Plagiarism: A crime taken for Granted

Click. Copy. Paste. Print. Submit. That’s so easy! Right? Most students find it very convenient to grab some ideas or even phrases from the internet without putting into consideration the ethical and legal considerations they violate. The bunch of information the World Wide Web has to offer plus its copy-paste features seems to be the quick-fix and the easy way out of all the dilemmas in beating the academic deadlines. But then, is copying-and-pasting really that simple?

Intellectual Felony

                        Although there is no existing law that is directly pointed against plagiarism, but the mere act of phrasing published ideas without crediting the author is already a violation against their intellectual property rights. According to RA 8293, otherwise known as “The Intellectual Property code of the Philippines”, copyrighted materials include collections of literary, scholarly or artistic works, and compilations of data and other materials which are original in the coordination or arrangement of their contents. Moreover, the authors of these printed and published materials have the sole right to give people the authority to recopy, reproduce, translate and dramatize these materials. Needless to say, infringement of copyrights includes massive photocopying books, reproducing of movies and other media, personification of literary works and selling any part of a copyright property without any written authority from the copyright owner. However, Part IV- Chapter VIII of the said provision states that there are also limitations to the scope  of this code which allows people to reproduce a substantial portion of copyrighted works and cite quotations as long as  these materials are already made available to the public and as long as the copyright owner is recognized and cited.

                        In the academic context, massive reproduction of books by photocopying them is already a violation against the publishers. Although it was provided in section 184 of the said code that reproduction of published works in a single copy by a natural person is allowed, doing so is exclusively for the purpose of research and private study. And if ever such reproduction or citation of quotation is to be published in researches, case studies, thesis and dissertations, citing the references is necessary to protect the student from any legal and academic sanctions.

Dismissed Plunder

                        Although the internet discloses some information to make facts and ideas available to everybody, there are still limitations and legal considerations where both students and professionals are bound to. Since the literature and facts presented in the internet and books are written or intellectually owned by authors, recognizing them by citing their names, publications or links as references is the least thing we can do after borrowing their ideas. Not doing so is the same as not recognizing them as intellectual owners and claiming their ideas as our own.   In research papers and case studies for example, as simple as using facts from wikipedia to define our topic without recognizing the author(s) is already a simple form of plagiarism. Blatantly citing phrases which are not our own and using them to comply the academic demands is the same as stealing our seatmate’s homework, writing our name on it and submitting the homework as our own.  Hence, in Capitol University, the student manual in Chapter 4, section 2.4 indicates the violations of those students (both undergrad and post-grad) who commit plagiarism. Although copyright infringement and plagiarism is a grave intellectual crime, the academic punishment only includes failing the student(s) in that particular subject or homework.  In research subjects, instructors are even bound to give a failing mark to students who stole ideas from the internet or books without giving due recognition to the author/publisher.

Setting Limits

                        Like any form of human rights, the right to use published materials as resources has limitations and responsibilities to avoid violating others. Though it is a part of learning process for the students to do researches and utilize published works as resources, being extra careful with the kind and amount of information used needs to be considered since avoiding copyright infringement is not only exclusive to citing the author’s name. Infringing copyrights also includes the amount of information/phrase utilized and the manner to which it is used. The Intellectual property code emphasizes that utilizing portions of published works should give justice to its original meaning. Hence, these phrases are not to be used randomly as they should appropriately fit the article or studies to which these excerpts are to be applied. 

Lesson not learned

Some students who are tasked to write an essay as a homework are tempted to open the internet, search, click, copy and paste phrases instead of actually constructing them. And sometimes, the students who are tempted to do so are those who were not able to complete their assignments on time because of procrastination. They are racing against the clock in beating the deadlines and are just forced to take the easy way by stealing the works of others made available in the internet.  Or worst, they prefer to copy the whole paragraph just because they are too lazy to think or do it by themselves. Sometimes, these students just assume that they will never be caught. However, there is an easy way to track down these intellectual felons. Using the search engines, instructors can type the exact words or phrase in the search bar. After pressing the search button, the link containing the webpage where the phrase was copied from will display on top of the list. And the offender is caught. 

Some say they just forgot. While some people claim that they are unaware of such criminal offense. But at the end of the day, ignorance is not an excuse. After all, proper citation of intellectual sources has been taught and incorporated in the elementary and high school curriculum for students to internalize the value of giving due credits to the authors. Nevertheless, self discipline and respect for others needs to be applied every time one excerpts ideas and phrases especially if used in scholarly publications such as researches and case studies. 

***To be edited***
*NOT YET PUBLISHED*

*ONGOING *