iThenticate Blog

One of the biggest plagiarism law suits of the decade continues to make headlines in the UK and internationally. Billionaire ‘Harry Potter’ author J.K. Rowling and her publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC face an ongoing law suit coming from the estate of a now-deceased fantasy writer.  

Until very recently in history, most of the content that reached our eyes and ears was ‘professionally’ made.  The magazines, books, newspapers, radio shows, movies and video clips of the past were created by an organization or specialist whose profession was writing, film making, producing music, etc.

As we all are probably aware, that standard model of content creation has drastically changed in the past decade because of the internet.  

The internet provides a unique way to listen in to what the world is currently speaking about.  Particularly with the advent of real-time search and social media, we can see trends within ongoing global chatter down to a keyword or topic. 

Plagiarism has already had a noted effect on politics in 2010. 

“Social News” services are becoming a trend in the news publishing industry.

A recent episode of the popular AMC TV show Mad Men explores an interesting subject: plagiarism in advertising.  

Stanley Fish of the New York Times wrote an interesting article earlier this month titled “Plagiarism is Not a Big Moral Deal.” Fish argues that the rules of plagiarism are not something people inherently learn from a very early age. 

In the world of scholarly journals, the peer review process has been a longstanding bastion of academic sanctity. 

The University of Virginia recently stripped Fred D. Smith of his doctorate in education.  Last year, iThenticate was utilized by a reporter from the Journal News to break a story on Smith, the ex-Pocantico Hills superintendent who plagiarized much of his UVA dissertation.

Smith’s plagiarism saga began in November 2009, when he suddenly resigned as the Pocantico Hills superintendent after it was discovered that he had copied newsletters from a Massachusetts elementary school principal. The Journal News then partnered with iThenticate to discover that large portions of Smith’s dissertation from the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education were also plagiarized.  From the Journal News: “…iThenticate, found numerous passages that matched academic publications predating his. The most notable similarities were with a paper by Jerri Ann Whitehurst Hall, now a high school principal in Rutland, Georgia.”