate any aspect of the material presented, he is just illustrating the meaning of the norm of the momentum 4-vector to support his claim of post #220.
Later, Mister claims
this other post by prometheus has a plagiarized equation. But this is not an equation, just elementary illustration of electroweak theory, part of the Standard Model of particle physics. Prometheus also attributed it to the correct physical theory and in no way represented it as his original work.
Next, Mister links to an
entire thread. Presumably, he means to criticize the initial post asking a question about flatness in and contrasts it with a post of
his own post on gauge potentials which make no sense, and in post #13, Captain Kremmen identifies them as copied from
a post on another site and may be derived from the original work of Tsao Chang. But Mister copies it verbatim, errors included.
There a many more ways to be uniquely wrong than uniquely right, so when errors are copied in material without attribution this sends a strong signal of not only plagiarism but lack of understanding of the copied material. A related case is the uncovering of the
Wegman scandal.
Mister claims he was copying verbatim from himself. In academic papers, this too is plagiarism because they expect you to be honest and to present original work. In a thread OP, this is simply spammy and sloppy, especially when it comes to abuse of the equals sign. But then Mister also claims that this is the original work of Tsao Chang which renders it pure plagiarism again.
Next, Mister not only accuses me but finds me "guilty of massive amounts of" plagiarism. But the post linked to is
one of AlphaNumeric's. Perhaps Mister means my
post 66 or
post 70 from that thread where I mix physical theory and geometry. Some of it is my own original work, and some of it is cited to various physical theories or mathematical sources. Where is that specific example which gives rise to a charge of plagiarism? More fitting might be a charge of jealousy against the knowledgeable -- it appears that Mister's accusing finger has wound up pointing at himself!
I mean there is simply loads of math in there, no doubt none of it was technically worked out!
This is a naked argument from personal incredulity.
I have never passed off work that I have presented as my own, unless it really is my own work. I am not a pleigerist. I use equations in here to answer questions just like everyone has in the past.
Answering questions may not be your strong point.
If you are using someone else's ideas and presenting them as your own, that is plagiarism.
If you quote someone else's words or calculations without referring back to the original work, then that is copyright infringement.
Copyright, being a legal construct with a long history, is not that simple to decide.
I am guilty of copy-right infringement then, not plagiarism as alphanumeric keeps singing to the choir. It's not fair he misrepresents me as such. From now on I will be careful to give the appropriate citations, but this should be done in every case.
We look forward to your improved behavior. Also, copyright infringement is, in some places and in some cases, a crime punishable by imprisonment. IANAL, but it's not necessarily in your interests to plead guilty.
You can be guilty of both.
I'm simply saying that they are separate considerations.
Agreed.
But you need proof before you accuse someone.
You can't say that just because someone has a lot of mathematics in a post
that it is not their own.
Agreed.
Well generally, I believe most people post math in their posts are just assumed not to be their own.
Even people without math degrees sometimes make original math discoveries. And working from axioms and definitions, lots of people do original work to come to the same results. (Otherwise, math wouldn't be reliable.) Are you saying that lots of people use common definitions and axioms? Are you sure you understand math?
Your own equations, you can just write down without any reference.
Other people's equations, you need to reference.
Try to find some proven examples, just like I checked up on your post.
As I said, you can't just have suspicions.
All good advice. The slur of accusing someone of plagiarism immediately gives rise to demands of proof of such charges.
I gave examples in my OP. Examples from prometheus, Rpenner and some of the links contained AN's work no less. Each are no more citing than my post was, and any post I make which is outside my own ''theories'' are there for educational values. My point originally that I can speak about these subjects just as much as these poor crabs earning with sweat their degrees.
Actually, I found citations going as far back as Euclid. Some of these citations were in other posts, but that's natural for a threaded discussion forum.
Take the supposed examples from Rpenner.
I don't know if you can track down copied equations, but in his case he intersperses his equations with comments explaining his steps.
If he was plagiarising, he would be easy to catch.
As a self appointed sciforums Private Detective, I've done some searches,
and I can find nothing in his threads which belongs to anyone else.
Your accusation in his case is baseless.
It's not the worst baseless charge I've seen this month, but ...
You can't accuse people of plagiarism without very good grounds.
And you can't establish good grounds without good reading skills and a facility for making logical arguments from established facts.
Rpenner is very smart. It was perhaps niave of me to assume he copied his equations from other places.
Knavish, churlish and naive.
However, just because you cannot trace an equation online does not mean it is not copied.
If you cannot trace the source of the material or some other indica, then you have no basis to assert it was copied. It means that your charge was reckless and unable to be demonstrated to be true.
Even if Rpenner is excused for now, too many posts I have read by others linked by me, are prime examples of no one citing their work. Indeed, AN the dirty low life has done himself. Hypocritical BS is what I call it.
This appears to be a hateful and baseless charge.
With Rpenner.
It isn't likely that he has lifted equations wholesale and then rewritten the steps so as to cover his tracks, now is it?
Not whole, in part. So if some come here, recite a few equations of special relativity and they don't credit the author, why am I being lynched for such actions?
We are still waiting for you to demonstrate this claim. You link to posts, say it is obvious, and when others say it doesn't look obvious you don't improve your claim.
Possible he has used equations however without citing. Very possible concerning how mathematical they are. Much more than AN.
I am not more mathematical than Alphanumeric. One one occasion I helped his math with my library skills and that's the best showing I can think of. My original demonstration that A189766(n)/n = A178790 pales in comparison to his average day in 2005-2009.
What to do.
Without insulting anyone, or making accusations, find examples where people are plagiarising. Find the original source. Then post both together and complain about it.
What you need to look for is an unattributed string of equations leading to some novel conclusion claimed as the person's own. That is plagiarism.
We can't accuse someone of plagiarism (henceforth abbreviated as P) every time they use E=MC squared.
And you can't accuse someone of P just because what they are writing is very complex.
Sir this is the whole point. I never plagiarized any physics intentionally. I am at copy-right infingement which we both agreed.
No, you are guilty of both.
Plagiarism because:
You did not give the author credit for the work.
And copyright infringement because you both: (but one would have done)
1. Did not make it clear that it was not your own work.
2. Did not link to the original, or reference the work.
I still disagree with you about copyright infringement, but IANAL and I don't know your local laws.
If you recite the disctionary, is that to everyone, or just a message to my last post... I have been deeply saddened being called a plagiarist! I am nothing of the sort. An innocent arrangement of equations, where many have done similar acts, yet I am the poster boy.
The poster boy of plagiarism is the one who performs the canonical example of the act. I believe you meant to say you are the whipping boy -- the boy who is punished because others are untouchable. If that's what you mean, you are talking nonsense.
Rpenner understands what he posts. He reads someone else's work, understands it and then reexplained it in the thread. That's fine. You don't understand it so you have to just lift, wholesale, people's equations and explainations. It's why you misunderstood Susskind, you don't actually grasp what he was saying, you just repeat phrases and buzzwords. That is a trillion miles from what Rpenner and I or anyone else do.
If you just were honest and didn't try to misrepresent your level of knowledge you'd not have a problem. The issue is your dishonesty, not the posting of equations.
Is not the internet a public domain?
The Internet is not public domain in many jurisdictions. Copyright is about the right to copy. Stuff on the Internet is protected in many of the same way as stuff in books -- if you copy it, especially wholesale and especially for profit or to the detriment of the copyright holder, you are in trouble.
The
idea of $$F = ma$$ or $$\vec{F} = m \vec{a}$$ or $$\nabla U(\vec{x}) \; + \; m \ddot{\vec{x}}$$ should be cited as Newton's second law of motion except in such places where the context makes it clear that the idea has already been attributed to Newton or some more specific physical theory. Examples of where the context is clear include in classwork on mechanics after week one, answering a question about Newton's second law, following up on a post that assumed Newtonian mechanics or posting to a thread titled for Newton's physics. A journal entitled "Classical Mechanics" might possibly be a place where you could publish a sentence like "This is just $$F = ma$$ for particles confined to the surface geometry." as a sort of sloppy citation to Newton, since for the target audience there is no mystery from where it arises.
Citing the name of a widely developed physical theory or area of mathematics (like "Electroweak theory", "The standard model", "special relativity", "functional calculus", "ring theory", etc.) is frequently better than linking to authors and papers where the ideas were first expounded. For example, Einstein came up with the idea of general relativity, but others developed it. Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism are named for him but developed some pretty big ideas of others.
As long as you're not trying to pass of what you've written as your own work, I don't think there's any issue of plagiarism in posting equations.
If I were to say, " I've developed this equation, F= G(m1m2/r^2)", I'd be plagiarising.
If you say, the equation for gravitational attraction is ... and don't explicitly credit it to Newton, I don't consider that as plagiarism.
Universal gravitation was one of Newton's biggest ideas. Certainly, anyone equipped to apply the equation should have heard that Newton authored it. But if the context doesn't make the source obvious, citing it as "Universal Gravitation" or "Newton's gravity" would be strongly preferred.
And in that post [on another board] he does give credit to Tsao.
Equations can't be copywrited, only the explanation surrounding them.
A bold claim. What is your basis for this claim?
Because many equations tend to be short, they may run afoul of limits of how short something can be and still be copyrightable. (One can't copyright letters of the alphabet and then sue people for making words.) But some equations run to many pages and, in my opinion, should be protected by copyright. (IANAL.)
Face it, when we write E=MC^2 we DON'T have to credit Einstein.
I disagree. I believe if the context does not make it clear, you should definitely cite Einstein or Special Relativity.
On this site, he posted the same equations, and with the same comments, but without any mention of Mr Chang. That was plagiarism.
Or if he was just copying the parts written by himself under a different Internet handle, he is guilty of cross-posting, gratuitous abuse of the equals sign, and a technical type of plagiarism that pseudonymous authors can run into. In formal writing, one cites papers where one wrote original ideas first. In informal writing, what assurances do we have that this master of 1001 Internet handles is indeed the author of this other post? For all I know, Texas Governor Rick Perry is Mister and Lord Monckton is the author of the other post.
In so far as an equation is a fact, it cannot be copyrighted,
I agree to a point, but disagree in main part. A law of nature may not (under US Law) be patented, but the scientific article in which it is first described is automatically copyrighted upon publication in a "fixed form" (unless published by the US Govt, in which case it is in the public domain). An equation in that paper may or may not be too small for copyright to apply, and the manner in which it is used may be a "fair use" exception to copyright. If the paper is 80% a new approximate description of the motion of the moon an stretches over 5 or more pages, I'm guessing copyright is likely to apply.
News reports which are terse statements of fact, like a one-inch description from a police report, may be "simple facts" without the creative expression required for copyright protection.
IANAL.
Copying equations though is not plagiarizing.
Only if one copies the verbiage and descriptions associated with them.
Over the years, I have learned that very few understand anything about copyright. To support this claim, you should cite statue, provision, regulation, publication or case law. You have not done so. So I defer to my years of experience and reading sites like
http://groklaw.net/
http://www.copyright.gov/
Copyright Basics said:
What Works Are Protected?
Copyright protects “original works of authorship” that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. The fixation need not be directly perceptible so long as it may be communicated.
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdf
The same source says ideas are not copyrightable, but an equation is not an idea but a work of authorship in my opinion.
In a snarky moment, I once told a crackpot that he couldn't patent a law of nature, but if his physical theory is complete fiction than it is entirely protected by copyright. The same would seem to apply to equations which are used as set dressing.
So if you see someone write E=MC^2 and not attribute this to Einstein, do you think they are plagiarizing?
Context is important in having good communication skills.
Not if they didn't read the post where Mister claimed to be Mystery111.
Time matters, and due to the nature of the pseudonymous conduct, a defense of "we are the same person" is weak.
When Reiku and I first crossed paths on PhysOrg forums years ago I corrected him on something and in his hissy fit he challenged me to a 'physics-off'. Rpenner provided 10 questions over varying levels of difficulty and we had 2 days to reply.
http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=17930&view=findpost&p=260145
http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=17930&view=findpost&p=261222
I answered 4 or 5 of them and admitted those I hadn't a clue about (rather than time constraints). Reiku answered none in the time limit but then posted a lengthy, incorrect answer about one of them.
http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=17930&view=findpost&p=261234
It was then revealed the exact thing he'd posted could be found on someone else's personal website.
http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=17930&view=findpost&p=261623
http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=17930&view=findpost&p=261643
When confronted with this he claimed he'd found some stuff he'd written years ago and forgot now he wasn't his own work. Firstly that implied he'd been learning Lie group symmetries in quantum field theory when he was something like 17 (it's something taught to Cambridge masters students!). Secondly it implied he didn't recognise something wasn't written by him. Thirdly he didn't realise the answer was wrong so obviously he hadn't learnt enough to see the errors in the material. As such no one believed him. So he is obviously not above it.
http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=17930&view=findpost&p=261654
Indeed, I still don't know if Mister is Mystery111 is Carstein.
If he is, then it would appear that he hasn't plagiarized anything.
If not, then it would appear that he has.
I disagree. Copying from yourself without attribution could be plagiarism, especially in a serious academic context.
Who decides when an equation no longer requires citation?
Readers with good reading skills and knowledge of the context.
If you were right you could copywrite a formula.
You can't.
Naked assertion is not conducive to a meeting of the minds.
But plagiarism and copyright violations are not the same thing. Plagiarism is using someone else's work without giving proper credit and copyright infringement is using someone else's work without getting that person's permission.
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2005/10/06/copyright-infringement-plagiarism-and-fair-use/
Yes but that doesn't mean that the concepts aren't related.
You can't copyright a formula.
If I write pi = C/D who do I give credit to?
If you need to give credit, you could do it like this:
Polly Perfect said:
Ancient mathematicians recognized that similar shapes had similar ratios between their diameter, D, and their perimeter or circumference, C. In the 18th century, Euler popularized the circle's perimeter ratio $$\pi = \frac{C}{D}$$ which may have first been first used by William Jones, a Newton-tolerated Welshman.
[1]"
Formulas represent essential truths and so they don't belong to anyone.
Equations may be expressions of laws of nature, but they are not laws of nature themselves.
Probably the most common example I can think of is all the time the Lorentz transformations are used on physics sites without ever mentioning good ol Lorentz.
Do you have an example in mind?
And this is why that's an impossible standard.
Who decides that an equation is "so well known"?
Readers with good reading skills and knowledge of the context.
