Evaluation of Ghostwriting of Academic Texts from the Perspective of Intellectual Property Standards in Iran

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Safar Beyg Zadeh
Assistant Professor of Information Technology Management, Iran Science and Technology Research Institute (IranDac)
10.22034/aimj.2022.158201
Abstract
Scientific miscoduct is an acute problem in the research environment of the country, which has different species such as plagiarism and ghostwriting. Ghostwriting has expanded dramatically in Iran in recent years and has been accused by numerous individuals from various groups, from academics to clerics.
This has particularly alarmed academic and scientific institutions in Iran and has led iran's legislator to pass the Prevention and Coping of Academic Fraud in the Preparation of Academic Texts Act (2017), despite some intellectual property laws, such as the Protection of The Rights of Authors and Composers Act (1969). But is ghostwriting actually an academic problem, and can national regulations in Iran, including the fore-looking Acts, counter ghostwriting and prevent it? Or at least stop its growth?  In this study, by referring to library and legal documents, the literature of the subject has been investigated as much as possible and then, according to the criteria of intellectual property, and the valid regulations in Iran, based on analytical-descriptive method, while providing a legal definition of ghostwriting, different aspects of this research misconduct have been explained and legal answers to the questions have been given. The study showed that contrary to the provisions of Note 5 of the Prevention and Coping of Fraud in the Preparation of Scientific Works Act (2017), measures such as editing, research collaboration or translation, which have been considered as exceptions to ghostwriting and scientific misconduct, can be precisely the example of ghostwriting and therefore, this Act cannot prevent ghostwriting in practice. Also, the difference between scientific misconduct in the Protection of The Rights of Authors, Composers and Artists Act (1969) with what is seen in the Prevention and Coping of Fraud in the Preparation of Scientific Works Act (2017) was explained from a legal perspective and at the end of the article, according to the findings of the study, some suggestions have been presented for preventing and countering ghostwriting.

Keywords

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  • Receive Date 22 April 2022
  • Revise Date 07 June 2022
  • Accept Date 13 July 2022