Yale U. Complains That Chinese University Press Plagiarized Free Course Materials

June 7, 2011, 5:55 pm

A university press in China appears to be selling transcripts of Yale University’s free online courses in a new volume, sparking complaints from Yale officials. Under the terms of the course giveaway, called Open Yale Courses, others cannot profit from the material.

Shaanxi Normal University Press recently published the compilation of five Yale open courses, according to a post today on a Yale Alumni Magazine blog. The book reportedly lifted largely from Chinese subtitles translated by a nonprofit group called YYeT, though that group insists it was not involved in the publication, whose author is listed as Wu Han.

Yale’s general counsel’s office has “reached out to the parties involved to resolve this issue,” said Tom Conroy, a Yale university spokesman, in an e-mail interview, though he said he could provide no other details.

An official from Shaanxi Normal University told Global Times that it secured permission from the author but not from Yale, and added that it is now investigating the matter.

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burger1234

What does Yale expect? It is China where they copy and steal everything.
sualum2002

burger1234, I completely agree. I’ve been living and working in China for five years and I am amazed at the content they routinely rip off (advertisements, books, cd’s, learning materials, music, movies…). So, this doesn’t surprise me at all, but I think it is also a warning for other institutions out there who have grand visions of working and profiting from Chinese students–be prepared to have everything you know, everything you publish, everything you want to retain for proprietary reasons go for 10 RMB on the open market here.
http://twitter.com/FUN2020 Michael Vallance

It is sad indeed. Students want to learn and instructors desire resources for teaching. But there are the unscrupulous who simply focus on short term financial gain of other people’s hard work and human spirit. The authorities in China need to act. Or one day the great firewall of China will be blocked the other way so that worldwide shared academic resources will be inaccessible within China. Good luck good students.
richardtaborgreene

We WERE in their position—-I think it was Eleanor Westney’s book on Meiji Japan copying USA and British and German stuff, in which she mentioned letters by British investors to the US circa 1860, 1880 bitching mightily with affront about sneaky Americans stealing British technologies, and work place secrets. Notice too, US interest in free trade developed decades AFTER reaching world number one in per capita GDP—when nations on method grounds are unassailable they open themselves to assail. Duh In this case students can go directly to the free originals, it appears, but do not because of the convenience of a translation into their own language. They are paying for translation in effect. Reasonable but not part of the original license. Translation if anything is more difficult in some cases than re-imagining the original—it is a lot of work if done decently.
heiguazi

As always, Chinese officials say that the matter is under the investigation. Then you never know what happened.
chriskox

Please maintain a distinction between plagiarism and copyright violation. There is no crime but dishonor in the former, and the only place for its prosecution is the classroom or the tenure review committee.
burger1234

I am living in China now. Actually, I can’t access the free originals, but I can find the free version with Chinese translation. But, China does this often. They block certain webpages in order to promote their own, domestic versions. Why do you think they attack google so much. The government has its hand in Baidu’s pocket. Facebook? Twitter? All blocked to support QQ, xiaonei, etc. You are either Chinese or a naive westerner who sticks up for China all the time.
burger1234

Yep, been living in China for 7 years myself. I personally love the christmas songs they rip off and make them into some kind of strange pop song. I also get a kick out of wumart, or the fact that Lining shoes basically copies everything nike does. Did you ever see the fake Iphones? Now that is a laugh. haha.
davi2665

Wow! How SHOCKING that a group in China has stolen other’s property. This is the land of IP rip offs, low quality knock offs, and plagiarized scientific papers and dissertations. Are we actually supposed to be surprised? With all the sensitivity about “saving face” one would think that is would be humiliating to be known as IP and copyright thieves. Pathetic!
5768

Same reason I receive letters from prospective Chinese graduate students over the years which contain identically stilted English phrases that span several decades–one has to assume there is ONE key book of form letters from which everyone copies.
richardtaborgreene

Neither, I believe—-I am something else—-a Westerner who outgrew the indoctrination of parents, public schools, media, and peer pressure and worked 40 years to see the world from frameworks NOT from my own culture alone but from half a dozen other cultures. The result—I can mightily mightily irritate, without trying, and sometimes, when I get lucky, I can notice and do things in situations no one else sees and does, bringing some modicum of novelty into the world.

I am not really a proponent of the lifelong sports team view of nations as competing basketball teams, fighting to show whose team is better—I find that adolescent. China cheats by OUR standards but we TILT our standards to keep places like China poor. Example—all those AID organizations, when not CIA covers, are bribes to leaders while we keep our markets closed. Opening our markets would multiply income to poor nations by over 1300% compared to the AID (cover = bribe for keeping trade closed). Not to mention 50 years of world bank giving to Bangladesh that did 1/20th what Yunnus (recently deposed) did with a few hundred dollars of his own start up capital. I felt living and working within one nation’s views, at my age of 20 or so, extremely dangerous and academically dishonest.
charlesch

Burger 1234, Why have you been in China for so long then? To learn how to copy and steal everything? Well, as one of the posters correctly has pointed, stealing or copying without crediting or payment, however you define it, is exactly what Americans and virtually other countries have done at different points of time? I know it is a long story, but have we forgotten how the Britons, Americans, and other Europeans tried all means, for more than a few centuries. to literally steal how the Chinese made their Chinaware, silk, and cultivated and dried their tea, let alone their gunower, printing, etc.? (Missionaries, traders, diplomats, and scholars all participated in the stealing of Chinese silkworms and tea plants and so on). Welcome to the modern capitalist world. By the way, capitalism was another thing the Chinese have stolen and outwitted the Americans in!
charlesch

What kind of posters do we have here nowadays?
tsts

“Yale U. Complains That Chinese University Press Plagiarized Free Course Materials”

Mr. Young – could you be a little more careful about the title of your article? “Chinese University Press” is the name of the university press of the Chinese University in Hong Kong, and it has nothing to do with this case.
burger1234

to richard,

How are you going to justify saying that the US market is closed with such a huge trade deficit? China’s market is completely closed. I’m assuming you know nothing about trade statistics as well as your ignorance for what the Chinese are doing with copying. You compare with what nations did in the past, but now with a knowledge based economy, IPR protections are far more important than the mercantilist policies of the past. China is poor? You obviously haven’t been to china lately. The government is one of the richest in the world while only a fraction of the people actually benefit from China’s rapid growth. But, i can see from your post that you are a know-it-all. All you have to do is take a look at China’s trade barriers, both traditional and non-tradition, to see that you are wrong about China. I am still waiting for you to respond about QQ, Baidu, and Xiaonei. I will be waiting for your answer.
richardtaborgreene

BESIDES great cheating is EXCELLENT prep for Harvard Business School and Wall Street!!!!!!!!!
drjeff

Hadn’t thought of that… Good point. Those poor Chinese students may not got a shot at the $50k academic jobs and have to settle for a $234k job on Wall St. My heart goes out to them.