A federal district-court judge in Illinois has ordered the owner of a company that sells academic papers online that it must prove that it has the permission of the papers’ authors or else shut down its service. One plaintiff in the lawsuit, Chad Weidner, a lecturer at Roosevelt Academy, a college in the Netherlands, found a paper of his offered for sale on one of the defendant’s Web sites. The defendant, Rusty Carroll, runs a company called R2C2, which operates several so-called paper-mill Web sites. Mr. Weidner has told newspapers he hoped the case would send a message about academic integrity. Last year The Chronicle took a close look at the global operations of a major paper mill.
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4 Responses to Federal Judge Tells Term-Paper Mill to Prove It’s Legit or Close Up Shop
jffoster - February 3, 2010 at 2:57 am
“Send a message” is a trite hackneyed phrase. Especially here. This case isn’t about “aacademic integrity” — it’s about copyright infringement. But Mijnheer Weidner is right about one thing — colleges need to rethink paper assignments. Cut the blanket broad topic “term paper” in favor of highly focused topics.
22097237 - February 3, 2010 at 9:27 am
But the Chronicle article from last year showed students could hire a ghost writer for any paper on any topic; it just costs more.
johntoradze - February 3, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Which just goes to show that talent does have its rewards, as does laziness. The reward for talent is to be paid for one’s work because it is in demand. The reward for laziness is to pay for someone else’s work and be little the wiser. But the corrupt lazy do learn something the talented honest do not. They learn how to lie and work the system. They also learn how to recognize each other so they can team up as brothers and sisters in crime. This stands them in good stead later in life as they stab the talented in the back and drink their blood.
davegillespie - February 4, 2010 at 2:17 pm
johntoradze,You may be right as a matter of fact. But you must be having a very bad day.