Doug got me thinking when he said, "If you put in a substantive amount of the "plagiarized text," the hash that is stored is output as identical to the original work that has been collected by the company." If the hash is substantive enough to prove plagiarism, then it seems the defense that it's not the original text will fail. I would bet that a 128 bit rate MP3 has less of the original data of any wav file than that hash, and no one would use that argument for saying that an MP3 is not copyright infringement. Besides, the hash is a derivative work if it is not a complete version of the original, and the students have clear rights of both ownership and preparation of derivative works. That is, unless the hash is a parody ;-) Charlie Lowe Department of Writing Grand Valley State University