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fingerprinting text in the age of cut-and-paste   09.06.2005, 8:05 AM

posted by ben vershbow

Lexis Nexis has installed new software for detecting plagiarism. As described on their site:

LexisNexis CopyGuard uses pattern-matching technology to identify suspect passages in submitted documents. An easy-to-read report underlines and color codes questionable sentences, with links to the original sources.

This could be an important tool for assuring integrity not only in professional journalism, but also in the emerging class of amateur reporters. But apply it to blogs and CopyGuard might overload and shut down. Bloggers are constantly recycling text, often without clear attribution, or obvious demarcation between quote and original commentary. The bounds of plagiarism seem a bit less clear when you consider that cutting and pasting is one of the main ways we converse online.

(NY Times has story)

Posted by ben vershbow on September 6, 2005 08:05 AM
tags: DRM, archive, copyleft, copyright, journalism, lexisnexis, nexis, plagiarism, plagiarize, search

comments (1):

Dave Munger on September 7, 2005 06:37 AM:

Yes, bloggers are constantly recycling text. But I'm not sure it'd be such a bad thing if they could be reminded when their "recycling" looks more like plagiarism -- especially when, say, they embed quoted text within their own prose without even bothering to blockquote or use quotation marks, let alone include a link to the original source.

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