Difference between revisions of "Plagiarism"

Revision as of 22:08, 29 March 2019

Plagiarism is the act of representing another’s thoughts or words as one’s own ^[1]. The use of another’s words, images, videos, or music without appropriate citation or acknowledgment is considered plagiarism. It is not a crime to plagiarize, but it can lead to copyright infringement, a legally punishable offense. ^[2] Academic and industrial institutions consider plagiarism a serious ethical violation that often ends in punishment deemed appropriate by said institutions. ^[3]

Types of Plagiarism

An Example of Plagiarism - Political Commentator, Monica Crowley, caught for plagiarizing large portions of her book from numerous sources. ^[4]

Plagiarism can come in many forms, whether it be purposeful or accidental. It can happen at work, at school, and more commonly today, on the Internet. Legal measures for these actions are regarded in the context and intent the work was produced. It is recommended to avoid these situations entirely or make use of proper usage and citation techniques.^[5]

• Written Work: representing someone else’s work as your own, copying another’s thoughts and words without appropriate citation, forgetting to use quotation marks, giving false information about the source, using the same sentence structure but altering words.^[5]
• Music: using another’s copyrighted music in your own work, playing a cover using copyrighted music, creating music that borrows heavily from copyrighted work. ^[5]
• Images/Videos: using videos and images in one’s own work without proper citation, recreating images or videos in the same likeliness of another’s work, altering another’s videos or images without citation.^[5]
• Self-plagiarism: reusing one’s own words or ideas that were previously published in another context without proper citation. ^[6]

Evolution of Plagiarism

The first instance of ‘literary theft’ stems back to 40 AD. The Roman poet Martial used the Latin word plagiarus, literally meaning ‘kidnapper,’ in one of his poems to describe someone who was stealing his work. It wasn’t until 1601, during the Age of Enlightenment, that playwright Ben Johnson introduced a derivative of the word, plagiary, in English. ^[7] During this era, original works increased in value also increasing the occurrence and acknowledgement of plagiarism.

The first copyright law in existence was the Statute of Anne in England in 1710, recognizing copyright as an author’s right. Author’s could register their work to be protected by the government for a limited period of time. ^[8] The United States followed suit in 1790, passing their own copyright law modeled off the Statute of Anne, protecting maps, charts, and books for a fourteen year period. Overtime, many amendments were made to the act, broadening the range of works that were protected and for how long. ^[9] The Copyright Act of 1976, still employed today, provides copyright protection to all published and unpublished works so long as they are in tangible form^[10]. These acts influenced academic and industrial institutions to build their own standards for recognizing and addressing acts of plagiarism overtime.

The introduction of the World Wide Web has drastically changed the way information is received and perceived. With these changes, a large gray area has formed over the use of this information and the modes in which it is transferred. In an effort to govern online infringement, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998.^[11] This act “makes it illegal to circumvent technological measures used to prevent unauthorized access to or copying of copyrighted works, particularly books, movies, videos, video games, and computer programs.” ^[12] Filing a DMCA takedown notice can help remove infringing material online, but there are currently no regulations regarding the sharing of online content as policies are still evolving in response to new technologies.^[13][14]

A Violation of Law vs Ethics

Plagiarism can be considered theft or even fraud in some contexts, but it is not a criminal or civil offense. ^[15] Legal consequence can occur if it infringes on an author’s intellectual property rights, which are outlined by the United States Constitution - “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."^[16] Plagiarism and copyright infringement are not the same, despite both referring to a similar act. “Copyright infringement occurs when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner.” ^[17] Plagiarism is more of an ethical construct, concerned with giving appropriate credit where it is rightfully earned.

Consequences of Plagiarism outlined by the University of Utah. ^[18]

A Matter of Ethics

Plagiarism in academic and corporate institutions is not a matter that is taken lightly and most often results in penalty, suspension, or expulsion. It is considered theft and strips the rightful author of any accolade for their work. Plagiarized work gives a false representation of the knowledge and abilities of the author. ^[19] Garnering achievements and promotions for ideas that aren’t your own could be a risk to others in educational or corporate environments, thus the reason for the serious consequence. The Internet has introduced a large gray area causing confusion about what is ethical when accessing content online.^[20] The increasing volume of unauthorized content so easily available has decreased the level of regard for copyright and intellectual property. The lack of tangibility increases the ease of reproducibility, making information hard to safeguard and keep to one’s self.^[21] The accessibility of information via a computer screen makes it easier for users to subside feelings of empathy for the actions they take.^[13] Streaming, sharing, and downloading has become a Digital Age norm, where users don’t think twice about the owner of the content.^[13] There is little to no repercussion or regulation of the sharing of online content at this point in time as policies are still evolving in response to new technologies.^[13] This does not change the ethical violation that this act causes as it still involves using content created by someone else.

Sources

1. ↑ Plagiarism. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plagiarize
2. ↑ Wikipedia: Copyright Infringement. (2002). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement
3. ↑ Imran, N. (2010). Electronic media, creativity and plagiarism. ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society, 40(4), pp.25-44.
4. ↑ Kaczynski, A. (2017). Trump national security pick Monica Crowley plagiarized multiple sources in 2012 book. CNN Money. https://money.cnn.com/interactive/news/kfile-trump-monica-crowley-plagiarized-multiple-sources-2012-book/index.html
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3} What is Plagiarism? (2017). Turnitin, LLC. https://www.plagiarism.org/article/what-is-plagiarism
6. ↑ Mudrak, B. (2019). Self-Plagiarism: How to Define it and Why You Should Avoid It. American Journal Experts. https://www.aje.com/arc/self-plagiarism-how-to-define-it-and-why-to-avoid-it/
7. ↑ Bailey, J. (2011). The World's First Plagiarism Case. Plagiarism Today. https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2011/10/04/the-world%E2%80%99s-first-plagiarism-case/
8. ↑ Statute of Anne. (n.d.). Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Statute-of-Anne
9. ↑ Congress Passes the First Copyright Act. (n.d). U.S. Copyright Office. https://www.copyright.gov/timeline/timeline_18th_century.html
10. ↑ Congress Passes the Current Copyright Act. (n.d.). U.S. Copyright Office. https://www.copyright.gov/timeline/timeline_1950-1997.html
11. ↑ Wikipedia: Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (2002). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement
12. ↑ Congress Passes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (n.d.). U.S. Copyright Office. https://www.copyright.gov/timeline/timeline_1998-2012.html
13. ↑ ^{13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3} Ethics and Intellectual Property. MediaSmarts, 2014. http://mediasmarts.ca/digital-media-literacy/digital-issues/online-ethics/ethics-intellectual-property.
14. ↑ What is a DMCA Takedown? (2019). Digital Millennium Copyright Act Services Ltd. https://www.dmca.com/faq/What-is-a-DMCA-Takedown
15. ↑ Morrow, S. (n.d.). Plagiarism: What is it, Exactly? LegalZoom.com. https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/plagiarism-what-is-it-exactly
16. ↑ U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8. (n.d.). http://constitutionus.com/
17. ↑ Definitions: What is Copyright Infringement? (n.d). U.S. Copyright Office. https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-definitions.html
18. ↑ Plagiarism: Consequences of plagiarism. (n.d.). Code of Academic Misconduct. University of Utah http://campusguides.lib.utah.edu/c.php?g=237735&p=1585547
19. ↑ What Makes Plagiarism a Serious Offense? (2016). MLA Handbook, 8th ed. https://style.mla.org/plagiarism-and-academic-dishonesty/
20. ↑ Steeves, Valerie. Young Canadians in a Wired World, Phase III: Experts or Amateurs? Gauging Young Canadians’ Digital Literacy Skills. MediaSmarts, 2014. http://mediasmarts.ca/ycww/experts-or-amateurs-gauging-young-canadians-digital-literacy-skills.
21. ↑ Mason, Richard. (1986). Four Ethical Issues of the Information Age. MIS Quarterly. Vol. 10. No.1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242705009_Four_Ethical_Issues_of_the_Information_Age