Turn It In - Part 1 (Terms of Service)

Continuing my examination of Turn It In, has brought me to reviewing their Terms of Service and Terms of Usage.

The Terms of Service (TOS) is a 10-page Microsoft Word document in 12 pt. font Times New Roman. Due to its length and extensive use of "legalese", I will not be inserting it here. Rather, I will comment on parts of it. I will do my best to make sure that everything is presented in context and fairly before I pass judgment on anything.

"Originality Reports
If You are a School Administrator or Instructor, You agree to maintain any of iParadigms' notices (including legal notices relating to iParadigms' proprietary rights (e.g., copyright and trademark notices) and disclaimers on Originality Reports. You further agree to exercise Your independent professional judgment in, and to assume sole and exclusive responsibility for, determining the actual existence of plagiarism in a submitted paper with the acknowledgment and understanding that the Originality Reports are only tools for detecting textual similarities between compared works and do not determine conclusively the existence of plagiarism, which determination is a matter of professional judgment of the Instructor and Institution. Any disclosure of an Originality Report to any third party is at Your own risk. "
>>So basically, TurnItIn is just using a search engine to take specific parts of your written work and compare it to the results on the internet. My professor (Dr. Larry Udell) explained this to me as saying that it can find multiple plagiarisms in a paper, but it the instructors responsibility to find out what is actually going on. It is that individuals job to determine, (i.e.): If a quotation mark was forgotten; If a citation was written incorrectly; if the student did plagiarize; or if the student used part of his own paper that had already been submitted to TurnItIn. The instructor, being a professional, should be able to read the essays and recognize what does not sound like the words of that student, and then Google the suspicious material himself instead of going through a third-party website.

"License to Use Communications and Papers Submitted
You grant iParadigms a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, world-wide, irrevocable license to reproduce, transmit, display, disclose, archive and otherwise use Your Communications on the Site or elsewhere for our business purposes. iParadigms is free to use any ideas, concepts, techniques, know-how or information in Your Communications for any purpose, including, but not limited to, the development and use of products and services based on the Communications. This license does not include any right to use ideas set forth in papers submitted to the site. Please note that papers submitted to the Site are not read or reviewed by any individuals, but rather are only analyzed using the Licensed Programs. However, nothing herein shall preclude iParadigms from using information independently created by iParadigms.

With regard to papers submitted to the Site, You hereby grant iParadigms a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, world-wide, irrevocable license to reproduce, transmit, display, disclose, archive and otherwise use in connection with its Services any paper You submit to the Site whether or not originally submitted in connection with a specific class. This license shall survive the termination of the User Agreement. Any cessation of use of the Site shall not result in the termination of any license You grant herein to iParadigms."
>>On-site communications are free for TurnItIn to use (reproduction, transmittal, display, disclosure, and archive). The parent company (iParadigms) is permitted to use any part of said communication for whatever they want, including development and products and services, HOWEVER, this will not be done with any intellectual property in papers submitted. What if our communication highlights some of the ideas we plan on writing about? However, by comparing user-generated papers to newly submitted papers, intellectual property is being used for TurnItIn’s products and services. Our papers are scanned by a program, not a person, so there are no people that could take our essay and use it for themselves. Answer to my contradiction: anything users submit to the site (papers) can be used in accordance with an IRREVOCABLE LICENSE (and immortal, since that license will continue to exist even if TurnItIn.com ceases to have an online presence. So what does this part mean, because I am clueless now.

"Sole Remedies
IF YOU ARE A STUDENT OR INSTRUCTOR, YOUR SOLE REMEDY FOR DISSATISFACTION WITH THE SITE, THE SERVICES, AND/OR HYPERLINKED WEB SITES IS TO STOP USING THE SITE AND/OR THOSE SERVICES."
>>If you don't like it, don't use it. Does that mean, since I personally do not like TurnItIn, I can just refuse to use it, without worrying about repercussions from my instructors? No way.

Moving on to the Terms of Usage...

"The contents of the Site may not be distributed, modified, reproduced, or used, in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of iParadigms, except that you may download content from the Site to any single computer, provided you keep intact all copyright, trademark, and other proprietary notices. Except as provided in these Terms and Conditions, any use of these materials on any other Web site or networked computer environment for any purpose is prohibited."
>> Uh, oh. It already sounds like I am in trouble. I can't take information from the site and discuss it while looking at specific things that bother me? That is rather oppressive.

That's it for now. Anyone have opinions yet?