Plagiarism in (physics) textbook

Question

I've just noticed (by pure coincidence, as I was studying both textbooks) that a paragraph of section 5.5.1 in Rovelli's textbook "Quantum Gravity".

Here's the plagiarized passage

This absence of the familiar spacetime "stage" is called the background independence of the classical theory. Technically, it is realized by the gauge invariance of the action under (active) diffeomorphisms. A diffeomorphism is a transformation that smoothly drags all dynamical fields and particles from one region of the four-dimensional manifold to another (the precise definition of these transformations is given in Chapter 2). In turn, gauge invariance under diffeomorphism (or diffeomorphism invariance) is the consequence of the combination of two properties of the action: its invariance under arbitrary changes of coordinates and the fact that there is no nondynamical "background" field.

And here's the passage that plagiarized

Cette absence d'espace-temps fixe sur lequel se déploieraient les phénomènes se nomme invariance de fond. Techniquement, cela équivaut à l'invariance (de jauge) de l'action sous l'effet des difféomorphismes. Un difféomorphisme n'est rien d'autre qu'une transformation qui fait glisser sans « à-coup » tous les champs et particules d'une région à une autre. L'invariance par difféomorphisme est la conséquence de deux propriétés de l'action : son invariance par changement arbitraire de coordonnées et le fait qu'il n'existe pas de champ de fond non dynamique.

Here's DeepL's translation:

This absence of a fixed space-time on which phenomena unfold is called background invariance. Technically, this is equivalent to the (gauge) invariance of action under the effect of diffeomorphisms. A diffeomorphism is nothing more than a transformation that smoothly slides all fields and particles from one region to another. Invariance by diffeomorphism is the consequence of two properties of the action: its invariance by arbitrary coordinate change and the fact that there is no such thing as a non-dynamic background field.

What should I do? Is it a serious issue?

Answer 1

What should I do?

Here’s a practical suggestion of something you can do if you are concerned about the issue. In my experience, people who plagiarize once usually plagiarize much more than once. Therefore if you have found one instance of plagiarism, you can probably find many more if you care to look harder.

Once you have done some research and identified multiple instances of plagiarism in this textbook and/or other works by the same authors (this isn’t guaranteed to happen obviously, but I’ve seen it happen in similar situations), you can consider contacting the victims of the plagiarism to alert them of your findings. They will likely be the most motivated people to want to take action.

Separately from that, you may contact the institutions the plagiarizing authors are working in, and/or publishers of the textbooks and journals that contain the plagiarized material, and the publishers of the original works that were plagiarized.

I can probably come up with more suggestions, but I think I’ve assigned you enough homework for now… 🙄

Is it a serious issue?

For a single plagiarized paragraph, I think most people will think it’s excessive to cry foul - you can tell from the reactions to your question that the default reaction is skepticism or dismissiveness, and even people who instinctively understand that it’s wrong to copy things from other people without attribution even for a textbook simply won’t get too excited about one paragraph. But as I said above, where there is smoke, there is probably more smoke. If you find multiple instances of plagiarism, then yes, I think it’s serious and actionable.

Answer 2

This does seem a bit strange. Was Rovelli cited? If not, I agree this is clear plagiarism. Even if Rovelli was cited, this seems like at least borderline plagiarism. As I argued here, plagiarism is about stealing ideas, not words; however, the way in which something is written might well be a (protected) idea. The severity of the plagiarism would depend on how much was taken (was it just this paragraph, or is there more?), how much it was modified (just translated, or substantially rewritten?), and the likelihood that independent authors could have written a similar paragraph (is Rovelli's paragraph really amazing, or would most authors writing a textbook in this field have a substantially similar paragraph?).

What should I do?

Probably nothing. If you really want, you could write to Rovelli and make him aware of what you found.

Is it a serious issue?

if it's just this paragraph, I doubt anyone will pursue it. If people dig deeper and find that much of the book was handled in the same manner, this might become more serious. Plagiarism is seriously frowned upon in the academic community, albeit more for research papers than for textbooks. However, as Buffy said, there is likely to also be a copyright violation here, which could have legal consequences.

Answer 3

Even if the translation is not word-for-word, this is definitely plagiarism, or at least close enough to contact CUP and alert them.

Is it serious? Yes. The authors Barrau & Grain presumably get royalties from their book, and part of those royalties should go to Rovelli. In addition, Barrau & Grain may have received indirect benefits from this work: promotion, salary increase, maybe course release to write their book, etc. If they have plagiarized this, have they plagiarized other parts of other textbooks? Plagiarism by translation is still plagiarism, even if this is more difficult to detect.

The minimal fix would be for CUP to insist that any future edition credit Rovelli for this passage, but your job is to bring this to the attention of CUP and leave it to them to pursue the matter. Keep in mind it is possible that Rovelli and/or CUP is aware of the situation and have an agreement with Barreau&Grain or their publisher, and that you stumbled on an old copy published before a fix was implemented.

I would personally be furious in someone had done this kind of job on my work, without any attribution, and without my knowledge.

Answer 4

What should you do? Honestly, so many better things to do with your time.

Is it serious? For you, it is irrelevant. For the author and publisher? Honestly, it's also pretty irrelevant. What are the financial damages or actual impacts of that paragraph being lifted?

Is it a bad thing? Yeah, obviously plagiarism is a negative. Realistically, they may have both lifted it from a tertiary source for all we know.

Answer 5

See the update at the end, please.

This isn't actually plagiarism as they aren't attributing it as their own original work. This example is about words, not the attribution of ideas. Moreover it is about common understanding in a deep scientific field.

It might be improper, but would fall under copyright infringement, though even that might not be true if it was done with permission of the copyright holder. It is a bit long for fair use, but, as it states well known facts it might even be excusable.

What I see here, looking at each sentence independently, is nothing but a set of facts. Definitions of well known words in the field. True, the collection of them in one place suggests improper use (but not plagiarism), and a citation might be best. I'll note also that google translate gives somewhat different wording.

One exception in copyright law is for things that can be said effectively in only one way. This has wide application in math and in some sciences. Definitions of words, for example, are about the same in any setting and any language.

You don't need to do anything. If the copyright holder objects, then they will handle it and its seriousness would be determined in a lawsuit.

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EDIT:

People seem to misunderstand something here so I've added the following.

First, note that the terms gauge (theory) independence are all mentioned in wikipedia, some with headline articles. The authors aren't claiming the ideas as their own. I haven checked, but guess that other terms here such as manifold are there. I'll let you check for "background field method". Find it? Good.

Second, and most important, experts in a field have a certain vocabulary (diffeomorphism...) and a common and shared understanding of the meaning of those words. If you ask any expert in this particular field to give you a quick explanation/definition of a given common term you will get very similar responses. Not exactly, and not paraphrasing someone else, but just their long and deeply held understanding of the concept. If you ask any mathematician for the definition of derivative or integral, or group, or most anything, you will get very nearly the same explanation using very nearly the same words.

This ain't rocket science. It is actually deeper than that, but, again, it ain't plagiarism either.

Personal note: The comments and many downvotes here remind me of the reason that "plagiarism checkers" do such a poor job and have so many false positives. I'm surprised that people can't do better.

Answer 6

This is not plagiarism, and plagiarism is not about stealing ideas. It is about stealing the expression of an idea. You must realize being able to copyright an idea is like being able to own fire.

I know it can be a bit silly what people do to emulate ideas but all you must do is look at the film industry and see it is frequent practice to be a copycat. Look at things like TT RPGs and retro clones. These are all examples of making an idea your own and that is quite different than plagiarism. It is better to say the same thing as someone else than to sneak off and never say you did, wouldn't you agree? If the idea was good, a writer just must use his own words.

I know this because I have written a good share of pieces for websites in a niche and many of these types of websites all say the same basic thing. It is then the writer's job to go in and say it better. I have often come upon a paragraph and thought, I don't know how to say it better, but this doesn't speak to my audience. I would have cited the other work in this case and just quoted the other work but that is not required.

If whoever this writer was working for did not want to do that, the writer can be asked to use his own words instead. Although I have left writing jobs for this practice, it is not plagiarism.

I like citing references because as a real writer I like using them. Real writers should enjoy giving attribution as much as getting attribution. I find it interesting when I find an article written by someone who is not likely as knowledgeable about the topic as the content would suggest and find no sources.

How can you expect to be cited when you have not proved where you got your information?

My impression is that it has more to do with the kind of big money involved in selling textbooks.