Academic Integrity Resources

Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use of someone else’s work. The word comes from a Latin word for “kidnapping,” and plagiarism is indeed the stealing of something engendered by someone else.

—SYLVAN BARNET AND HUGO BEDAU, Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing: A Brief Guide to Argument, 2ND ED. BOSTON: BEDFORD, 1996.

In order to write informed academic papers, students and scholars frequently rely on the expertise of other thinkers and researchers. As long as the original author is properly acknowledged and the source of the outside material properly documented, there is no problem. However, if a student or scholar fails to acknowledge the words or ideas of someone else, or follows the original structure and phrasing of someone else’s writing too closely, he or she is guilty of plagiarism.

Plagiarism takes a variety of forms. Unacknowledged, word-for-word copying of sections of a book, newspaper article, online document, or another student’s paper is the most extreme form of plagiarism. Even more extreme than plagiarism is outright fraud, which includes submitting as one’s own work a paper purchased from an online term-paper mill or “borrowing” an old paper from a friend. Students who commit fraud can face Suspension, or Expulsion. In its less extreme manifestations, plagiarism involves cutting-and-pasting the words and phrases of someone else into one’s own writing without quotation marks. Students with careless research methods who rely overly on online sources frequently find themselves committing plagiarism when they have copy-and-pasted phrases from a variety of websites into their Word document and cannot remember which words are their own and which belong to someone else.

It is important to note that plagiarism is not always committed intentionally. You may be accused of and punished for plagiarism even if you did not intend to plagiarize or if the plagiarism stems from ignorance of the rules or careless research methods. It is your responsibility to learn the rules of citing and documenting sources and to conduct your research carefully. The United States legal system rigorously defends the copyright and intellectual property of authors, artists, scholars, inventors, and corporations. In the “real world,” plagiarists who steal the ideas and words of someone else can face expensive lawsuits with consequent loss of reputation; some high-profile plagiarists have even lost their jobs. In a University setting, students who plagiarize face disciplinary action, notations on transcripts, and possibly Suspension.

Because the penalties for plagiarism can be so severe, it is very important for you to learn how to conduct research with care and how to cite and document sources correctly. When you rely on outside sources in an academic paper, you must always:

1. Quote and acknowledge the words written by someone else
2. Acknowledge original ideas belonging to someone else
3. When paraphrasing or summarizing, avoid using phrases too close to the original, even if the source is properly acknowledged

Hugo Bedau, Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Tufts University, has graciously allowed us to use sections of his essay “The Case Against the Death Penalty” to illustrate the use and misuse of sources in the following examples.

He writes:

It is often argued that death is what murderers deserve, and that those who oppose the death penalty violate the fundamental principle that criminals should be punished according to their deserts—“making the punishment fit the crime.” If this principle is understood to require that punishments are unjust unless they are like the crime itself, then the principle is unacceptable. It would require us to rape rapists, torture torturers, and inflict other horrible and degrading punishments on offenders. It would require us to betray traitors and kill multiple murderers again and again, punishments impossible to inflict. Since we cannot reasonably aim to punish all crimes according to this principle, it is arbitrary to invoke it as a requirement of justice in the punishment of murderers. If, however, the principle of just deserts is understood to require that the severity of punishments must be proportional to the gravity of the crime, and that murder being the gravest crime deserves the severest punishment, then the principle is no doubt sound. But it does not compel support for the death penalty. What it does require is that crimes other than murder be punished with terms of imprisonment or other deprivations less severe than those used in the punishment of murder.

Criminals no doubt deserve to be punished, and punished with severity appropriate to their culpability and the harm they have caused to the innocent. But severity of punishment has its limits—imposed both by justice and our common human dignity.

—From Hugo Bedau, “The Case Against the Death Penalty.” Capital Punishment Project. ACLU. July 1992. Web. 8 July 2010.

A. Word-For-Word Plagiarism

When we research a topic, we sometimes find a source that says what we want to say, frequently in words better than we feel we could write. In these cases, it may be tempting to copy sections of the source, but you would in fact be plagiarizing it piece by piece.

Example-- WRONG:

Proponents of capital punishment often argue that punishment must fit the crime, and therefore, death is the only appropriate punishment for a murderer. If this idea is understood to require that punishments are unjust unless they are like the crime itself, then the principle is unacceptable. It would require us to rape rapists, torture torturers, and inflict other horrible and degrading punishments on offenders. It would require us to betray traitors and kill multiple murderers again and again, punishments impossible to inflict. Since we cannot reasonably aim to punish all crimes according to this principle, it is arbitrary to invoke it as a requirement of justice in the punishment of murderers. If, however, the principle of just deserts is understood to require that the severity of punishments must be proportional to the seriousness of the crime, and that murder being the most extreme crime deserves the severest punishment, then the principle is no doubt sound. But it does not compel us to support capital punishment.

In the example above, the writer copies a large section of Professor Bedau’s essay, rewriting the first sentence, changing “gravity” to “seriousness,” changing “grave” to “extreme,” and slightly rephrasing the last sentence. Even though a few words have been changed from the original, this kind of copying constitutes word-for-word plagiarism. To avoid plagiarism, the writer could have kept the original as it was, acknowledged Hugo Bedau as the source, and put the entire passage in quotation marks. Properly acknowledging the source demonstrates the extent of one’s research and helps one integrate the source into one’s own argument, as this example illustrates:

Example-- APPROPRIATE:

Hugo Bedau, professor of philosophy at Tufts University and an expert on ethics, illustrates the lack of logic behind the idea that the death penalty is the only fitting punishment for a murderer:

If this principle is understood to require that punishments are unjust unless they are like the crime itself, then the principle is unacceptable. It would require us to rape rapists, torture torturers, and inflict other horrible and degrading punishments on offenders. It would require us to betray traitors and kill multiple murderers again and again, punishments impossible to inflict. Since we cannot reasonably aim to punish all crimes according to this principle, it is arbitrary to invoke it as a requirement of justice in the punishment of murderers (1992).

In correctly acknowledging Professor Bedau, the writer incorporates some background information about Bedau’s credentials as part of an introduction to the quotation and then follows up with a response to Bedau’s words. Because it is a long quotation—over four lines long—the writer has indented it. Note that because Professor Bedau is acknowledged as the author of the quotation, the writer does not have to include his name in the parenthetical citation at the end of the quotation.

B. The Mosaic Pattern of Plagiarism        

Many students erroneously believe they can copy from a source but avoid plagiarism if they “just change the wording around.” Other students commit plagiarism when they carelessly copy-and-paste sections of online documents into their own writing and “forget” to put quotation marks around the original phrasing.

Example-- WRONG:

Opposition to the death penalty does not mean one is soft on crime. Indeed, death penalty opponents believe that criminals deserve to be punished, and punished with severity appropriate to their guilt and the harm they have caused to the innocent. But severity of punishment has its limits—imposed both by justice and our common human dignity. For example, if the logic of those who support capital punishment is followed fully, it would require us to rape rapists, torture torturers, bomb bombers, and inflict other terrible, degrading punishments on offenders. It would require us to betray traitors and kill multiple murderers again and again, punishments impossible to inflict. Obviously, these forms of punishment are ludicrous, but then so is the illogic of capital punishment (Bedau, 1992).

In the example above, the writer has taken two sentences near the end of Professor Bedau’s essay and placed them before two sentences that came earlier in the essay. The writer has also replaced “culpability” with “guilt,” and added the phrase “bomb bombers.” To avoid accusations of plagiarism, the writer has actually cited Bedau at the end of the paragraph—but, because the parenthetical citation is attached to the last sentence, the reader can only assume that Bedau has contributed an idea only to that last sentence. This sample constitutes plagiarism because the writer failed to identify (with quotation marks and a citation in the appropriate place) the words belonging to Professor Bedau. To avoid plagiarism, the writer must place quotation marks around Professor Bedau’s words.

Example-- APPROPRIATE:

Opposition to the death penalty does not mean one is soft on crime. Indeed, death penalty opponents believe that “criminals deserve to be punished, and punished with severity appropriate to their culpability and the harm they have caused to the innocent. But severity of punishment has its limits—imposed both by justice and our common human dignity” (Bedau, 1992). For example, if the logic of those who support capital punishment is followed fully, “it would require us to rape rapists, torture torturers, and inflict other horrible and degrading punishments on offenders. It would require us to betray traitors and kill multiple murderers again and again, punishments impossible to inflict” (Bedau, 1992). Obviously, these forms of punishment are ludicrous, but then so is the illogic of capital punishment.

Note that in this correct version, the parenthetical citations appear immediately after the sentences borrowed from Bedau, and that everything inside the quotation marks is exactly as Bedau has written it. It is important to remember that everything inside quotation marks must be the same as the original—even spelling errors!

C. Borrowed Language

When writing from sources, one frequently finds clever phrases that seem to encapsulate one’s own thoughts perfectly. However, even a short phrase of one or two words must be cited properly to avoid stealing the unique phrasing of another writer. This is sometimes very difficult if you are writing in a language in which you are not yet fluent.

Example-- WRONG:

Death penalty opponents have crafted many complex arguments to capital punishment. Appealing to their own skewed notions of human dignity, they assert that murderers, terrorists, and other violent criminals should be punished with imprisonment or other deprivations less severe than death. Justice and human dignity, however, demand that the punishment fit the crime—if murderers are to be punished with severity appropriate to their culpability and the harm they have caused to the innocent victims and their families, the only punishment severe enough for the gravity of the crime is that of death.

While the example above is almost entirely in the writer’s own words, some unique phrasing belongs to Professor Bedau’s original essay. The phrases “imprisonment or other deprivations less severe” and “punished with severity appropriate to their culpability and the harm they have caused to the innocent” are exactly the same phrasing used by Professor Bedau and need to be placed in quotation marks and acknowledged as Bedau’s or rewritten in the writer’s own words. To make a stronger argument, the writer should consider debating Professor Bedau’s essay directly and openly using the quotations as parts of the rhetoric of the debate. Note that certain common phrases do not need to be cited. Phrases such as “human dignity,” “the punishment fit the crime,” and “the gravity of the crime” are so frequently used in the public domain and in everyday speech that they do not need to be attributed to anyone.

D. Paraphrasing

The appropriate use of paraphrase and summary is essential to good academic writing. However, many students do not paraphrase correctly and commit plagiarism by accident when they too closely follow the phrasing and sentence structure of the original source.

Inappropriate Paraphrasing (Plagiarism):

Paraphrase (P) Some argue that death is what killers deserve,
Original (O) It is often argued that death is what murderers deserve,
(P) and that those who oppose capital punishment violate the essential principle
(O) and that those who oppose the death penalty violate the fundamental principle
(P) that criminals should be punished according to what they deserve—
(O) that criminals should be punished according to their deserts—
(P) in other words, the punishment must fit the crime.
(O) making the punishment fit the crime.
(P) If we understand this principle to mean that punishments
(O) If this principle is understood to require that punishments
(P) are not just if they are not like the crime itself, then the principle is wrong.
(O) are unjust unless they are like the crime itself, then the principle is unacceptable.
(P) It would require us to rape rapists, torture torturers, bomb bombers,
(O) It would require us to rape rapists, torture torturers,
(P) and inflict other terrible, disgusting punishments on criminals.
(O) and inflict other horrible and degrading punishments on offenders.
(P) It would even require us to kill serial killers again and again—
(O) It would require us to betray traitors and kill multiple murderers again and again,
(P) clearly this is impossible.
(O) punishments impossible to inflict.

As we can see, inappropriate paraphrasing copies the sentence structure and phrasing of the original too closely. This happens when students attempt to “just change the wording around.” To paraphrase correctly, it is important to read the original closely to understand it, turn it over, and attempt to explain it in your own words. Then check your paraphrase against the original to make sure you have conveyed its points and subpoints correctly and have not unintentionally mimicked its phrasing too closely. The paraphrase below was written using this method.

Appropriate Paraphrasing:

In his essay “The Case Against the Death Penalty,” Hugo Bedau reveals the logical flaws in the principle of just deserts, the argument that death is the only way to make the punishment fit the crime in cases of murder. Essentially, Bedau argues that to follow the old injunction of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” in modern social policy is to follow a false analogy. For if killing must be punished by killing, then all crimes must be punished with the equivalent punishment: rapists punished with rape, torturers punished with torture, et cetera, ad nauseum. Bedau points out that what is called for is not equivalent punishment, but proportional punishment.

E. Common Knowledge

The examples above have illustrated what must be quoted and cited to avoid plagiarism. But sometimes students go from one extreme of not citing anything to the absurd extreme of citing everything. You do not have to cite what is called “common knowledge”—information, facts, ideas, popular sayings, and commonsense principles that are well known, widespread, and usually noncontroversial. For example, it is well known that Sigmund Freud was a famous psychoanalyst who advocated what he called the “talking cure.” This is common knowledge. If you look up his date of birth in an encyclopedia, this too is common knowledge because it is noncontroversial and every encyclopedia will contain the same date. If you are familiar with his theories of the id, ego, and superego, you can discuss these without having to cite Freud or a psychology textbook because these are generally well known. However, if you discuss Freud’s case study of the Wolf-Man in a paper, you should cite it. Keep in mind, however, that as you conduct more in-depth research on a topic, you start to become an expert in that area and discover that certain ideas are “common knowledge” within that field but not for a general audience. If citing what is a very basic idea in a specialized field seems tedious, it may not need to be cited because it may be common knowledge. However, if you have any doubt, it is always best to cite.

F. Citing and Documenting Print and Online Sources

All college students and scholars need to know how to cite and document sources correctly. Citation occurs at the level of the sentence or paragraph. This is when you acknowledge your sources within your sentence (“According to Professor Bedau”) and when you include a parenthetical citation or footnote at the end of each sentence that contains words or ideas originating with another writer. Documentation occurs at the end of your paper in the form of a bibliography that allows your reader to check your sources. (Footnotes and endnotes can also be used.) Bibliographies are also called “References,” “Works Cited,” and “Works Consulted,” depending on the documentation style you are using. “Works Cited” and “References” list every source (including books, journals, websites, films, interviews, etc.) that you quoted, paraphrased, summarized, referred to, or discussed in your paper. If you did lots of research and read many sources but only used a few in your paper, you may wish to add a list of “Works Consulted;” this includes everything that formed the background of your research but was not actually cited in the paper itself.

Documentation styles are shorthand codes that scholars use to include as much data about their sources in as little space as possible. The documentation styles are determined by important scholarly organizations and publishers. There are three main styles of documentation used at the college level. MLA style is an author-page number system used extensively within the humanities. APA style is an author-date system used in the social sciences. Most college-level writing handbooks available at Tufts’ bookstore describe how to use the MLA and APA styles in detail because these are the styles professors usually prefer. Chicago style (or footnotes) can be used in any discipline. Turabian style is a simplified version of Chicago-style footnotes often used for high school and college term papers. In addition to MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian styles, the fields of chemistry, biology, and math have their own numeric systems of citing sources. If you are confused about which documentation style to use, ask your professor for guidance. If your professor says the style is up to you, choose one style and follow the guidelines in your handbook carefully. Be consistent and do not mix styles.

Conducting research online is extremely convenient and fast, especially in the early stages of researching a topic, but online sources may not always be adequate or appropriate for college-level scholarship. Many websites (including Wikipedia) lack the depth, reliability, and authority of scholarly, peer-reviewed books and journals. While many peer-reviewed journals and books are now available in full-text format online, students must take care when conducting research entirely from a computer terminal because sloppy research methods can result in plagiarism (especially when passages are copy-and-pasted into a Word document). It is your responsibility to use extreme caution when using online or electronic sources in a research paper.

There are some excellent websites and online journals that are in-depth, authoritative, up-to-date, and have been peer-reviewed. These, unfortunately, are rare. Much of the information you find online may be erroneous, unreliable, or pure propaganda. It is your responsibility to make sure the online sources you use are as reliable as the books and journals found in the library—all of which, by the way, have been selected for their thoroughness, prestige, accuracy, and reliability. If you are considering using an online source, you should answer these questions: Who wrote this and what are their credentials? Is the Web site sponsored by or affiliated with a legitimate, recognized organization? Is this information intended as advertisement or propaganda? How up-to-date is this information? The Tisch Library offers in-depth workshops on conducting library research, conducting electronic searches, and evaluating online sources.

Online sources and other electronic media require the same kind of citation and documentation as traditional books and journals. If you are citing a full-text document from an online database, cite the document as you would a regular book or journal article, but add the electronic source information to the bibliographic entry. If you are citing a Web site, you will need much more information than just a URL address. You will need to know the name of the author, if one is listed; if not, use the name of the organization sponsoring the Web site. You will need to know the title of the online document or section of the Web site. The Web site itself should have its own title. You will also need to know the date on which the document was posted or the date of the last update. You should also record the date on which you accessed the Web site. And, of course, you will need a shortened version of the URL address. If you are using parenthetical citations in your paper, do not list the URL in the parentheses! Instead, list the online author and page number or section number (or the online author and date posted).

WRONG way to cite a Web site as a parenthetical citation in your paper

If you are using MLA style, list the author’s last name and paragraph number, if these exist. If not, list the Web site sponsor or title of the online document in the parentheses, and nothing else. If you are using APA style, list the author’s last name (or Web site sponsor or document title) and the year of publication in the parentheses.

CORRECT MLA style in-text parenthetical citation: (Bedau)
CORRECT APA style in-text parenthetical citation: (Bedau 1992)

To document the Web site or electronic source in your bibliography, follow the style guidelines in your writing handbook. Generally, websites and other electronic sources are documented like books and journals:

CORRECT MLA style bibliographic entry:
Bedau, Hugo Adam. “The Case Against the Death Penalty.” Capital Punishment Project: ACLU. July 1992. Web. 8 July 2010
CORRECT APA style bibliographic entry:
Bedau, H. A. (1992, July). The Case Against the Death Penalty. [Online document]. Capital Punishment Project of American Civil Liberties Union. <http://users.rcn.com/mwood/deathpen.html>

G. For More Information

The following websites offer excellent advice on citing sources and avoiding plagiarism:

“Citing Sources” section of the Research Guides @ Tufts Web page (scroll down to find the link for “Citing Sources” in the Tool Box)

Research Paper Navigator is Tufts’ time-management tool and step-by-step guide for writing research-based papers.

Research and Documentation Online is Diana Hacker’s detailed and thorough guide to writing about research in college. Sample papers show how to write for different academic fields using the four major documentation styles (MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE).

Purdue Online Writing Lab is the best online writing resource for college students. See their excellent tutorials on using APA Style and MLA Style. The Web site also includes a grammar guide for speakers of English as a Second Language.

Part Two: Computer Ethics and the Appropriate Use of Electronic Resources

I. Computer Ethics

Computer access—so common as to seem a right—is, in fact, a privilege and is conditional upon responsible and ethical use. Copyright law, fair-use policies, and emerging laws concerning downloading are complex issues that you need to understand. The second portion of this booklet deals with these issues. You will be asked to acknowledge your agreement to abide by the Tufts Information Stewardship Policy if you want to use Tufts electronic resources. Be sure you understand the requirements. Increasingly, the consequences for violations are drawing the attention of not only the University, but also of the courts. The University cannot protect you if the recording industry pursues you for downloading even a few MP3 files.

A. An Overview of Your Rights and Responsibilities in Cyberspace

The internet is a powerful tool for communication—powerful in its ability to reach a global audience and revolutionary in its accessibility to those who formerly were only at the receiving end of mass communications. With access to the Internet, anyone can now effectively be an international publisher and broadcaster. By posting to Usenet or establishing a Web page, for example, an Internet user can speak to a larger and wider audience than the New York Times, NBC, or National Public Radio. Many Internet users, however, do not realize that that is what they are doing.

It is not surprising, given these facts, that the internet also has a powerful and revolutionary potential for misuse. Such misuse is particularly prevalent on college and University campuses, where free access to computing resources is often mistakenly thought to be the equivalent of free speech, and where free speech rights are in turn often mistakenly thought to include the right to do whatever is technically possible.

The rights of academic freedom and freedom of expression apply to the use of University computing resources. So, too, do the responsibilities and limitations associated with those rights. Thus, legitimate use of University computing resources does not extend to whatever is technically possible. In addition, while some restrictions are built into the University’s computer operating systems and networks, those restrictions are not the only restrictions on what is permissible. Users of University computing resources must abide by all applicable restrictions, whether or not they are built into the operating system or network and whether or not they can be circumvented by technical means. Moreover, it is not the responsibility of the University to prevent computer users from exceeding those restrictions; rather, it is the computer user’s responsibility to know and comply with them.

So just what are the applicable restrictions? The answer is: the same laws and policies that apply in every other context. Cyberspace is not a separate legal jurisdiction, and it is not exempt from the normal requirements of legal and ethical behavior within the University community. A good rule of thumb to keep in mind is that conduct that would be illegal or a violation of University policy in the offline world will still be illegal or a violation of University policy when it occurs online. Remember, too, that the online world is not limited to Tufts University. Computer users who engage in electronic communications with persons in other states or countries or on other systems or networks may also be subject to the laws of those other states and countries and the rules and policies of those other systems and networks.

It is impossible to list and describe every law and policy that applies to the use of University computing resources and the Internet—since, by and large, they all do—but in the following sections, some are described that students should know about.

B. Copyright Law

Copyright law generally gives authors, artists, composers, and other such creators the exclusive right to copy, distribute, modify, and display their works or to authorize other people to do so. Moreover, their works are protected by copyright law from the very moment that they are created—regardless of whether they are registered with the Copyright Office and regardless of whether they are marked with a copyright notice or symbol (©). That means that virtually every email message, Usenet posting, Web page, or other computer work you have ever created—or seen—is copyrighted. That also means that, if you are not the copyright owner of a particular Usenet posting, Web page, or other computer work, you may not copy, distribute, modify, or display it unless:

• its copyright owner has given you permission to do so, or
• it is in the public domain, or
• doing so would constitute fair use, or
• you have an implied license to do so

If none of these exceptions apply, your use of the material constitutes copyright infringement, and you could be liable under federal law for as much as $100,000 in damages for each use. In addition, if you reproduce or distribute copies of copyrighted material having a total retail value of $1,000 or more, you would be in violation of copyright law and possibly criminal law, even if you do not make a dollar from the distribution or posting. For example, this includes an instance where a software program or a music CD selection is posted on a Web site or is attached to an email you send to someone else or to a list serve. Consider that material with a value of only $50, downloaded 20 times, or sent to 20 friends, would meet this $1,000 threshold. Since the time necessary to restore lost data or damaged material is also covered by this law, it would take only 10 hours of repair time to meet the criminal threshold (federal law provides that the time is billed at $100/hour).

It is usually easy to tell whether you have permission to make a particular use of a work—the copyright owner will have told you so expressly, either in writing or orally—but it is not always so easy to tell whether the work is in the public domain or whether what you want to do constitutes fair use or is covered by an implied license.

It is not unusual for individuals to forward others’ email messages, although this practice technically constitutes a copyright violation in the absence of permission of the author. Cases are rarely pursued in this, since those involved are usually mutual acquaintances or colleagues. But beware, the law may support a legal claim against you if your judgment is wrong about whether the author will feel victimized or damaged by your forwarding of his or her writing to others without permission. It also makes good sense that if you wish an email message that you create not to be forwarded, you should probably communicate this as part of the message.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act

In 1998 the United States Congress passed into law the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This act protects the rights of owners of digital media. The DMCA is beginning to be used as a basis for initiating charges against students who violate the copyright of digital media, including music, movies, software, images, and online books or manuals.

There have been many cases over the past few years involving students being sued by record and media corporations for infringing on copyrights through illegal downloading of music and movies. In some cases the students have had to pay significant amounts of money to settle the cases.

If you are not absolutely certain that a song, movie, or image is NOT copyright protected, then assume it is until you find out for sure. All digital media and software should have a license agreement on its primary download site or in documentation that comes with it.

Read the Tufts Information Stewardship Act. It outlines the responsibilities you have as a subscriber on the Tufts network. It describes what is not permitted on the network and explains conditions to which subscribers must abide. Remember, there are consequences for violating copyright laws both in the University and in the courts. The University will not be able to intervene on behalf of students who are being investigated by the music industry for suspected violations.

Do not take a chance. The music industry is now taking a much harder stance against downloading or providing protected material, even for a few MP3 files. Websites such as Apple’s iTunes, Ruckus, Napster, and Rhapsody have been established that provide legal downloads of music at no cost or inexpensively. Spend the money—protect your future.

C. Public Domain

Generally speaking, a work is in the public domain only if:

• its creator has expressly disclaimed any copyright interest in the work, or
• it was created by the federal government, or
• it is very old

Unfortunately, just how old a particular work must be to be in the public domain depends in part upon when the work was created, in part upon whether and when it was formally published, in part upon whether and when its creator died, and in part on still other factors. So, there is no one specific cutoff date that you can use for all works to determine whether or not they are in the public domain. As a rule of thumb, however, works that were created and published more than 75 years ago are now in the public domain. Works that were created less than 75 years ago, works that were created more than 75 years ago but published less than 75 years ago, and works that have never been published might be in the public domain, but, if you do not know for sure, it is best to assume that they are not.

D. Fair Use

In very general terms, a particular use of a work is fair if it involves only a relatively small portion of the work, is for educational or other noncommercial purposes, and is unlikely to interfere with the copyright owner’s ability to market the original work. A classic example is quoting a few sentences or paragraphs of a book in a class paper. Other uses may also be fair, but it is almost never fair to use an entire work, and it is not enough that you are not charging anyone for your particular use. It also is not enough simply to cite your source (though it may be plagiarism if you do not).

An implied license may exist if the copyright owner has acted in such a way that it is reasonable for you to assume that you may make a particular use. For example, if you are the moderator of a mailing list and someone sends you a message for that list, it is reasonable to assume that you may post the message to the list, even if its author did not expressly say that you may do so. The copyright owner can always revoke an implied license, however, simply by saying that further use is prohibited.

In addition, facts and ideas cannot be copyrighted. Copyright law protects only the expression of the creator’s idea—the specific words, notes, brushstrokes, or computer code that the creator used—and not the underlying idea itself. Thus, for example, it is not copyright infringement to state in a history paper that the Declaration of Independence was actually signed on August 2, 1776, or to argue in an English paper that Francis Bacon is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays, even though someone else has already done so, as long as you use your own words. (Again, however, if you do not cite your sources, it may still be plagiarism even if you paraphrase.)

Exactly how copyright law applies to the internet is still not entirely clear, but there are some rules of thumb:

• You may look at another person’s website, even though your computer makes a temporary copy when you do so, but you may NOT redistribute it or incorporate it into your own Web site without permission, except as fair use may allow.
• You probably may quote all or part of another person’s Usenet or listserv message in your response to that message, unless the original message says that copying is prohibited.
• You probably may NOT copy and redistribute a private email message you have received without the author’s permission, except as fair use may allow.
• You probably may print out a single copy of a Web page, a Usenet, listserv, or private email message for your own, personal, noncommercial use.
• You may NOT post another person’s book, article, graphic, image, music, or other such material on your Web site or use them in your Usenet, listserv, or private email messages without permission, except as fair use may allow.
• You may NOT download materials from Lexis-Nexis, the Clarinet news service, or other such services and copy or redistribute them without permission, unless the applicable license agreement expressly permits you to do so or unless your particular use would constitute fair use.
• You may NOT copy or redistribute software without permission, unless the applicable license agreement expressly permits you to do so.

E. Libel

Libel is the publication of a false statement of fact that harms another person’s reputation—for example, saying that “John beat up his roommate” or “Mary is a thief” can be libel if it is not true. If a statement does not harm the other person’s reputation—for example, “Joe got an A on the test”—it is not libel even if it is false. In addition, a statement of pure opinion cannot be libelous—for example, “I do not like John”—but you cannot turn a statement of fact into an opinion simply by adding “I think” or “in my opinion” to it. “In my humble opinion, John beat up his roommate” is still libelous if John did not beat up his roommate. If you honestly believed that what you said was true, however, you might not be liable if it later turns out that you were wrong.

A libel is published whenever it is communicated to a third person. In other words, if you say, “Mary is a thief” to anyone other than Mary, you have published that libel. That means that almost anything you post or send on the Internet, except an email that you send only to the person about whom you are talking, is considered published for purposes of libel law.

A person who has been libeled can sue for whatever damages are caused by the publication of the libel. Since a libel on the Internet could potentially reach millions of people, the damages could be quite large.

A good rule of thumb to follow: If you would be upset if someone else made the same statement about you, think carefully before you send or post that statement to the internet, because it might be libelous.

F. Invasion of Privacy

There are a number of different laws that protect the right to privacy in a number of different ways. For example, under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, a federal statute, it generally is a crime to intercept someone else’s private email message or to look into someone else’s private computer account without appropriate authorization. The fact that you may have the technical ability to do so, or that the other person may not have properly safeguarded his or her account, does not mean that you have authorization. If you do not know for sure whether you have authorization, you probably do not.

Invasion of privacy, like libel, is also a tort, which means that you can also be sued for monetary damages. In addition to the sorts of things prohibited by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, it can be an invasion of privacy to disclose intensely personal information about another person that that person has chosen not to make public and that the public has no legitimate need or reason to know—for example, the fact that someone has AIDS, if he or she has not revealed that information publicly. Unlike with libel, a statement can be an invasion of privacy even if it is true.       

G. Cyber Bullying

Any behavior, including electronic posting or other communication, that can cause harm, jeopardy, or humiliation to others may constitute invasion of privacy, harassment, or a violation of state laws or university policy on cyber bullying and may result in consequences. Please consult the Dean of Students Office if you have any concerns about such behavior: 617-627-3158.

H. Obscenity, Child Pornography, and Indecency

Under both state and federal law, it is a crime to publish, sell, distribute, display, or, in some cases, merely to possess obscene materials or child pornography. These laws also apply equally to the internet, and a number of people have been prosecuted and convicted for violating them in that context.

The line between what is obscene and what is not is hard to draw with any precision—as one Supreme Court justice said, “I could never succeed in intelligibly” defining obscenity, “[but] I know it when I see it”—but the term basically means hard-core pornography that has no literary, artistic, political, or other socially redeeming value. One reason that it is so hard to define obscenity is that it depends in part on local community standards; what is considered obscene in one community may not be considered obscene in another. That makes it particularly difficult to determine whether materials on the Internet are obscene, since such materials are, in a sense, everywhere, and it is therefore not enough that the materials are legal wherever you are. In one case, the operators of a bulletin board service in California posted materials that were not considered obscene there, but were convicted of violating the obscenity statutes in Tennessee when the materials were downloaded there.

Child pornography is the visual depiction of minors engaged in sexually explicit activity. Unlike obscenity, child pornography is illegal regardless of whether it has any literary, artistic, political, or other socially redeeming value.

Sexually oriented materials that do not constitute either obscenity or child pornography generally are legal. Still, it is illegal in most cases to provide such materials to minors, and displaying or sending such materials to people who do not wish to see them may be a violation of the University’s Sexual Harassment Policy.

I. Hacking, Cracking, and Similar Activities

Under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and under a variety of similar other state and federal statutes, it can also be a crime to access or use a computer without authorization, to alter data in a computer without authorization, to transmit computer viruses and “worms” over computer networks, to send multiple and mass letters, and to engage in other such activities that negatively affect the operation of the University’s computer resources. Engaging in such activities can also make you liable for monetary damages to any person who is harmed by your activities. Again, the fact that you may have the technical ability to do any of these things, or that another computer owner may not have properly safeguarded his or her computer, does not mean that you have authorization. If you do not know for sure whether you have authorization, you probably do not.

J. University Policies

Use of University computing resources is also subject to the University’s Student Code of Conduct, including academic integrity, the University’s Sexual Misconduct/Sexual Assault Policy, and all other generally applicable University policies. Please refer to Section III, Tufts University Information Stewardship Policy for Students in Arts and Sciences and Engineering.

K. For More Information

If you have questions about the legality of your use of University computing resources, it is best to ask before proceeding. You can get general information (but not specific legal advice) from the Dean of Students Office: 617-627-3158.

In addition, you can find more information on these and related topics at the following websites:

10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained                                                      

Commonwealth of Massachusetts Computer Crime Law Update

II. Policies for Tufts Email Accounts and Addresses