TurnItIn is stealing our work?

Every time TurnItIn scans one of my papers written for my customers and adds it to its database, it is being unjustly enriched at the expense of the legitimate copyright holder (me). It's time for some class action. Why would they keep copy of my work and don't pay any compensation for using it?

What do you mean? Of course if a client hands in your work as their own it will be added to the database, thats how they work. If you want to scan your own work use writecheck.com which is for students.

A more cogent analysis is provided here: perpetualbeta.com/release/2007/03/turnitin-and-copyright-protection-worse-than-the-disease/

Then the most reasonable thing is don't provide them with your assignment.

Turnitin is not a good plagiarism checker. But the poster has a valid point that it should not claim rights to the submitted paper.

That ain't how it works :)

I agree with the professor.

Most students don't have this option.

Exactly. I wonder if teachers are just too lazy to create unique assignments that make stock answers difficult, or if TurnItIn is just a time-saver (but expensive), or if teachers are getting a kickback from the company. If so, where do I sign up? I'm not saying what TurnitIn does is illegal per se, I am saying that they are being unjustly enriched at the expense of countless students and academic writers every time they add a paper to their database for future comparisons. Oh well, I doubt that anything can stop this juggernaut now.

You may create unique assignments all the time but the core concepts of the course remain the same, which is why it is easier for students to lift portions from previously done essays or other sources. Turnitin is just a deterrent and does not give an assurance that plagiarism will not occur. In any case, any student who really wants to plagiarize can buy a writecheck account and use to keep matching text levels to an acceptable level. Ultimately, fighting plagiarism will be more about the spirit and not the letter of the many rules formulated by universities and educators to fight the vice.

unless there is some other way to take them down; perhaps from the inside?

TurnItIn may technically "steal" your work, but its goal is to prevent plagiarism. Besides, whenever you or a student submits written content to their system, they must agree to their Terms which clearly state that the document will be saved to compare it against other documents and to improve the software.

Plagiarism is a kind of stealing some academic work completed by scholars and researchers, submitted formerly in international journals or as books, and submitting the same content without citing the specific authors in their thesis or assignments. Students frequently get tangled in the midst of these issues as this can reduce their academic grades and deters the quality of the education. In case of academics, many Universities consider the Plagiarism as a greatest academic sin.

In order to safeguard students from these sins, first students must learn about Turnitin, the leading the software used by professors and tutors who value the assignments. Turnitin, is a software, which is a fruit obtained out of toil by four graduate students from UC Berkeley, compiled all research articles, books and peer reviews into it. Thus when a student writes even single word or concept, it is highlighted as plagiarism. But devoid of time, students revise the words and rephrase improperly, but this is also of no use, if it is not cited properly. To escape from such academic sin, student must understand the concept and then write the assigned work to improve the uniqueness. Since, downloading the contents and copy pasting contents alone is not plagiarism, hiring any scholars or experts to complete your assignments as well as dissertations are also plagiarism.

Few other tips may be addressed as follows, firstly, student must familiarise themselves about the subject. Upon such acquaintances, students may be stimulated to write in their own words which will help the better understanding of the theories and concepts as well as models in that particular subjects. The tip is the student must search for plenty of resources about same topic to get more references and various different ideas and chances or degree of plagiarism naturally tend to reduce due to the increased resources for the content written in your assignment. Avoid repeated reading of the other authors who share same set of words for a single concept as this may stimulate your brain to use same words which was recorded in your memory. Never attempt to rephrase the words cited by other authors as still it will show plagiarism. The referencing styles must be used precisely, which means if it is a direct quote, must be cited accordingly. If you have no other go, other than paraphrasing, put the important concept within quotation marks and cite the author name as this will prevent plagiarism.

Student must be aware that plagiarism is a violation of law since they are breaking the patent and copyrights law of any country. But one important viewpoint is, few scientific facts such as "Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can be converted from one form to another" can be used as such facts cannot be copyrighted. But the words you use to express such scientific facts must be unique and must not be copied. If the student is good at grammar, such things are not a matter of fact for them to get accomplished and they slice the eggs easily out. Also, students must possess the knowledge about the citations and the difference between which type of contents requires citations and which of them does not need the same before performing citations in their assignments.

To conclude with, efficient way to prevent themselves from plagiarism which is considered as academic dishonest behavior, students must check their contents in software such as Plag scan, CopyScape and Viper before performing in Turnitin software. Once highlighted as plagiarism student must not attempt that sentence to rephrase instead rewriting will be the best option for prevention.

Technically, Turnitin isn't stealing the OP's work as a writer because he was supposed to have turned over all rights to that paper to the student upon completion and submission of the final written product. So it is the student whose "original work" is loaded to the Turnitin server / database. So if the student isn't complaining, then the OP shouldn't complain either. After all, he was already paid big bucks for the job. Students may not even consciously know that their work is being "stored", as turnitin does not admit to stealing anything from the student, by the company because, in most instances, it is the teacher who loads the paper for plagiarism checking. The teachers pay to have these essays stored on the system for future use, which is why there is actually no "stealing" that is taking place. The papers are stored with the approval of the teachers and their conscious knowledge that the papers will be used as part of a wide anti-plagiarism database.

I believe the OP's point was that his work is being used by Turnitin to add value to their product and to enrich them, not that they're actually "stealing" the content of his work.


Wasn't your initial argument that the writer has no right to complain because it's the customer who owns the copyright to the work? If that's your premise, what gives the professor the right to upload it to Turnitin when the professor doesn't own the copyright, either?

Well, if the OP was the one who uploaded the work for a plagiarism check then yes, it is HIS work that was stolen. It had not been turned over to the student at that point and we are not even sure if the work was totally paid for yet. Until the actual transfer happens, the rights to the work remains with the writer. Once the turnover is completed, then the student owns the work. I would worry more about when the student submits the paper to the teacher. Should it show up in the the database, does that mean the student can be accused of plagiarism? Is it plagiarism if the student can defend himself by saying "I wanted to be sure none of my writing would come up as plagiarized?" Exactly how would such a situation work? Additionally, I would feel better if Turnitin paid the student for uploading work to their database. The universe knows these students could use the extra bucks.

This is incorrect, as I've recently explained at least twice. Copyright does not transfer automatically with the work unless the writer chooses to transfer it to customers (as I do).

Copyright only transfers automatically from the writer to an employer; it doesn't transfer automatically to a company using the writer as an independent contractor or to any customer of a freelancer. That's precisely why essay companies require their (independent) writers to sign contracts agreeing to transfer copyright to the company; otherwise, copyright would remain with the writer even after delivery. If customers want to own the copyright to essays provided by a freelance writer, they should just ask the writer about that. If customers want to own the copyright to work provided by essay companies, they should definitely read the company's TOS very carefully, because every essay company whose TOS I have ever read expressly state that the company retains copyright to any work it produces for customers and expressly prohibits customers from claiming ownership of the work. That means that even submitting it to Turnitin violates the company's copyright (and TOS) if the Turnitin TOS require that the person submitting the work represent that he or she owns the copyright to the work.


PV retired last year, but you can be sure that if he wrote the project, it was definitely already paid for in advance. Like other experienced legitimate writers, PV always required full payment in advance for any project (or portion of any project) before writing it.

Turnitin is less focused on proving students plagiarized papers these days. The focus of the company is more on how to beat AI writing in the modern educational system. They cannot figure out how to accurately flag a paper as being AI written, or that the citations in the paper are incorrectly provided by the AI. The professors are at their wits end in trying to get students to write their actual papers so that they will learn something because "At least AI does not get me flagged for plagiarism." Turnitin is now refocusing its business strategy and trying to learn how to beat AI at its own game.