[pp.int.general] Plagiarism is bad because it infringes copyright????

[Richard Stallman]

I will fetch your page and look at it.

    Your quote, by the way, was not contained in the Guardian link you provided.

Did they change the article?  Here's the article as I got it from
their RSS.

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
To: rms at gnu.org
Subject: Plagiarism row fells German minister
Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 11:41:09 -0000
From: "The Guardian World News: Helen Pidd" <rms at gnu.org>

![][1]

Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg was stripped of doctorate by University of
Bayreuth

Germany's defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has resigned after
being unmasked as a plagiarist.

The 39-year-old aristocrat, a baron who was widely tipped as a future
chancellor, handed in his notice to Angela Merkel following almost two
weeks of front page stories about the authenticity of his PhD thesis.

"It is the most painful step I've ever had to take," Guttenberg said in
a press conference.

Last week, the University of Bayreuth stripped Guttenberg of his
doctorate after he admitted (albeit inadvertently, he said) copying
substantially from other sources.

He said the errors arose because he was so busy. While he was working on
the thesis, he was already trying to juggle being an MP along with
raising his two daughters with his wife, Countess Stephanie of Bismarck,
who is a TV presenter.

The admission led to him being dubbed the "minister for cut-and-paste"
and Baron zu Googleberg.

"I'm not going just because of the debate over my thesis, but also
because of the question of whether I can still fulfil the demands I put
on myself," Guttenberg said.

"Some might ask why I am taking this step now. No one wants to
voluntarily give up a job which is so close to their heart.

"I'm going in order to leave behind at least a reasonably well organised
house [ministry]."

He added that his controversial reform of the German army would stand.

Last year he announced the abolition of compulsory military service,
amid a raft of dramatic changes to Germany's armed forces.

He said his resignation was prompted in part because he had become the
story, rather than the German soldiers who are losing their lives to
fight for Germany abroad.

"The death and wounding of soldiers has moved into the background," he
said.

"I was always ready to fight," he said, "but I have reached the limits
of my powers."

Guttenberg resigned on Tuesday, and although Merkel and her conservative
CDU party were initially supportive of their younger colleague, an
increasing number of politicians had broken ranks to suggest his
position was untenable.

The affair was "a nail in the coffin of confidence in our democracy",
said Norbert Lammert, a senior CDU politician.

On Monday, German minister of education and research, Annette Schavan,
welcomed the withdrawal of Guttenberg's PhD, telling reporters she did
not "consider the incident to be a trifle".

While she stopped short of calling for his resignation, she said:
"Intellectual theft is not a small thing. The protection of intellectual
property is a higher good."

Also on Monday, about 23,000 German academics joined the rising chorus
of people demanding his resignation, sending Merkel a joint letter
protesting against her decision to keep Guttenberg on.

Senior members of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister
party to the CDU, of which Guttenberg is a member, likewise began
withdrawing support for him.

Former party head Guenther Beckstein told weekly news magazine
[Stern][2] that the affair "damages both the CSU and Guttenberg
himself".

Another CSU member, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Stern that
Guttenberg was a "dandy, not a politician".

Martin Neumann, parliamentary spokesman for academic issues for the
business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), Merkel's junior coalition
partner, said on Monday that Guttenberg should resign.

"Should he continue to allow the circumstances of his dissertation to
remain so unclear," Neumann told the Financial Times Deutschland
newspaper.

"I think that he, as minister and as the top official of two Bundeswehr
universities, is no longer acceptable," he said.

  * [Germany][3]

  * [Europe][4]

[Helen Pidd][5]


[guardian.co.uk][6] (C) Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this
content is subject to our [Terms & Conditions][7] | [More Feeds][8]

[![][9]][10]

[![][11]][12]

   [1]: http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.2/84895?
ns=guardian&pageName=German+defence+minister+resigns+over+plagiarism+row
%3AArticle%3A1525782&ch=World+news&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Germany%2CEurope+%28Ne
ws%29%2CWorld+news&c5=Unclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful&c6=Helen+Pi
dd&c7=11-Mar-01&c8=1525782&c9=Article&c10=News&c11=World+news&c13=&c25=&
c30=content&h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FGermany

   [2]: http://www.stern.de/ ()

   [3]: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/germany

   [4]: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/europe-news

   [5]: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/helenpidd

   [6]: http://www.guardian.co.uk

   [7]: http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html

   [8]: http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds

   [9]:
http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/z6YObxImk8bafEPyKJurl6QigDw/0/di

   [10]:
http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/z6YObxImk8bafEPyKJurl6QigDw/0/da

   [11]:
http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/z6YObxImk8bafEPyKJurl6QigDw/1/di

   [12]:
http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/z6YObxImk8bafEPyKJurl6QigDw/1/da

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/01/german-defence-minister-resigns-plagiarism



-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org, www.gnu.org