Plagiarism... The plagiarized content is punctuation?! The thing that came out of Shimokawa's mouth was perhaps so shocking that Miyagawa was completely stunned.

When Miyagawa was studying copyright law at Tokyo University, she ranked first in her grade in this course, even better than Kitahara at the time. For this reason, she was secretly proud of herself.

When she came to Hirose and said that the trouble she encountered was plagiarism, she thought that this case was in her area of ​​expertise.

However, when she really came into contact with copyright infringement cases, she found that the knowledge she had learned was completely useless at this moment.

The object of plagiarism is punctuation.

Can punctuation marks constitute plagiarism?

Miyagawa is still able to recite the definition of works under copyright law.

However, when punctuation in ancient Chinese is inserted into the collation of ancient books, is it a work stipulated in the copyright law?

Miyagawa was already a little confused when he looked at the question raised by Kawashita.

"This "Travel to the Eastern Lands" was first discovered by Teacher Shimokawa." Hirose said, complaining beside him, "I first saw this "Travel Notes to the Tang Dynasty" at a private auction on Kyushu Island. Teacher Shimokawa spent his own money on it.

After saving a lot of money, I took a picture of the Tianhe Year Edition of "The Journey to the East". Later, the teacher went to libraries, archives, and private museums all over the East to adjust the microfilms one by one and check their collection catalogs.

, it was eventually discovered that there were a total of 11 versions of "The Journey to the Eastern Lands to the Tang Dynasty" scattered in 9 archives across the East."

"Teacher Shimochuan personally cut out the microfilms one by one and sorted out all 11 versions. Each version had many defects, errors and omissions. The teacher patiently compared and screened the versions one by one and added the missing contents.

, and finally a new version was formed. Based on this version, the teacher corrected it word by word, added punctuation marks, segmented sentences, and added comments. The whole project was time-consuming and labor-intensive, and took the teacher nearly five years of hard work.

.”

"However... However, for such a hard work, everything... was stolen by that Fujimura!" Hirose unknowingly became a little excited.

Shimokawa looked at the beautifully printed book in front of him. The name of the dean was clearly printed on the corrected column. He couldn't help but sigh slightly: "Yes, Fujimura copied these sentences from me.

Punctuation marks.”

"When I started this project, he knew through some channel that I was doing this. It was probably two years ago. Fujimura came over and told me that the Graduate School of Humanities at Kyoto University was recently working on

Launching an ancient book compilation project is a key project funded by the Society for the Promotion of Oriental Studies, so let me also get involved in this project."

"Later, he asked me to print out the corrected version and send it to the Academic Promotion Council for review. After I handed the typed version to him, there was no news again. Until...until last year, I had a good

A friend works as an editor at Kyoto University Press. He unexpectedly saw the publication news of "The Journey to the Eastern Lands to the Tang Dynasty". He thought it was the completion of the proofreading and called me to congratulate me. Only then did I discover that it was Fujimura who

My textbook was stolen and signed as his work."

Listening to this narration, Miyagawa finally understood why Shimokawa had visited law firms throughout Kyoto. They all said that this situation could not constitute plagiarism.

The situation before us is stuck in a gap in copyright law.

At this moment, when he thought of the figure of Dean Fujimura, Miyagawa suddenly felt a little creepy.

This must be intentional.

It's definitely intentional.

Only people who have been immersed in the intellectual community for many years can come up with such an extreme side-stepping approach.

Kitahara looked at the book "Eastern Land Parade to Tang" in front of him, with a slight sneer at the corner of his mouth. He also understood why Hirose did not directly tell how Fujimura plagiarized Shimokawa's work at the seminar, and he also understood why Fujimura

Where does the confidence come from?

From the perspective of copyright law, only "works" are the objects protected by copyright law.

The so-called works are intellectual achievements with original expression.

However, in the proofreading of ancient books, punctuation is added and sentences are segmented.

Are the punctuation marks themselves original?

If the answer is no, then the punctuation of ancient books is not a "work", and therefore it is not subject to the protection of copyright law. Therefore, even if Fujimura copied these punctuation marks 100%, it cannot be defined

It's plagiarism.

An example is the formulas of physics.

Formulas do not fall within the scope of works stipulated in copyright law.

Even if you write the formula derived by others after your own work, it will not constitute plagiarism.

This is Fujimura’s confidence.

"How's it going? Saeko?" Hirose looked at Miyagawa and couldn't help but ask: "All law firms in Kyoto are liars, right? This must be plagiarism, right. It must be plagiarism, yes.

Bar. Saeko. I don’t believe that in this world, copying 100% of other people’s work will not constitute plagiarism.”

Miyagawa was speechless for a moment, not knowing how to reply to Hirose. She looked at the book on the table, opened her mouth, but couldn't say a word.

"The bad guys... will definitely be punished, right, Saeko?" Hirose gently stretched out his hand and grabbed Miyagawa's arm, his voice already trembling slightly.

Hirose had a premonition of something from Miyagawa's silence.

Before, she and Professor Shimokawa visited almost all law firms in Kyoto.

The answers I got were all cold rejections.

No lawyer is willing to represent the case.

Without exception, they all believe that it does not constitute plagiarism. In this case, still having to sue the prestigious Kyoto University will undoubtedly be considered a blackmail lawsuit and damage the reputation of the law firm.

Hirose's heart was already tightening. From Miyagawa's silence, she vaguely felt that those lawyers in Kyoto might...maybe be telling the truth.

On the table, the book "The Journey to the Eastern Lands to the Tang Dynasty" was placed there quietly. The author of this book is Nobuhiro Sekiya, who was a member of the eighth envoy to the Tang Dynasty sent out in ancient times, and set out with Abe Nakamaro.

Later, when the Tang Dynasty mission returned to East Asia, it was robbed and killed by bandits. During the mission's retreat, member Sekiya Xunhiro disappeared. Historical circles once believed that Sekiya was killed.

However, the discovery of "The Journey to the East to the Tang Dynasty" proved that Guangu was only separated from the mission and was rescued by the locals during the escape process. He wanted to return to the East alone, but because he was not familiar with the geography, he was unable to do so.

He actually walked in the opposite direction, and by a strange combination of circumstances, he ended up walking nearly half of the country.

The book has a total of more than 260,000 words, which records in detail what Guangu saw and heard during his tour in the East, and is of extremely high historical value.

If Shimokawa was the corrector of this book, then there would be no problem for him to obtain a tenured teaching position in classical history at Kyoto University based on this discovery.

The wind that came from nowhere was gently blowing the pages of this book. The sheets of paper inside were flipping, and the punctuation marks between the sentences became particularly dazzling, clearly showing how a dean is.

Stealing Shimokawa's research results like a robber.

The commas and periods one after another tell the story of this silent robbery.

What was placed in front of Kitahara and Miyagawa was exactly together——
Chapter completed!