WARNING: If you use Viper / Raptor Plagiarism Scanner / ScanMyEssay, you waive copyright to your own property!

Lol ... how ironic is the above sentence now! :-) You really should keep calm, stress is very bad for you! :)

Carly didn't say I made multiple misrepresentations at all, WB. She thought perhaps my explanation of the difference between the guarantees on Essaybay and Academic Answers' websites could have been clearer. That's all. She sits about 3 metres from my desk and we do actually talk to each other you know.... :-D

You CLEARLY stated that EB is not a part of AA. Do you really want me to prove you to be a LIAR-again? I can easily post the quote. Why don't you just admit that you misrepresented, even if out of sheer ignorance? If you don't, that makes you a liar.

You also misrepresented the "professional" status of the papers in your essay bank.

You also claimed to not promote/advertise your essay bank, which I proved to be a lie/misrepresentation.

So, Jenny, why don't you PROVE which one of my claims is "grossly inaccurate" instead of continuing your pattern of misrepresentative claims? We both know that you do not want to challenge me on the facts, so you should probably just quit while you're behind.


What-no response?

I don't clearly state that EB is not part of AA.

You were saying that there was a link to the essay bank on Essaybay but you were quoting the Academic Answers' websites guarantees, i.e. the custom essay writing site guarantees - which say we don't have an essay bank. They are different sites - Essaybay is a completely different concept to our other essay writing websites. The guarantees on our other sites have nothing to do with Essaybay, where writers set their own guarantees.

You linked to a post where you showed there was an essay bank on Essay Bay (and of course I've previously explained this is actually a marketplace for students to sell their own essays, not for us to sell essays). My reply was that the post you linked to was:

"about Essaybay rather than a website of Academic Answers whereas the guarantee you quote is from Academic Answers' websites".

Yes, not the best wording in the world I admit. We don't guarantee on Essay Bay that we don't own an essay bank as far as I know, but the post you linked to was about EssayBay having an essay bank on. That was my point.

Carly's comment was quite rightly that I could have made it clearer - whilst I was trying to say that the guarantees you quoted only feature on our regular custom essay writing websites (including the guarantee that we don't own an essay bank) it could also be read to mean we don't own Essaybay either. Of course, if you read my posts in context, it's pretty clear I openly and happily admit we own Essaybay as I'm regularly providing answers and info on it, talking about developing it and sometimes providing support - it also says AA own it on the site - so obviously I'm not trying to mislead anyone at all, but have just worded something rather poorly. I don't think that amounts to a misrepresentation but I apologise to you and to anyone else who may have been confused by this.

I did not know that you defended us and I'm of course grateful that you did this.

I never claimed otherwise. You're confusing separate issues. The only relevance that EB has in this matter is the fact that it is the site that advertises your essay bank. I referenced EB only to prove untrue your assertion that AA does not market or advertise its essay bank.


I posted that information after you claimed that your company does not promote or advertise an essay bank. How can you make such a claim when a link to your essay bank is prominently displayed on the EB home page?

Then, I provided Carly with evidence that-in the meta description of at least one of your sites-you falsely market the products in your essay bank as "professional essays." That directly contradicts your claim (in your previous post and elsewhere) that your essay bank is strictly a "marketplace for students to sell their own [amateur] essays, not for us to sell [professional] essays." If, as you claim, none of the papers in your essay bank have been written by your freelance staff or taken from your pool of papers that you wrote for customers in the past, you cannot legally market them as "professional essays." This contradiction directly relates to my original concerns about your overly broad contract for Viper.


"Trying to say" and "actually saying" are two very different things. My point is that-despite what you were "trying" to say-you communicated, in writing, that EB is not a part of Academic Answers. It is not my responsibility to "psychologize" your posts. I deal in evidence and facts, not feelings and intuition.

I just want to know which of my assertions are "grossly inaccurate"?

I gotta agree on that one :-)

You know the only reason I talk to you is because you bring in chocolate for your team, so I come over to pretend to talk about your marketing stuff, but really my eyes are on the Malteasers.

Carly, it's a simple matter of counting.

1. Did you (and/or do you now) not agree that Jennifer's direct claim that AA does not advertise an essay / dissertation papers bank is untrue?

2. Did you (and/or do you now) not agree that the "professional essay" marketing of the essay bank through your "law essays" site (if I recall the site correctly) directly contradicts Jennifer's claim that none of the papers in your essay bank was written by your staff or taken from the pool of papers that AA wrote for customers in the past?

3. Did you (and/or do you now) not agree that Jennifer's written word (referenced above) communicates that EB is not a part of AA (regardless of what she "meant" to communicate)?

4. I really don't think that I need to revisit the contract issues . . . .

What are the best avenues for a student to check to see if their work contains any plagiarism?

turntin is the undisputed leader in this area
writecheck.turntin.com

Yes - you are right - especially as they introduced the option of NOT STORING ON STUDENT REPOSITORY. Until a few months ago, checking through turnitin killed the paper as papers were, by default, stored ... not anymore :)

Does anyone know if that NOT STORING option is, in any way, related to the copyright storm they came under?

My opinion on this is that Jen was thinking about 'active promotions' of the essay bank.

For example, we run email campaigns and yahoo ads for our other sites and services to drive sales and traffic, but we really do nothing to the essaybank.

Her actual comment was:


As she said - we don't actively promote it - she didn't say we don't advertise it on our sites.

In the year and a half + that I've worked here, nobody has actually touched the essay bank - it's not part of the 'company plan' at the moment, and it being left in the sidebar of EssayBay was, as I stated, simply an oversight. It didn't harm the site - it never occurred to me that it didn't need to be on there. In fact, I am sure it is on several other AA sites for the same reason.

Though, I took your comments on board - last week I was updating the menu and decided to take it off. It has no real value to our business or our customers right now.


Again, my point about this was about a simple error in communication. Yes, the essays in the essay bank are written by students, and uploaded in exchange for commission. Nope, they're not from a pool of AA papers. Did Jen set out to intentionally misrepresent our company on this instance? Nope, I told you a member of my team had made this error *in the meta data* of the site - she just didn't know about it! While I agree it puts out the wrong impression about us, it was never an intentional lie!


I agree that it sounds like she's trying to disown EB as a part of AA. As Jen states, she sits right near me - I work on EB stuff, she liaises with me with the new plan we're writing for the site, and it's new functionality/design. It states openly that we're apart of AA, I say I work for AA, etc etc. She'd really have no reason at all the pretend that it doesn't belong to the company. Does it sound like the contrary? Yes, I have gotta agree it does. Did I say that Jen has made multiple misrepresentations? No, it's not that black and white. I just said there were a few communication errors. I mean, the meta data is so insignificant too - it's not like we sit writing this stuff on the essaybank pages intentially trying to dupe people into thinking they'll get 'professional papers' - this is how you've made it sound!!


I'm not sure what these are, so I won't comment. Contract with using Viper, or being a writer on AA?

I said it before, but again, thanks for pulling us up on the errors that've been made. You know, it's easy to add a word into a meta description and not think about how it relates to the page, and it's really hard to pick stuff up like that if you're working in the middle of it every single day. Having a fresh, non-industry related outsider point things out gives you a bit of perspective and really makes you challenge yourselves. I for one will be a bit more careful now when describing what a page is all about; something I'll also pass to my team.

I hope this helps to communicate my views on the above effectively,
Carly

Humbble, WB, exwriter, and OxbridgeResearchers

You should read the terms of use agreement (TOUA) that is required by writecheck.turnitin.com as well as turnitin.com's TOUA.

Here, it is draconian.
Here is the important part:
"License to Use Papers Submitted. 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 the Services any paper You submit 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 Service." They also have a write to change the agreement at any time unilaterally. Seems very similar to viper. (Side note, I am having trouble finding the difference between viper and rapter anywhere, and the scanmyessay.com site does not seem to be well maintained as to links or information to that end.)

Sounds a lot like what WB has been inflammed over with his original Warning post. It seems all of these sites have something similar.

Here is the main problem, as I see it. No one cares if papers are used to check plagiarism, unless you really DO want to be paid for THEIR making money off of your work. However, the problem arises when you submit a paper, THAT IS ORIGINAL, and then someone else submits your paper to check it, usually without your knowledge, like a publisher, and finds IT IS PLAGIARIZED. Why, because of this from writecheck.turnitin.com

writecheck.turnitin.com/pricing_signup.asp?r=69.5288773855708&svr=1 &

"What if I've submitted my paper to Turnitin already?

WriteCheck is intended for papers that have not yet been submitted to Turnitin. If your paper has previously been submitted to Turnitin, it resides in the student paper database. In this situation, you should not use WriteCheck because the analysis will result in a very high number of matches, due to the paper being compared against itself. You will not be able to distinguish between these self-matches and those against other sources. If you have questions, please contact Help through the link at the bottom of the page. "

Ask yourself WHY the writecheck site needs this TUOA statement, IF as they say, THEY do not retain a copy of your work, and therefore are providing simply a service YOU PAY for to HELP you reference your material properly. Cough Cough.

Since their privacy statement, which you should also read, prevents them from telling anyone about you, without a subpoena and legal right to disclose that information, what the publisher will see or Law School professor, is that YOU ARE A PLAGARIZER! fortunately, it is only to your own work, and you are innocent of the charges. Easy to prove? NO!

There is no paper trail that you can point to that you can use to defend yourself in this circumstance, since you are already accused, tried and convicted once the results come back to whomever is checking your work. IF they decide to share that information, AND give you a chance to defend yourself, you will NOT be able to ask turnitin.com for the data to vindicate yourself, cause first they do not have that service, and second, the work YOU gave your teacher, employer, or publisher has been turned in by them, and turnitin cannot release that information without violating their PRIVACY.

I am sure you can see how this can get out of hand. Further as the database gets huge, you will be convicted of plagiarizing items YOU HAVE NEVER seen simply by the shear mathematical probability that people in a similar culture say things similarly, and often identically. Everything we are taught has been a regurgitation of something we heard or read, WITHOUT a running endnote, reference, or footnote. So to put it bluntly, there are rare occasions of original thought, but most of what we know is built on what we have been told. Since our brains do not have running references, we will at some point repeat or think in a way we have been taught and write the same way. Without going into the ludicrous strict definitions of plagiarism, should you decide to say, "the sun is 93 million miles from earth." without a reference, you could and in one environmental class I was involved with, a student WAS accused of plagiarism. But I digress.

The point is if you are ethical, and want to be sure your work is referenced properly, you must be able to retain the copyright to your work, and you must NOT be falsely accused of plagiarism, simply because you used one of these services to help you to reference the work properly. Yet there, at the moment, seems to be no such thing that will prevent you from plagiarizing your own work, once submitted by anyone. That also begs the question, once Person A submits your work with or without your knowledge and/or permission for checking, Person B, who also submits your work for whatever reason will find it plagiarized, as described above, and so on. In this Interconnected world, no one has any idea who will use your work for what end, or how many times it might be submitted for checking by people or entities unbeknownst to you.

The only plagiarism service that would be safe to use is one that checks against published/Internet works, so that you can reference your work to what you could POSSIBLY have seen. For example, a friend of mine was falsely accused of plagiarizing a Scottish work that could only have been seen by Faculty at that University, and he was in Los Angeles, which meant he could NOT have seen it to plagiarize it. He at the time was a high school student having nothing to do with Scotland or that Univeristy. Yet with the behemouth database of turnitin.com somehow that work from Scottland was in the database and worded the information, 3 lines in the entire paper, i.e 1%, the same way. Somehow, with turnitin.com technology/crawler the teacher was given a link to that work. When the student trying to defend himself said he never saw it, and requested a way HE could have gotten to that website, without the link provided by turnitin.com, there was NO WAY. It seems turnitin.com like google has technology that can hack other databases, and get information you and I will never know existed, or could possibly have access to, ETHICALLY. I found turnitin.com's hack of that Scottish database, unethical. Yet the ethical student got a Zero and and F in the class.

This is dangerous stuff on both sides of the debate.

Yours Truly,
Joe

One more thing, if you happen to want to use viper or raptor, you will be unable to, since the registration does not work. When you register, it is supposed to send you a password, which DOES NOT COME. Also, the link to raptor does not work, so there is no way to use the online service either. Carly and Jennifer's have been spending their time here rather than supportting their own product, making the worry about the service irrelevant. :P.

Also, there does not seem to be a support page to even inform them of any problems users might have, or potential users, so that seems odd for a company that claims, as Jennifer and Carly has, that they are trying to take care of their users and form relationships.

I have submitted notification through their contact us, cause this world badly needs a service that can help people, ethical people, properly reference their work without penalty for using the service that is supposed to help them.

Oh well, the world is not as one suspects it should be. :-(

Helpful Joe

One more thing, if you happen to want to use viper or raptor, you will be unable to, since the registration does not work. When you register, it is supposed to send you a password, which DOES NOT COME. Also, the link to raptor does not work, so there is no way to use the online service either. Carly and Jennifer have been spending their time here rather than supporting their own product, making the worry about the use of the service irrelevant. :P.

Also, there does not seem to be a support page to even inform them of any problems users might have, or potential users, so that seems odd for a company that claims, as Jennifer and Carly has, that they are trying to take care of their users and form relationships.

I have submitted notification through their contact us, cause this world badly needs a service that can help people, ethical people, properly reference their work without penalty for using the service that is supposed to help them.

Oh well, the world is not as one suspects it should be. :-(

Helpful Joe

Oh well, cannot use contact us, either.

This is the error message:
Notice: Undefined index: ScanMyEssay Contact Form in C:\Home\s\c\scanmyessay\www\mail\process.php on line 45

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at C:\Home\s\c\scanmyessay\www\mail\process.php:45) in C:\Home\s\c\scanmyessay\www\mail\process.php on line 97

Guess they cannot afford to take care of their service or website very well.
Too bad. Or maybe that is good, depending on your point of view. The company itself has made WB's desire that no one use their service a fact, because no one can, at the moment.

HelpFul Joe

If you visit PlagiarismScanner.com you can get a virus (at least today), so make sure to have a good anti-virus software installed on your computer if you have a reason to visit that site.

Hi, I'm really worried because ive just used Viper scanmyessay.com to check my essay for plagairism and i am now scared that they will have kept my esssay and when my uni comes to check it they will find the exact same one on another website! :(

Is there a way to check to see if anyone has my essay?

Thanks.

Ok, here is what I cannot understand. I hope someone clarifies it for me. On the VIPER website, they claim:

"we'll take your essay and add it to our database so that future scans that you or other people make can be compared to it. Nobody has access to this database and if part of your essay matches another essay, other people cannot see your work - they only see a percentage match. "

At the same time, on their website they have a bunch of testimonies from university professors, showing that VIPER is obviously used to track for plagiarism in universities. They say that when you scan your essay, it goes to the database for future scans to be compared to it, right? So what happens when you scan your essay, it goes to their database for future scans to be compared to it and then later a professor/reviewer uses viper to scan the very same essay for plagiarism? He will see the percentage match with the essay the student has previously scanned by Viper and he will think that it has been plagiarized, even if it was not. And how is the student then able to prove that he has actually written this essay and not someone else - VIPER will not show the entire work, but just fragments/percentage match. I mean, the whole idea of using VIPER then is contradicting itself and instead of "offering you peace of mind" is doing just the opposite - the moment you scan your work, even if it is 100% original, if a professor later uses Viper, he will think it is plagiarized. What is the point?

I am guessing you have answered the question in your reply above. Why would a prof. check an essay later? It's only the current term, the current semester where it should show your essay is NOT plagiarized. In my amateur opinion, not only VIPER but also other scanners follow similar procedures.

stop guessing

Conclusion

In conclusion we thank god to help us achieving the purpose of this project or Assignment that we did. Ethics now is applied into too many principles of our lives. It is the protocol that governs the communication or behavior of the person to lead him to good actions. Ethic was very important in using Internet inside the college to lead to good behavior of student. Students should come from their homes with a lot of principles of ethics about the life. We hope that we cover most the aspects of using internet ethically by students. Thank goes to Mr. Basem for any clarification and help.

References

- pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Social-Networking-Sites.aspx

- Wikipedia site.

Haha at Wikipedia being a "reference".

Part of the "one", WB?

And who are you a part of?

Jennifer is a frustrated, morally defeated employee of a company that I OUTED for engaging in shady business tactics (which other employees of the company admitted soon thereafter) related to its "plagiarism" software. Nice try, though.

Your company must really suck.

scanmyessay.com/terms.php

May 28, 2014

********************
When you scan a document, you agree that 9 months after completion of your scan, we will automatically upload your essay to our student essays database which will appear on one of our network of websites so that other students may use it to help them write their own essays. You agree that any right you may have to remuneration for such use of documents is waived.

********************

Gee, I wonder why Jenny never responded.

UPDATE:

"At ScanMyEssay.com, we're very transparent about how we run Viper. [LMAO! YEAH, FINALLY, YEARS LATER, AFTER HAVING BUILT-UP A SUFFICIENTLY HUGE DATABASE OF STUDENTS' COPYRIGHTED WORKS, ALMOST CERTAINLY WITHOUT THE STUDENTS' ACTIVE KNOWLEDGE OR PERMISSION.] When you scan an essay, . . . we will automatically add it to our student database and it will be published . . . ."

SOURCE:
scanmyessay.com/viper-use-essay.php

TurnItIn doesn't even do that! Why? Well, because TurnItIn sees no value in publishing students' copyrighted works.

As I originally stated in 2009, the true agenda of this outfit was to eventually use students' copyrighted works for monetary gain by way of search engine traffic generated by the published papers.

Anyone still doubt what I originally stated about the future plans of this outfit?

I wonder what JenniferAA has to say now.

So.. if a student submits a PhD dissertation then they will just publish this dissertation as their own without the student's written consent (and make money on this free content)? If that's the case I see absolutely no value using this 'service.'

Btw - are they related to grammarly? - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammarly -- the fact they have 'an office' in Kiev, Ukraine, makes me think there may be something doubtful going on.

Yes, that's what their terms state. They obviously think that they are immune to legal action simply because they put a little "Request Removal" link on each paper's page (for example, see ukessays.com/essays/arts/land-art.php). They are dead wrong, considering the manner in which they "acquired" papers dating back to 2009 (and before).

Based on the numbers of papers currently assigned to each category at ukessays.com/essays/, the total number of papers that ukessays.com has "acquired" via plagiarism scan through Viper stands at 318,504. I think that we can fairly safely assume that the number of separate authors is probably about 80% of that number. So, let's assume that there are approximately 254,803 separate authors who submitted a total of 318,504 papers for a plagiarism scan through Viper. How many of those 254,803 copyright owners were honestly, sufficiently, and clearly advised--in advance--that their property would be published at ukessays.com? Those 254,803 copyright owners have lost all privacy AND the inherent value of their papers as one-of-kind products. Ukessays is also responsible for any and all instances of any paper having been copied from Ukessays.com and re-published elsewhere.

This would make for a very, very interesting class action lawsuit.

Also, how many of the hundreds of thousands of new people downloading the software are aware of what happens to their copyrighted property after they submit it for a plagiarism scan at Viper / scanmyessay.com?

download.cnet.com/Viper-the-Anti-plagiarism-Scanner/3000-2051_4-10795356.html

Correct. In addition, it's important to consider the fact that once something is published online, it is scraped/copied by dozens of 'scraping robots' that will eventually re-publish the content in multiple places (then, even if the content is removed from one of the sources, it will still be hosted online on other domains in a few different countries/jurisdictions).

Right.

If you had carried out your research properly you would have known that Jennifer left the company years ago after splitting up with the boss Barclay and set up a rival essay writing service.

essay.uk.com/about.php

The current CEO of UK essays, Tony split from his long time partner of 10 years Karina (Finance manager) in 2011 after being cheated on by Barclay himself and thus spends his free time in the south Atlantic ocean spearfishing.

vice.com/en_uk/read/ascension-island-is-where-all-your-fishing-dreams-come-true

Barclay moved to Ibiza and discovered God.

No wonder Tony is giving Barclay such a dirty look!

academicknowledge.com/about-us/

Do your research!

"samm," thanks for your completely irrelevant post.

By the way, assuming that I do not already know about certain things (especially the things that are already publicly available online) proves that you are quite naive and clueless.

The post was in response to you comment:

'I wonder what JenniferAA has to say now.'

Why naive and clueless?

In response to "me" comment? OK.

Simpleton, please understand that answering for her deception has absolutely nothing to do with her current relationship status or place of employment.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste . . . .

By the way, the fact you responded here about an hour after I posted tells me that--for personal reasons--you have automated monitoring set up for this thread. That--in turn--tells me that you are a current/former employee, partner, or friend of one or all of the parties involved. In fact, considering your "inside" knowledge of the parties' personal affairs (no pun intended) and abrasive tone, it's fairly likely that you are Jennifer.

'You' was obviously a typo, I meant 'Your'.

Ha, Simpleton, if only you knew. Well it is you sir who is the simpleton because Jennifer has already stated what she thinks about it and it's publicly available online, if you weren't so clueless you would have already shared it, care to post the link?

A mind as good as yours is a terrible thing to waste .....

Again, you do not seem to understand the simple concept: I want her to directly answer--HERSELF--here. Is that clear enough for you, "samm"?

It's actually Sam but that username was already taken, so please excuse the additional 'm'.

I understand the concept well and good, but Jennifer posting a response on here is very unlikely to happen if what your research says about their deceptive practices is true, so you are fighting a losing battle.

Why not just report it to Google and Cnet etc if you care about it so passionately?

Also, you didn't answer the question about posting the link in my last post does that indicate you are not aware of it?

Jennifer's EssayUK site claims writers get 60 GBP for 1500 words...seems a bit miserly considering the strength of that currency.

This doesn;t make any sense. Why would a student willingly put his essay into a database where it can come up in any form that the writing company would want it to come up as? They can erase the student's name, thus making the paper "original" and the "property" of the company, making the student a plagiarist if the company wishes to. They can also resell the same paper to any student, then claim that the paper appears in the database because the student willingly submitted the essay for a plagiarism check. There are just too many problems with using these "free" plagiarism scanners. I still say, let the teacher do the plagiarism checking. Make the professor earn his salary by making him check for plagiarism. It should not be the student's job to prove the originality of his paper.

Let's all take a minute to remember that due to anti-plagiarism software, prewritten papers have no value.

Pre-written papers have totally lost their value in the time of AI. It is understood that students can get a pre-written paper via the AI app, which will give them a somewhat originally written draft that they can base their actual essay, research paper, or thesis on. The AI written work is not to be submitted for a grade because the professors can sense that a mile away. The main problem with the pre-written AI paper is that it will most likely return plagiarized content, without ever telling the student where that bit of plagiarized, cut and paste information came from.

Pre-written essays started becoming worthless because of turnitin, about 15 years before the first AI programs ever hit the market, starting in 2007, and became entirely worthless as soon as turnitin (and other plagiarism-detection scanners) became standard throughout higher education. However, unlike pre-written essays, AI-generated essays can't be detected by any scanners, precisely because AI text is entirely original and not copied directly from any source. If you're defining plagiarism more broadly, to include the un-credited use and paraphrasing of ideas, then, yes, AI writing is also substantially plagiarized, because AI writing programs don't formulate substantive ideas of their own. But, as bad as AI writing currently still is, AI-generated text is usually entirely original. Professors now know how to identify it with certainty, but not because the text (itself) is plagiarized.