The blogger found out about this and accused the Senator and his staff of plagiarism and copyright infringement.
So what is plagiarism? What is copyright infringement? Allow me to repost an old guide for you here:
Plagiarism is the use of another person's work without proper citation or credit. Copyright infringement, on the other hand, is the use of another person's copyright-protected work without permission.
In this particular case, the Senator and his staff failed to do both. They did not cite their sources and they did not obtain permission to use the blogger's original post, which is still protected by copyright.
So does the Senator have a good excuse for doing this?
Under the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines (Republic Act No. 8293), the best defense against copyright infringement is Fair Use:
Section 185. Fair Use of a Copyrighted Work. - 185.1. The fair use of a copyrighted work for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching including multiple copies for classroom use, scholarship, research, and similar purposes is not an infringement of copyright.
xxx
In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is fair use, the factors to be considered shall include:
(a) The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for non-profit educational purposes;
(b) The nature of the copyrighted work;
(c) The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(d) The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
On the count of copyright infringement, I believe the Senator was able to exercise fair use when he included the blogger's work in his speech because:
a) The use was for a public purpose;
b) the nature of the copyrighted work consisted of scientific data and analyses relevant to the public interest;
c) the amount of the work used may be significant but by nature, data was taken as a whole; and
d) There was no apparent damage to the business or reputation of the blogger.
Having said that, the Senator still stands guilty of plagiarism. He failed to cite his sources and breached a very simple academic and professional precept.
But who can punish the Senator? Plagiarism, being a professional and ethical offense is beyond the powers of any civil or criminal court in the Philippines.
The only bodies that may be able to punish the Senator for plagiarism are:
1) The Senate (can discipline its members);
2) His Alma Mater (may revoke his degree); and
3) Any professional organization that he is a part of (may revoke his membership or discipline him).
Outside of these bodies, the public can only respond through media and through their 2013 votes (the Senator is up for re-election) if they feel strongly enough about the plagiarism issue.
In any case, this is not so much a legal matter as it is a professional one. There is great shame in failing to acknowledge your sources in professional and academic circles. In legislative bodies, however, I know that this is not the first time this has happened. But for some reason, people are taking notice this time.
Optimistically, this is can be seen as an increased demand for government accountability.
Pessimistically, this is just another lobbying tactic to steer attention away from the real debate.
Finally, this whole issue has nothing to do with the medium being used. Works on the Internet are NOT automatically part of the public domain, contrary to popular misunderstanding. All original works are protected by copyright in whatever shape or form they take, subject to very limited exceptions. Remember that the public domain is composed of works with expired copyrights and those that were never protected by copyright. Thus, it consists mostly of very old works of art and literature. Not blog entries.
No comments:
Post a Comment