Is plagiarism illegal?

Most already know that plagiarism is an ethical infraction and a violation of your school or workplace's honor code. If you're caught plagiarizing, you can be punished by your school, fired from your job, or even have your career ruined. But what about legal consequences? read more

Although plagiarism is not a criminal or civil offense, plagiarism is illegal if it infringes an author's intellectual property rights, including copyright or trademark. For example, the owner of a copyright can sue a plagiarizer in federal court for copyright violation. read more

Plagiarism may be unlawful, but it is not necessarily illegal. Although these two terms are often used interchangeably, they do have different technical meanings. “Illegal” has been defined as an act’ which the law directly forbids, as to commit a murder, [or] obstruct the highway’ 134. read more

Plagiarism, often times, violates those rights both by copying the work without permission and distributing it. However, not all plagiarisms are copyright infringements. For example, one can plagiarize from sources that are out of copyright (meaning in the public domain) and not commit copyright infringement. read more