Plagiarism

July is shaping up to be the cruelest month for Avril Lavigne. Over the past two weeks, the pop princess' carefully crafted image as the anti-Britney Spears - that is, a chart-topping ingenue who writes her own songs, spits at paparazzi and has shaped her own spiky-yet-vulnerable image - has come under attack on multiple fronts. In a lawsuit made public last week, the 22-year-old Canadian superstar is being sued for copyright infringement. She's accused of plagiarizing a substantial part of "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend," a song by '70s new wave group the Rubinoos, for her hit "Girlfriend."

Just hours after The Baltimore Sun broke the news that a longtime Towson University professor, Benjamin Neil, was under investigation for allegations that he plagiarized several of his academic articles, the city schools ethics panel webpage underwent a rapid revision. The Sun had been investigating several of Neil's papers for more than a week when it received word that Neil, who had denied any wrongdoing in a March 25 interview, had resigned his post as the chair of the school district's ethics panel.

Linus Torvalds, receiver of stolen goods? That's the assertion of a Utah software company whose lawsuit against IBM Corp. threatens to cripple the surging popularity of the Linux operating system. You know Linux, the powerful operating system software that anybody can download off the Internet at no charge. Torvalds is the legendary Finnish-born programmer who developed its kernel - the core software that handles Linux's most basic functions - and for whom the software is named. Once scorned as a toy for nerds, Linux is now so powerful and versatile that it can do most of the tasks once reserved for expensive operating systems such as Unix.

DURHAM, N.C. - Like most other college students, Eric Rogers knows that submitting a term paper taken off the Internet is outright plagiarism, cause for suspension or a failing grade. What about using a paragraph? "Just a paragraph?" he said. Beneath a Duke cap worn backward, he pondered. "A big paragraph or a small paragraph?" "Taking a paragraph and changing words, I've done that before; it wasn't a big deal," he decided finally. "As long as I can manipulate it to be my words, change a few, it's not cheating."

IN LESS THAN a year, two major national newspapers have devoted pages of their main news sections to special reports-not on the war on terrorism or the war in Iraq or the presidential race - but on their own egregious mistakes. In May, it was The New York Times, one of the country's most respected newspapers, explaining how reporter Jayson Blair had deceived readers. This month, it was USA Today, the nation's most widely circulated newspaper, explaining how foreign correspondent Jack Kelley invented stories from locales around the globe.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Since the end of the apartheid era, visits by Queen Elizabeth, Pope John Paul II and Mick Jagger have signaled South Africa's return to the international arena.Now another name can be added to that list: Ronald McDonald.The hamburger clown made his debut last week at the opening of South Africa's first McDonald's restaurant, hours after the company won a court order barring a local competitor from using its trademarked golden arches, names and logo.The local company had opened outlets in Johannesburg and Durban under the name "MacDonald's" -- with the extra a. In addition to the subtly different name, it offered a burger called a Big Mac as well as something called a Little Mac.But a South African court ruled Friday that the local company could not use the symbols of McDonald's at least until another hearing Dec. 3.The United States had already placed South Africa on a "watch list" of countries for failing to protect intellectual property, since a lower court had ruled that the locals could "borrow" the hamburger trademarks.

In less time than it takes to say "copycat," a computer program can scan a student's work and determine whether a paragraph, a page or an entire project is original, or plagiarized from one or many sources. Faculty members have become just as sophisticated as their students when it comes to using technology: They can detect and deter cheating. Some professors, such as those at Georgia Tech, developed their own programs to catch cheaters. Their program alerted the professors that 187 students in two computer classes might have submitted copied or collaborated-on work.

A consultant hired to work on an independent review of the Howard County school system's practices and operations resigned last month because he said he had doubts about the integrity of the effort. The consultant, John Baldwin, said the lead consultant of the six-month study told him to "plagiarize from another report done for the Galveston, Texas, school district rather than try to write an honest assessment of the work going on in Howard County schools." Baldwin did not identify the consultant.

Arafat never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. (Abba Eban said it first; no plagiarism here.) If the election is too close to call in Maryland, Bush must be a lock nationwide. West Nile virus in New York, plum pox in Pennsylvania. this globalization has gone too far. Every comparable span near Baltimore, Philly, and NY charges tolls. Why not the next Woodrow Wilson Bridge over the Potomac?

(Ivan Turgenev)(1818-1883)A Russian novelist, Turgenev sat on the editorial board of the newspaper the Contemporary.For his 1860 novel "On the Eve," he was accused of plagiarism. He demanded that three literary men judge the case, and he was cleared of the charge.His book "Fathers and Sons" was also surrounded in controversy and caused Turgenev to leave Russia. He retaliated in part with "Smoke."Turgenev's last attempt at a novel was "Virgin Soil," which also met with much criticism.-- Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia