The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is Hirohiko Fujiwara. He gets the award for the following.

A former assistant professor of Meiji University's School of Information and Communication plagiarized 96 percent of a report on copyright submitted to the Institute of Intellectual Property, sources said Monday.

The plagiarism is a violation of the Copyright Law.

Hirohiko Fujiwara, 45, was in France from January 2003 to September 2004 as part of the institute's research program for the Japan Patent Office. While there, he wrote an 83-page report titled "Changes in Ideas on Copyright in France." Two-hundred copies of the report were printed in March 2005, along with an English translation.

A scholar noticed the plagiarism in September 2006, and the School of Information and Communication discovered that 96 percent of the report comprised direct quotes from several theses, including those of Hiroaki Miyazawa, a copyright researcher. There were no clear indications what parts of the report were quotations, though Fujiwara did put an annotation in eight of the 10 sections, saying, "In order for the summary, there are places I have referred and quoted from other theses."

The Copyright Law stipulates that parts of a paper that are quoted matter must be identified as such and the quotes cannot be altered. Miyazawa, 71, noted the irony. "It's a shame that copyright was infringed in a thesis about copyright itself," he said.

It sure is Mr. Miyazawa and ironic too. Plagarising papers on Copyright law. I haven't read such a funny bit of non-criminal news in weeks and that is why I make Hirohiko Fujiwara today's Knucklehead of the Day.

Hat tip- Marmot's Hole
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