Artistic Ideas

Different channels are used for intellectual property protection in commercial and legal domains. Historically, copyright has been used to protect works of art. You can't make a copy of an art work without permission. However, it's usually okay to take a photo of a status, or draw a model, even if the same person has been used by another artist with same clothes in same gesture.

Artist who made the iconic campaign poster of Senator Obama lost in a case when AP complained an AP picture was used to produce the poster. However, he lost because 1) the Black&Red poster was actually produced in Photoshop with the original AP photo; 2) he lied about it in the early stage of the trail.

Usually When an art work is found similar to another one, unless it's an exact copy, there's not much to say or to do. One well accepted principle is that you can't 'patent' an idea or a thought. The successfulness of an art piece is determined by the target, the method and the execution.

Did plagiarism epidemic shut down U.S. program in China?

Centenary College in Jew Jersey is a Tier 4 Master Level institution on the 'Best Colleges 2010' of the US News and World Report.  Translated into layman's language, the school ranked the very bottom in the US.  The same school just announced that it had severed its tie to its own satellite campuses in Beijing, Shanghai and Taiwan because of prevailing academic misconduct over there in China.  The Seagull was profoundly puzzled by the announcement because 1) by and large, Chinese students are less likely to commit academic fraud than their western counterparts, for example, those enrolled in the New Jersey campus of the Centenary College.  2) Many other more prominent colleges and universities had opened physical campuses in China, none of them had found some problem.

An article on the popyard pointed to a possible motivation.  Amid the recent controversy triggered by a celebrity (Tang Jun) buying phony degrees from diploma mills in the US, the Education Ministry in China just issued an ordnance that diplomas received from remote education programs offered by oversea institutions would not be recognized.

According to Centenary College's own statement, the tuition of its MBA program in China costs $1,200 in total.  This is below cost either China or US standard, and even cheaper than that of a real diploma mill.  No wonder.