Plagiarism
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]
Contents
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. [4] 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. [5] 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. [6] The Copyright Act of 1976, still employed today, provides copyright protection to all published and unpublished works so long as they are in tangible form[7]. 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.[8] 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.” [9] Despite this, plagiarism is as rampant as ever due to the volume of information and ease of access the Internet provides today.
Types of Plagiarism
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.
- 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.
- Music: using another’s copyrighted music in your own work, playing a cover using copyrighted music, creating music that borrows heavily from copyrighted work
- 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.
Ethics and Plagiarism
United States law protects intellectual property as outlined in the Copyright Clause of the US 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."[10] Plagiarism is considered a serious ethical violation because it is the act of stealing another’s intellectual property to use for one’s own benefit.
On the Internet
The Internet has introduced a large gray area causing confusion about what is legal and ethical when accessing content online.[11] 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.[12] The accessibility of information via a computer screen makes it easier for users to subside feelings of empathy for the actions they take. 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. This does not change the ethical violation that this act causes as it still involves using content created by someone else.
In Academic and Industrial Institutions
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. 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.
Sources
- ↑ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plagiarize
- ↑ Wikipedia: Copyright Infringement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement
- ↑ Imran, N. (2010). Electronic media, creativity and plagiarism. ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society, 40(4), pp.25-44.]
- ↑ 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/
- ↑ Statute of Anne. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Statute-of-Anne
- ↑ Congress Passes the First Copyright Act. U.S. Copyright Office. https://www.copyright.gov/timeline/timeline_18th_century.html
- ↑ Congress Passes the Current Copyright Act. U.S. Copyright Office. https://www.copyright.gov/timeline/timeline_1950-1997.html
- ↑ Wikipedia: Digital Millennium Copyright Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement
- ↑ Congress Passes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. U.S. Copyright Office. https://www.copyright.gov/timeline/timeline_1998-2012.html
- ↑ U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Mason, Richard. Four Ethical Issues of the Information Age. MIS Quarterly, 1986. Vol. 10. No.1.
- ↑ Ethics and Intellectual Property. MediaSmarts, 2014. http://mediasmarts.ca/digital-media-literacy/digital-issues/online-ethics/ethics-intellectual-property.
