Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the biggest obstacle that everyone connected with literature, may it be online or paper works, has to deal with. It is highly frowned upon as it is considered immoral since the 18th century. Dictionaries define it as “close imitation” or “wrongful appropriation”. People define it as “theft of another person’s intellectual work”. It can be an idea, an expression, a language, or thoughts. Plagiarism is copying or imitating without the outright permission of the one who created the original work.

However, no matter how immoral or wrong it seems, it is not illegal. There are no legal aspects that cover plagiarism as an offense that would persecute violators. Read on to know more about plagiarism.

History of Plagiarism

It was in the 1st century when the Latin word “plagiarius” was first coined to refer to a kidnapped work. It was first used by Martial, a Roman poet, who accused someone else to have kidnapped his work. Ben Jonson, a dramatist, introduced the word “plagiary” to the English language in the 1600’s to refer to a person who is a literary thief. The word plagiarism was not introduced in the English until the 1620’s.

During the Romantic Movement in the 18th century, plagiarism became immoral and the ideal of originality emerged. It was because of capitalism that plagiarism became a taboo. When the ideology of individualism emerged, originality became an obligation. However, before then, in the times of Shakespeare and other notable artists, their works were encouraged to be copied as fine as the original versions. Literary works before were considered public property for which students, admirers, or anyone are encouraged to copy the original versions of the masters. During that time, if you create your own version of the sculpture, the music, the literature, the painting, etc, you will be marked as arrogant or conceited.

The Legal Aspects of Plagiarism

As aforementioned, plagiarism does not exist in any legal sense whether it is criminal or civil. This could be credited through the rise of the influence of technology in this modern age. Intellectual technology becomes more and more available to the public. However, there’s a strict guideline everyone has to follow and that is: if it’s not written by you, you must give credit to the one who originally wrote it.

The concept of what is original is somehow vague that is why there is still no concrete established law to cut or minimize the rampant plagiarism that is going on these days.

How it could be punishable

The term “copy pasting” is popular among students. However, this could be the cause of a major failure as universities all around the world that require students to produce and submit scholastic outputs have strict ordinance against plagiarism or originality of work. If your work is proven to have violated the standards of moral rights, then you could either be subjected to academic censure or simply expulsed. Originality of work is highly valued in classes; otherwise, the essence of learning is defunct.

Even in the world of journalism, originality of work is greatly priced. A journalist cannot simply publish a story without credible facts. A journalist’s integrity and credibility are always on the line that is why he/she must remember to keep things original before airing or publishing anything for the public’s view.

If you make a living out of writing in the Internet, you have to make sure all your works are original because there are softwares available online that could check if what you have written is original or copy pasted. You could either lose your client if you plagiarize or lose your readers.