What is Plagiarism? Why everyone tells you not to plagiarise!
Plagiarism is derived from the Latin root “Plagiare” which generally means “to abduct” or to “kidnap”. The stealing of another authors “ideas, work or expressions” while publishing and representing them as yours is plagiarism. Till date, there’s no universal definition of plagiarism and the idea varies from place to place and situation to situation.
Though, plagiarism in itself does not constitute a crime, it may lead to copyright infringement. Plagiarism is a serious moral and ethical crime. Academic dishonesty, as well as a breach of journalistic ethics, is also reflected by it. Suspension, penalties, suspension, or in severe cases expulsion are all results of plagiarism. There are increasing instances of plagiarism in today’s era and such situations are found every day. It is the theft of an idea, wording or the whole content without appropriate acknowledgement of the fact. The “CCP – Cut, Copy, Paste” method has become the trend today and the same leads to unoriginal and stagnant work and ideas.
Types of Plagiarism
- The Copy Paste Method: When you pick a sentence or a paragraph, copy it and make it a part of your own work.
- The Word Switch Method: When you take the work, and only change a few words.
- The Ghost Writer: When you take the entire work and purport it to be your own.
- Paraphrasing Method: When you rephrase the sentences, even though the language is not the same, it is still plagiarism.
- Reasoning Plagiarism: When all the ideas and sequence of an author’s work is copied even though the words or sentences may not be the same. This is plagiarising the authors reasoning style.
Legal Liability for Plagiarism
If a work is protected by copyright, and someone purports it to be their own, he is liable for copyright infringement in India under the provisions of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957.
Section 57 of the act vests the special right to the attribution of their work to an author. According to Section 63 of the act, copyright infringement as well as a violation of Section 57, both are offences. Moreover, the moral rights vested by the copyright protection are also infringed by such plagiarism. The two main conventions governing copyright are the TRIPS Agreement and the Berne Convention Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.
However there are some limitations to the rights of the author, these include:
) Free uses, which constitute to be acts of exploitation. They may be without authorization and do not oblige a person to compensate the owner for the use;
2) Non-voluntary licenses, there is an obligation for compensating the owner but not authorization.
To Conclude, according to WIPO, a copyright vests rights such as rights of protection against the ‘literary and artistic works’, transfer of copyrighted work and its duration which extend to up to 50 years after the death of the copyright holder. Thus, there are stringent rights relating to copyright protection which forms the basis of why plagiarism should be a big NO!
By Maahi Mayuri
Visit our Instagram page @lawyergyan at this link.
For more BLOG/ NEWs, CLICK HERE.
Please Subscribe for more updates.
