Copy Protection via Plagiarism Search

Public accessibility of digital libraries (DLs) highly depends on the characteristics of the works the respective DL contains. Recent works, publications and theses are rarely accessible for the wide public, or in case they are, they use some kind of copy protection (like protected PDF files, Java Applets or even proprietary client applications) to avoid plagiarism. However, preventing unauthorized copying and, at the same time, ensuring that authorized people can easily access them is very difficult. With ready-made tools available on the Internet free of charge, most copy protection mechanisms can be easily circumvented. Other mechanisms are harder to break, while the official use is also made too complex, in many cases users have to install special programs or tools, which may not work in all systems or which may take too long to get through and would discourage people to further attempt access. Also, other users may face access difficulties when using special tools, such as mobile phones or home page readers. The KOPI Plagiarism Search System developed by the Distributed Systems Department of the MTA SZTAKI proposes an interim solution to protect DLs against plagiarism. Here the protection is twofold: Firstly, if a work is copied, the system can tell whom it was copied from. Secondly, ubiquitous access, the widespread use and wide familiarity of the system can prevent people from presenting others' work as their respective work, as nobody would risk being exposed to be a plagiarist