Comments on: Mp3 plagiarism How to tell?

Question: Mp3 plagiarism How to tell?

priorpark17 — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 01:27:41 -0800

Given an mp3 file by student. He says he wrote the music. I doubt it. Can I look inside and find if the details have been edited?

I have been given an mp3 file by one of my students. He says he composed the piece and has had an orchestra record it. I doubt the story. If I right-click properties it all seems to be OK. Is there a way to dig into the mp3 and find when it was really created?

By: xil

xil — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 01:53:03 -0800

By "digging into the mp3"? No, not really -- the tags in the file are just a bunch of bits, and could have been set to anything, but the student or anyone else.

Imagine that the student had given you a cassette tape instead. Even if the label had his name on it in his own handwriting, you understand that the music could have come from anywhere, right?

By: xil

xil — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 01:53:52 -0800

Argh, "by" not "but".

By: Matt Oneiros

Matt Oneiros — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 02:07:55 -0800

Probably going to be more practical to either have someone who might recognize it/be able to consider the production value listen to it.

Otherwise just ask questions about the orchestra/recording/costs/other practical details and see if you detect any BS.

By: spiderskull

spiderskull — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 02:09:06 -0800

Wow, an orchestra? If he/she's not being truthful, that's a ballsy lie.

Why not try a music recognition service? I know Cingular now offers it through cell phones (you just dial some number and play the music, and it texts/emails you with the results).

Other than that, xil's right -- you can check the tags and see if there's anything blatently obvious, but other than that, the file itself will be of little help.

By: toxic

toxic — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 02:17:39 -0800

You might want to see if Musicbrainz can identify it (the MB clients generally have a function that "fingerprints" the music, in an attempt to identify it, no matter what it's named/tagged). I'd be pretty ballsy for a student to turn in something that had enough distribution to end up in that database, but you never know.

When you say "dig into" the MP3 file, you might mean, "examine the id3 tags closely". A good id3 editor can show you any tags that the student failed to delete. You could also run the unix command "strings" (also available on OSX and windows) which will pull out a more raw form of the data.

Truthfully, though, I think I'd just confront the student, either directly or obliquely -- ask for the sheet music given to the orchestra, or ask to talk to one of the orchestra members, or ask for an outtake... something like that. See if he stammers and backpedals, or what.

By: toxic

toxic — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 02:20:01 -0800

Forgot to add: My email is in my profile, if you want to send it to me, I'll feed it through musicbrainz and run strings on it. Not sure if that's helpful to you or not.

By: markr

markr — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 02:28:40 -0800

Some mp3 software only views/edits ID3v2 tags if both ID3v1 and v2 tags are present. It's possible that the "original" file had data in the ID3v1 tags that wouldn't have been changed and would still be viewable in any decent ID3 editor.

By: distrakted

distrakted — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 03:47:55 -0800

Ask to see the score. Ask how many violas he used, etc.

or is communicating with the student not ok?

By: braintoast

braintoast — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 05:25:01 -0800

Yeah...I'd ask something score-related. Even something as simple as *how* they scored it could do the trick. Did they use a computer? What software? If they're committed enough to have an answer ready for that, it might be tough. I'd suggest passing it around to some colleagues with music background and see if they smell a turd.

If they're ballsy enough to claim someone else's orchestral piece, it should be relatively easy to suss this out. There will be a hole somewhere if they're lying. That's an elaborate thing to fake.

Strictly going on the mp3 file, I can't add anything to everyone else's advice. It is just a recording.

By: priorpark17

priorpark17 — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 05:33:03 -0800

Nailed. All the ID tags I could find had been changed...but when i played it in Windows media player and clicked "Album Info" up popped what CD it is from. He had a full story for how the recording was financed and everything. Thanks for all the help. Pity, I am now going to have to do something about this. Maybe I am going to leave it until after Christmas.

By: dobbs

dobbs — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 06:08:07 -0800

Out of curiousity, could you name the track/artist?

By: jlowen

jlowen — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 06:40:14 -0800

I think you should creatively bust him. Call him in to your office and say, "After listening to your piece, it occured to me that the composition is very similar in its structural tonality with another of my favorite pieces. Here listen to this and see if you can hear the similarities..." Then just make him set there for 10 agonizing minutes and just squirm.. See if he confesses before you bust him.

By the way, I just made up "structural tonality" I have no clue if that is even a musical term.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 06:49:21 -0800

All the ID tags I could find had been changed...but when i played it in Windows media player and clicked "Album Info" up popped what CD it is from.

It's not clear from what you say whether you actually listened to the other piece. I would make sure you do that, because otherwise you're putting a lot of trust in WMP.

By: terceiro

terceiro — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 07:23:47 -0800

Does your institution have an ombud? If so, turn the dirty work over to her. There might be some satisfaction in busting the little punk, but there's also the chance that you screw it up and the egg winds up on your face. Also, any student who can afford an orchestra and recording might have a daddy warbucks who will rip you a new one at even the hint that his sweet-wee-widdle-baby did anything wrong.

Use the bureaucracy. It's not everyday you can leverage the Man in your behalf.

By: damn dirty ape

damn dirty ape — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 08:16:55 -0800

Unless you can verify the tags with a second piece of software then I wouldnt do anything yet. I dont know where WMP isgetting this information. Check the file type with winamp or with itunes. Or check it out with an id3 tag editor. Download "strings" for you computer and run it against the file.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 08:25:27 -0800

This will take two calls.
One, to the student. "What orchestra?"
Two, to the orchestra.
The student should have the orchestra's contact info. And if he hired an orchestra to play a composition that he didn't write and turned that in? Well, I say you give him the grade based on his huge balls, but that's me.

By: priorpark17

priorpark17 — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 08:46:20 -0800

Thanks dirty ape, "strings" found all the dirt; the original composer and the record company. Have heard both versions and they the same. Have had a second person listen and they agree. I taking the advice of terceiro and kicking this upstairs.
Nice try.

Kid 0:1 Metafiler

By: baylink

baylink — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 10:37:57 -0800

Damn.

I was going to vote for "Wow; that's nice work. I'd love to see the conductors' score; how long did it take you to assemble it?"

By: lilithim

lilithim — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 10:40:03 -0800

This sounds like a time to send it on. Not to the ombud, but to the honor board of your institution. It was an assignment that they plagiarized, intentionally. Which is too bad for the student, but academic honesty is a big deal too.

By: cribcage

cribcage — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 10:47:31 -0800

This happens at Berklee. The usual solution is basically what you did: Ask iTunes to "get" the track's name from its database. I can tell you that, as an avid collector of some pretty obscure music, I'm constantly amazed by the scope of that database; I'll plug in brand-new CDs from CDBaby, or imported from indie labels in Europe, and iTunes recognizes them.

In a couple stories I heard, the professor didn't need the database. One professor told me about a student who "submitted" a track from a contemporary gospel CD — which just happened to be a CD that particular professor owned and loved. Unfortunately, the kid's "punishment" was to resubmit the project. I've never heard of anyone being expelled for plagiarism. But maybe your school is different.

By: InfidelZombie

InfidelZombie — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 12:08:59 -0800

Embarrassing admission time: when I was in 8th grade I turned in a few pages from the Harvard Lampoon book Bored Of The Rings for a creative writing assignment. I figured there was no way she was familiar with that book, and it was an easy way out of something I didn't want to do.

A few days later, my teacher started class by saying she'd been going over our assignments and wanted to read one that she thought was just fantastic. As she started to enthusiastically read what I submitted, I started to shrink into my seat. The fact that everybody liked it just made it worse. I have no idea whether she knew it was not my work, just suspected, or actually thought I wrote it, but the round of applause at the end ensured I'd never try anything so stupid again.

It might be fun to treat him like an 8th grader before you hang him out to dry...

By: PandemicSoul

PandemicSoul — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 13:31:31 -0800

Be sure to tell us any follow up!

By: Alt F4

Alt F4 — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 14:24:48 -0800

(sidebar ...)

Yeah, an ombud would be the wrong office to utilize. Ombuds are more for grievances and alternative dispute resolution. It's a fluid office, so your school's position might differ from the standard, but the typical ombud's office doesn't do investigation or party-specific advocacy (she wouldn't work for or against the student or for or against you). They're "designated neutrals."

By: sic

sic — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 16:08:53 -0800

I was once in a creative writing workshop where a fellow student turned in a Hemingway short story as his own ("A clean, well-lighted place"). 15 years later I'm still shaking my head in amazement at how little thought he put into his plagarism. I mean, Hemingway!? Why not just turn in Genesis or the Declaration of Independence or something obscure like that.

By: Justinian

Justinian — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 17:56:32 -0800

A girl in my fifth-grade class turned in a Shel Silverstein poem as her own. The one with a snail and the poem kind of curls around the snail's shell. Yes, she even copied the snail.

I didn't rat her out but I hope the teacher knew.