An old Arabic saying, “seek knowledge even if you have to travel to China.” It was said in times when traveling to China was like a death journey from Arabia. Now you don’t have to travel to seek knowledge. If you have a smartphone, knowledge is just a tap away. You can search for anything on Google, you can ask anything from Alexa and you can ask for details from Siri.

Plagiarism – A Problem in Modern World of Information

The ease of access to information often brings the tendency to misuse this information. People blatantly steal information from the internet and present it as their own stuff on their blogs, YouTube Channels, Facebook, and Instagram Timelines. They are doing it without thinking about the consequences they can face due to stealing and plagiarizing the content.

The word plagiarism, which originated from the Latin word for “abduction”, gain popularity with the advent of the internet. It’s the more known word to students and teachers because plagiarism is taken as a serious crime by universities and colleges. The reason is obvious as it’s an unethical activity were trying to cheat by stealing someone’s work without their assent and knowledge.

Conducts That Comprise Plagiarism

Plagiarism, whether on the internet or from a student’s perspective, crop up when any of the following action is committed:

1.       Presenting some individuals' work, words, ideas, or opinions by your name, without referring to or acknowledging the original author or creator.

2.       Presenting someone’s work, words, ideas, or opinions with minor manipulation, modification, or paraphrasing.

3.       Letter-perfect copy of words, passages, or parts from any book, online article, research paper, journal, or any other source.

Students are often aware of the consequences of plagiarism and that’s why they often avoid plagiarism. They never forget to check their assignments, papers, and thesis using a plagiarism checker to be 100% sure that their work is plagiarism-free. They know that if plagiarism is detected, even accidentally, in their submission, they will, not only, be declared to fail but they can get expulsion orders from the college or university.

Consequences of Plagiarism as Per International Law

If being a student, you know what action a university or college can take against you if you are caught red-handed while cheating or plagiarizing, then you must also be aware of the legal consequences as per International Law.

To be on the safe side, it’s always advised to avoid plagiarism. As the internet is flooded with millions of informative pages each day, it’s hard to avoid accidental plagiarism [accidental plagiarism: plagiarism that occurs unintentionally even when you didn’t copy words, concepts, or ideas]. Always put your work through the plagiarism checker so that you may be getting a copyright violation notice or some similar notice from the court.

There’s a misconception that copyright law is international law. Copyright law is there in almost every country of the world and it’s different in each country. So if there is any breach of the copyright act, it will be dealt with locally. But that’s not good news for people who are keen to plagiarize because there are some international laws that are always there to protect the original author or creator.

We’ll discuss some of the consequences of plagiarism in International law:

1.     Royalty Payments

If someone publishes a plagiarized work and earns some profit due to that work and later on he’s found guilty, all the profits and income he earned through that plagiarized work will have to be given to the original author. Apart from that, the guilty person may have to pay a royalty to the author if the author’s work was a patent asset.

We have seen this case often in cases of plagiarism over the internet. If a Vlogger is creating plagiarized videos on his/her YouTube channel, YouTube will send all the profits and income to the original author if the author reports it to YouTube. Most User Generated Content Publishing Websites or Platforms follow this rule to discourage plagiarism and to keep their content original.

2.     Copyright Law Suits

Copyright Laws are strict in most countries in the world, especially in Europe and the United States of America. No matter how minor the plagiarism is, if some big personality or celebrity is involved in that case, the accused person can be in really big trouble. We have seen cases where someone stole the words and posts of celebrities and lawsuits were filed against them.

One of the popular cases is Oprah Winfrey Talk Show where Oprah Winfrey was sued for almost $100 Million. That was a big shock for the celebrity and gossip was everywhere about it. Another case we saw against the popular book series Harry Potter author and the damages claimed, in that case, were around $1 Billion.

3.     Imprisonment – in Rare Cases

Plagiarism is a crime that falls under civil proceedings and there can only be a fine to pay damages but no imprisonment. In rare cases, there can be imprisonment but that would happen only when there’s some serious crime is annexed to plagiarism.

For example, there was a student at Harvard University who was sentenced to 2 years’ imprisonment because he used fake documents to get admission to Harvard and he also submitted a plagiarized scholarship essay to win the scholarship.

Conclusion

Now after reading the legal consequences, we hope that you won’t ever think about plagiarizing because you definitely don’t have $1 billion in your pocket to pay the damages nor do you want to waste 2 years in jail. To avoid these severe circumstances and consequences, it’s better to check your work and words for plagiarism using a plagiarism checker and then submit or publish it.

If you’re using someone’s words then give proper reference in the proper style (MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard Anglia, or whatever style you are following). Don’t forget to give credit to the source even if you’re paraphrasing someone’s idea or work.

In the end, keep Pablo Picasso's words in your mind, “a good artist copies while the best artist steals.”