Plagiarism and Copyright
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It is often difficult for the student or casual researcher to distinguish between the laws and regulations governing copyright, fair use, and plagiarism. The issue is significant for librarians, according to Walth (2002), because the Internet has forever changed the ways in which legally protected intellectual properties of all types can be accessed and ultimately used by individuals who do not own them or have the right to determine how they are used. This brief essay will examine, plagiarism, copyright law, the difference between plagiarism and copyright, and the doctrine of fair use. Plagiarism as defined by Brandt (2002), is a form of academic dishonesty or cheating in which an individual takes inappropriate credit for the words, ideas, or other works of a second party, whether knowingly or unknowingly. It can also take the form of citing references in a report for sources that have not actually been used (Grant, 2002; Lebeau, 2002; Walker, 2003). Plagiarism essentially is a form of lying and theft or using information that belongs to someone else and passing it off as oneÆs own. It is, consequently, a dishonest practice that Atkins and Nelson (2001) see as facilitated by the Internet. Copyright is a legal concept which affords to creators a limited monopoly on the use of the products of their minds whether those products are literary, musical, artistic, architectural, and technological works (Hall, 1992). To possess a copyright is to p
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hted material does not in fact do much harm to the materialsÆ owner (Bill aims toà, 2004).
In academic circles, plagiarism tends to be an important issue (Whiteman & Gordon, 2001). Beginning early in a studentÆs education, educators should begin explaining how credit should be given when ideas are borrowed from others, emphasizing the necessity of always documenting ideas, statements, statistics, and other information that is obtained from a published source. It is often difficult for educators to convey the full meaning of plagiarism to their students in part, according to Hiestand (1994) because plagiarism does not have a commonly agreed upon definition and is ultimately not a legal term. Plagiarism is an academic crime and most institutions of higher learning and many secondary schools have their own definition of this act. It is particularly difficult, in the view of Lasarenko (1996) to teach students the difference between paraphrasing and summarizing someone elseÆs work, leading to involuntary plagiarism.
Copyright, in contrast, is a crime with a specific legal definition (Hiestand, 1994). Plagiarism can perhaps best be conceptualized as copyright violations in the classroom. Heller (2002) suggests that interpretin
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1560
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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