Plagiarism

[Rebel]

http://www.webster.edu/students/plagiar ... rism.shtml

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism means “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own” or to “use (another's production) without crediting the source” (Mirriam-Webster.com).

Following Webster taking ideas without crediting the source is plagiarism.

You are taking a dictionary definition way out of context and being unreasonable.

I typed the word Plagiarism into Google, I list the first 3 pages:

Ed

-------------------------

Plagiarism: The adoption or reproduction of original creations of another author (person, collective, organization, community or other type of author, including anonymous authors) without due acknowledgment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_dishonesty

-------------------------

When Do We Give Credit?

The key to avoiding plagiarism is to make sure you give credit where it is due. This may be credit for something somebody said, wrote, emailed, drew, or implied.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02/

-------------------------

What is Plagiarism?

Many people think of plagiarism as copying another's work, or borrowing someone else's original ideas. But terms like "copying" and "borrowing" can disguise the seriousness of the offense:

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to "plagiarize" means

•to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
•to use (another's production) without crediting the source
•to commit literary theft
•to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.
In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.

But can words and ideas really be stolen?

According to U.S. law, the answer is yes. The expression of original ideas is considered intellectual property, and is protected by copyright laws, just like original inventions. Almost all forms of expression fall under copyright protection as long as they are recorded in some way (such as a book or a computer file).

All of the following are considered plagiarism:

•turning in someone else's work as your own
•copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
•failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
•giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
•changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
•copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on "fair use" rules)

Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, however, by citing sources. Simply acknowledging that certain material has been borrowed, and providing your audience with the information necessary to find that source, is usually enough to prevent plagiarism. See our section on citation for more information on how to cite sources properly.

http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_ ... arism.html

[Rebel]

Something happened this year.

On June 28th 2011 IGCA president David Levy shattered the (computer) chess world with the announcement that programmer Vasik Rajlich, world champion computer chess in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 with Rybka has been found guilty to have plagiarized the work of another chess program called: Fruit.

Note that David used the word plagiarized and not copying. David was the one who introduced that word, nobody used that word before.

And following the definition of plagiarism from Google's top-3 search results plagiarism goes a lot further than copying code.

It practically means I have been plagiarising for 30 years taking ideas from others without giving proper credit. I should be banned for life and my 2 world champion titles should be taken away.

That as far as I can remember the programmers have defined their own interpretation of plagiarism that states: it's OK to take as much as you want as long as you don't copy&paste, that you write your own code from scratch.

That by the mouth of Mark Lefter the latter is not good enough for the ICGA: http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... #pid356662

Perhaps this split and divided community can settle on: He took too much.

Ed, I think that is the best summary of this whole thing. Vasik took too much in the eyes of the panel. More than enough to call the versions of Rybka we examined to be called "derivatives", and he did not report this as required by the rules.

It's apparently OK to take but....... not to much.

Please define "too much".

That's mission impossible.

It can not be the case anno 2011 living in a world with strong source code all over the internet just a few mouse clicks away if it is reasonable to demand new chess programmers to write everything from scratch (because we had to!!) while at the same time it is allowed for the established programmers to freely plagiarise Rybka's legacy of 400 elo points and never mention it. It's bizarre.....

I can feel the pain of the pre-internet generation but technology always makes victims. I feel sorry for the thousands that daily lose their job because technology made progress.

It's time to face this reality.

And....... find solutions for the future not blocking progress of the creative minds of the post-internet chess programmers.

Now the ICGA has put itself deliberately off-side and in the meantime I have peace with that. The good days are gone.

It does not mean however that the ICGA can dictate nor impose the rule 2 relic of pre-internet times on the rest of the chess programmers and its enthusiasts.

[hgm]

The ICGA can of course impose whatever they want. They could require participants to hang from the ceiling during the entire game... The WCCC is their tournament!

Too much = more than could credibly be written off as just coincidence, giving a large margin for benefit of the doubt?

I don't see what good it does to play word games and look up formal definitions of words in dictionaries or wikipedias. So what if people used the wrong words? So its not plagiarism, but in fact a heroic act of freedom fighting... No matter how you call it, he still did exactly the same thing for which we think deserves banning. It totally misses the point.

[bhlangonijr]

The ICGA can of course impose whatever they want. They could require participants to hang from the ceiling during the entire game... The WCCC is their tournament!

Too much = more than could credibly be written off as just coincidence, giving a large margin for benefit of the doubt?

I don't see what good it does to play word games and look up formal definitions of words in dictionaries or wikipedias. So what if people used the wrong words? So its not plagiarism, but in fact a heroic act of freedom fighting... No matter how you call it, he still did exactly the same thing for which we think deserves banning. It totally misses the point.

+1

You couldn't have said it better.

@Ed: One of the nicest things about being human is the fact we have that what is known as "common sense". We know how to read a word or entire phrase and comprehend the semantic associations based on the context where it is given. BTW, why do you keep with this obsession? Get a life!

Regards,

[Rebel]

The ICGA can of course impose whatever they want. They could require participants to hang from the ceiling during the entire game... The WCCC is their tournament!

I meant impose their will on the rest of the world, such as this beauty from the Panel report:

● encourage other tournaments (Leiden, Paderborn, CCT, TACCL, etc.) to disallow the entry of Rybka until it is proven “clean”.

[Terry McCracken]

The ICGA can of course impose whatever they want. They could require participants to hang from the ceiling during the entire game... The WCCC is their tournament!

I meant impose their will on the rest of the world, such as this beauty from the Panel report:

● encourage other tournaments (Leiden, Paderborn, CCT, TACCL, etc.) to disallow the entry of Rybka until it is proven “clean”.

They're right, you're wrong. Get with it or get out.

[hgm]

● encourage other tournaments (Leiden, Paderborn, CCT, TACCL, etc.) to disallow the entry of Rybka until it is proven “clean”.

Well, 'encourage' is not the same thing as 'impose their will', right? I am pretty sure even your dictionaries would tell you that!

It is an interestig question what exactly the relation between CSVN (=Dutch Computer -Chess Association) and ICGA is; if CSVN were a national subsidiary of ICGA they could actually be bound to ICGA ruling. The CSVN is a subsidiary of KNSB (=Royal Dutch Chess Association), which is again a subsidiary of FIDE. I don't know if ICGA is in any way associated with FIDE, but if FIDE would ever decide to take over the ban of Vas, all of its subsidiaries I think this could be imposed on all their subsidiaries, unless they would decide to leave FIDE. Not that FIDE would even bother with a Chess programer, of course.

The whole issue is moot anyway, as CSVN is scheduled to be disbanded in May, and then there will be no more Leiden...

[Don]

Hi Ed,

I want to make a plea here for a certain level of reasonableness and common sense because I believe you are being completely unreasonable.

The vast majority of authors, including you and I are NOT taking credit for the work of others. I could make a very strong case that by accepting profits from Rebel, you have done everything (including being a hypocrite) that you accuse everyone else of. But of course I am a reasonable person and I don't believe that.

We don't take credit because the ideas we use are in the public domain and that is implicit, it is one of those things we don't have to state. It's like a bar of soap in someones bathroom, you are not stealing because you didn't ask if you could use the bar of soap, it's implied and just understood.

I know of no computer chess idea that has been patented, do you? Is Rebel a plagiarist because you use alpha/beta pruning, reductions (you were not the first to use them), stand pat quies search, lazy evaluation, null move pruning, piece square tables, Hash tables, killer moves, check extension, .... need I go on?

But by your twisted reasoning you are a plagiarist because you accepted profit from the sale of Rebel and did not share authorship nor profits with those who came before you. You accuse everyone else of being a hypocrite, even those who have not even SOLD their software.

I have to say, and I apologize in advance for saying it, that going to the dictionary like you just did is childish. A child uses words cleverly - for example my mother asked me as a child whether I had brushed my teeth. I had not, but I said that I had - and I was literally being truthful because I had brushed my teeth the day before. I was a child so I patted myself on the back and told myself that I had not really lied to her.

You and I BOTH know that ideas in computer chess are implicitly in the public domain. It would be absolutely ridiculous if that was not so. I have discovered many ideas on my own or with Larry and it turns out that some of those ideas I have seen in later programs. Did I "steal" them or did they? Do I have a right to accuse anyone of plagiarism who might have an idea that is in Komodo that I believe is my "original" idea? Even the idea that I have used from other program have been changed to suit Komodo, so does that clear me from hypocrisy?

Another ridiculous consequence of your line of reasoning is that to be legitimate, every top program has to careful extract every idea from their program that every appeared in some program before them if they want to claim sole authorship. This would make it impossible to have a program more than 2000 ELO strength (assuming that you define alpha/beta and few of the basics as "valid" techniques all can use without attribution) unless you essentially threw your hands up in the air and listed about 20,000 names as the authors and contacted all of them separately to let them know. Of course your proposal basically makes any kind of reasonable authorship impossible.

I think you need to sit down and figure out what is to be done with Rebel, which you claim authorship of, and yet we all know that you built on the idea of others that came before you without given them co-authorship or credit. I can show you in the dictionary how it was wrong of you to do this.

http://www.webster.edu/students/plagiar ... rism.shtml

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism means “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own” or to “use (another's production) without crediting the source” (Mirriam-Webster.com).

Following Webster taking ideas without crediting the source is plagiarism.

You are taking a dictionary definition way out of context and being unreasonable.

I typed the word Plagiarism into Google, I list the first 3 pages:

Ed

-------------------------

Plagiarism: The adoption or reproduction of original creations of another author (person, collective, organization, community or other type of author, including anonymous authors) without due acknowledgment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_dishonesty

-------------------------

When Do We Give Credit?

The key to avoiding plagiarism is to make sure you give credit where it is due. This may be credit for something somebody said, wrote, emailed, drew, or implied.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02/

-------------------------

What is Plagiarism?

Many people think of plagiarism as copying another's work, or borrowing someone else's original ideas. But terms like "copying" and "borrowing" can disguise the seriousness of the offense:

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to "plagiarize" means

•to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
•to use (another's production) without crediting the source
•to commit literary theft
•to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.
In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.

But can words and ideas really be stolen?

According to U.S. law, the answer is yes. The expression of original ideas is considered intellectual property, and is protected by copyright laws, just like original inventions. Almost all forms of expression fall under copyright protection as long as they are recorded in some way (such as a book or a computer file).

All of the following are considered plagiarism:

•turning in someone else's work as your own
•copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
•failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
•giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
•changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
•copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on "fair use" rules)

Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, however, by citing sources. Simply acknowledging that certain material has been borrowed, and providing your audience with the information necessary to find that source, is usually enough to prevent plagiarism. See our section on citation for more information on how to cite sources properly.

http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_ ... arism.html

[bob]

http://www.webster.edu/students/plagiar ... rism.shtml

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism means “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own” or to “use (another's production) without crediting the source” (Mirriam-Webster.com).

Following Webster taking ideas without crediting the source is plagiarism.

You are taking a dictionary definition way out of context and being unreasonable.

I typed the word Plagiarism into Google, I list the first 3 pages:

Ed

How about typing something that actually makes sense? "Computer software plagiarism." Read some of the stuff you get there. "ideas" is not considered in computer software plagiarism, any more than ideas are considered in copyright law when it is applied to computer software. In copyright, "ideas" does not apply when talking about software. Ideas do matter in books, plays, movies, etc. There are only a hundred good first-person shooter games for X-box, all with the same basic idea, each with a completely different implementation...

-------------------------

Plagiarism: The adoption or reproduction of original creations of another author (person, collective, organization, community or other type of author, including anonymous authors) without due acknowledgment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_dishonesty

-------------------------

When Do We Give Credit?

The key to avoiding plagiarism is to make sure you give credit where it is due. This may be credit for something somebody said, wrote, emailed, drew, or implied.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02/

-------------------------

What is Plagiarism?

Many people think of plagiarism as copying another's work, or borrowing someone else's original ideas. But terms like "copying" and "borrowing" can disguise the seriousness of the offense:

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to "plagiarize" means

•to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
•to use (another's production) without crediting the source
•to commit literary theft
•to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.
In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.

But can words and ideas really be stolen?

According to U.S. law, the answer is yes. The expression of original ideas is considered intellectual property, and is protected by copyright laws, just like original inventions. Almost all forms of expression fall under copyright protection as long as they are recorded in some way (such as a book or a computer file).

All of the following are considered plagiarism:

•turning in someone else's work as your own
•copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
•failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
•giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
•changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
•copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on "fair use" rules)

Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, however, by citing sources. Simply acknowledging that certain material has been borrowed, and providing your audience with the information necessary to find that source, is usually enough to prevent plagiarism. See our section on citation for more information on how to cite sources properly.

http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_ ... arism.html

[bob]

Something happened this year.

On June 28th 2011 IGCA president David Levy shattered the (computer) chess world with the announcement that programmer Vasik Rajlich, world champion computer chess in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 with Rybka has been found guilty to have plagiarized the work of another chess program called: Fruit.

Note that David used the word plagiarized and not copying. David was the one who introduced that word, nobody used that word before.

And following the definition of plagiarism from Google's top-3 search results plagiarism goes a lot further than copying code.

It practically means I have been plagiarising for 30 years taking ideas from others without giving proper credit. I should be banned for life and my 2 world champion titles should be taken away.

That as far as I can remember the programmers have defined their own interpretation of plagiarism that states: it's OK to take as much as you want as long as you don't copy&paste, that you write your own code from scratch.

That by the mouth of Mark Lefter the latter is not good enough for the ICGA: http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... #pid356662

Perhaps this split and divided community can settle on: He took too much.

Ed, I think that is the best summary of this whole thing. Vasik took too much in the eyes of the panel. More than enough to call the versions of Rybka we examined to be called "derivatives", and he did not report this as required by the rules.

It's apparently OK to take but....... not to much.

Please define "too much".

That's mission impossible.

It can not be the case anno 2011 living in a world with strong source code all over the internet just a few mouse clicks away if it is reasonable to demand new chess programmers to write everything from scratch (because we had to!!) while at the same time it is allowed for the established programmers to freely plagiarise Rybka's legacy of 400 elo points and never mention it. It's bizarre.....

I can feel the pain of the pre-internet generation but technology always makes victims. I feel sorry for the thousands that daily lose their job because technology made progress.

It's time to face this reality.

And....... find solutions for the future not blocking progress of the creative minds of the post-internet chess programmers.

Now the ICGA has put itself deliberately off-side and in the meantime I have peace with that. The good days are gone.

It does not mean however that the ICGA can dictate nor impose the rule 2 relic of pre-internet times on the rest of the chess programmers and its enthusiasts.

Please grow up and learn how to do a little research. As I just wrote in another post here, when the topic is "computer software plagiarism" "IDEAS" are not part of the definition. Software plagiarism is semantics-based. Just google for the RIGHT term and you will see what everyone means when software plagiarism is mentioned. It is NOT the same as applied to literary plagiarism...

And something tells me you know that, because copyright law makes the SAME distinction, namely that ideas can not be copyrighted if they are implemented as computer software, as opposed to a work of fiction where the ideas ARE copyrighted.