“Accidental” Plagiarism Is Still Plagiarism

Let’s start with the good news:Plagiarism is not illegal. It is highly unethical and should never be toleratedin your eLearning and web content, but plagiarizing isn’t going to land you injail or even trigger a fine. Copyright infringement … well, that’s a differentstory. It’s unethical and illegal.

The bad news: You can’t get off the hookfor either transgression by pleading ignorance.

What is plagiarism? What are the legaland ethical issues? Here are five tips to help eLearning content creators identifyplagiarism and stay out of the murky waters of ethical transgression. (Tobetter understand copyright law, see Copyright Law, Prototypes, and the Five-second Rule.)

1. Any time you use someone else’s words orimages without giving that person credit, you have plagiarized. It really is that simple. Whether you intendedto copy is irrelevant. Plagiarism is often the result of disorganization orinattention: You mix your research notes in with your writing and lose track ofthe attribution. It doesn’t matter. As journalism professor and ethicist Steve Buttry says, “I can’t remember anyone ever admittingintentional plagiarism.”

2. If something is in the public domain, using itwithout attribution is still plagiarism. The song “Happy Birthday” is in the public domain; anyone can sing it, print the words, orfeature it in a commercial work without paying licensing fees. If there is nocopyright or the copyright has expired, a work is in the public domain. Thatgets you off the hook for copyright infringement—but not for plagiarism. If theauthorship of a work is known, anyone using any part of it must credit theauthor. Jane Austen’s books are all in the public domain—copyright expires after a specific term, which varies by country and type of work, or70 years after the death of the creator (in the United States). But anyonequoting even a single line of “Pride and Prejudice” must credit Jane Austen—orbe guilty of plagiarism.

3. There is no escape hatch. Many people mistakenly believe that there is a “safe”number of words, or seconds of audio or video content, that they can use beforetriggering a charge of either plagiarism or copyright infringement. There’snot.

• Using any numberof someone else’s words and passing them off as your own is plagiarism; even withrevision, if your work is substantially similar to another person’swork—similar enough to be recognized—it’s plagiarism unless you give the original author credit. Plagiarism is a seriousethical transgression, but it is easily avoided.
• The false beliefthat there is a safe number of words or seconds of content that a person canuse arises from two common defenses against charges of copyright violation: de minimis use and the claim of “fair use.”De minimis use is the use of such asmall amount of a copyrighted work that the court does not recognize it as acopyright violation. Fair use is a section of copyright law that specificallypermits some uses of copyrighted works, such as research or classroom use. Theproblem with both of these is that neither the law nor the courts have providedclear definitions, specific numbers of words, or a number of seconds of contentthat fall under these defenses.
  An important note: Corporations do not benefit from fair-use exemptions grantedfor “nonprofit educational purposes,” so anyone creating content for corporateeLearning must be sure to get permission to use any copyrighted work, whetherusing the entire work or excerpts from it.

4. Plagiarism is deceptive and fraudulent. Plagiarism isn’t illegal, and no one outside thecompany will ever see the eLearning module, so what difference does it make ifa few sentences here and there are remarkably similar to someone else’s contentin some other company’s eLearning? Being able to “get away with” doingsomething unethical is far from a reasonable justification for doing it. We’veall had the experience of other people—co-workers, bosses, spouses—passing off ourideas or suggestions as their own. It’s infuriating, even if it seems clearthat the person truly doesn’t remember the earlier suggestion and is notintentionally stealing the idea. Listen to your mom and your first-gradeteacher: Do your own work, and give credit where credit is due.

5. Google is your friend. In the digital age, it is ridiculously easy toavoid plagiarism. If you come up with a particularly clever-sounding phrase,but you have a tiny little suspicion that the seed for that bit of creativegenius was planted by something you read, Google it or run it through an onlineplagiarism checker. If the same phrase turns up somewhere else, revise it orgive credit. Keep careful records of your research. If a passage is closeenough to someone else’s work that it could raise questions, err on the safeside: Revise or attribute.

People with the best of intentions canstill commit plagiarism. Careful attention, thorough editing, and a little helpfrom Google and other digital friends can ensure that your eLearning content isyour own work.

References

Buttry, Steve. “Intentdoesn’t matter in plagiarism (because no one admits intent).” The Buttry Diary.25 July 2016.
https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/intent-doesnt-matter-in-plagiarism-because-no-one-admits-intent/

Hirtle, Peter. “CopyrightTerm and the Public Domain in the United States.” Cornell University CopyrightInformation Center. 1 January 2016.
https://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm 

Mullin, Joe.“‘Happy Birthday’ is public domain, former owner Warner/Chapell to pay $14M.” Ars Technica. 10 February 2016.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/happy-birthday-is-public-domain-former-owner-warnerchapell-to-pay-14m/

U.S. CopyrightOffice. “Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use.” Copyright Law of theUnited States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Chapter 1, Section107.
https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107