Judge Dismisses Copyright Infringement Complaint Against iParadigms, Provider of...

Judge Dismisses Copyright Infringement Complaint Against iParadigms, Provider
of Turnitin.com

OAKLAND, Calif., March 19 /PRNewswire/ -- A Virginia judge has issued a
summary judgment regarding his dismissal of a copyright infringement lawsuit
filed by four high school students against iParadigms over the use of the
students' written works in the Turnitin plagiarism detection service.
The judge stated that iParadigms' use of archived student works to assess
originality of newly-submitted papers constitutes a fair use under US
copyright law and is therefore not copyright infringement. In addition, he
states that such use "provides a substantial public benefit through the
network of institutions using Turnitin."
iParadigms' CEO John Barrie said, "The Turnitin service was created
because of the pressing educational need from institutions to help students
learn to produce original written work -- especially in our 'cut and paste'
digital world. The judge has validated that our service is able to do so
without infringing the copyrights of students' work."
U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton said that, "though iParadigms makes a
profit in providing this service to educational institutions, its use of
student works adds 'a further purpose or different character' to the works."
Such "transformative" works do not violate fair use. Further, because student
works become part of the database against which other students' work is
compared, Turnitin helps protect the papers from being exploited by others who
might profitably claim them as their own work.
About Turnitin
Turnitin is used worldwide by tens of millions of faculty and students to
check student work for originality, to engage students in the peer review of
other students' work, to empower faculty to grade papers online in a fraction
of the time it would normally take using pen and paper, and to propagate best
practices. Turnitin harnesses the Internet to improve education and save
faculty time.
Turnitin receives over 70,000 student papers per day, its usage is
doubling every 12 months, and more than 95% of clients renew each year.
Turnitin has become part of how education works.
About iParadigms
iParadigms, LLC (http://www.iparadigms.com) is the leading provider of
web-based solutions to check documents for originality, plagiarism, and for
misappropriation. The company's products include: Turnitin(R), an internet
service used by tens of millions of students and faculty in over 90 countries
to vet academic work for originality, enable web-based student collaboration,
and provide cutting-edge tools for digital assessment of academic work; and
iThenticate(R), an internet service which enables companies to detect piracy
of proprietary information and to conduct document originality due diligence.
iParadigms is headquartered in Oakland, CA.
SOURCE iParadigms, LLC

Katie Povejsil, Vice President of Marketing of iParadigms, LLC,
+1-510-287-9720, ext. 287, kpovejsil@iparadigms.com