Plagiarism and Copyright Information

Bates College of Lewiston, Maine, in its Statement on Plagiarism defines plagiarism as, "the representation of another person's words, ideas, or information as if they were one's own." The Purdue Owl's resource, Avoiding Plagiarism, gives examples of plagiarism as, "buying, stealing, or borrowing a paper or copying an entire paper or article from the web; hiring someone to write your paper for you; or copying large sections of text from a source without quotation marks or the proper citation." Basically, plagiarism is using someone else's work and claiming it as yours. As long as one gives credit to the original producer of the work, he or she should be fine. Acceptable ways of crediting one's source include using quotation marks, foot or end notes, a bibliography, or a Works Cited page at the end of your paper. Other tips on plagiarism can be found in Indiana University's website article, "Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It."
According to the United States Copyright Office's article, Copyright Basics, "copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S.Code) to the authors of 'original works of authorship,' including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works." One important aspect of the copyright law is that in order for something to be copyrighted, it has to be in a fixed form, like a book or compact disc. Once the material is in fixed form, it belongs to the author unless other circumstances, like a work that has been commissioned, exist. One thing that I found interesting in Copyright Basics is that, "the use of a copyright notice is no longer required under United States law." Although a copyright notice would save an author or producer some legal trouble if his or her work was copied, it is his or her job to add it to their work if they want it. Also of note in Copyright Basics is information on how long copyright protection lasts, transferring copyrights, copyright registration, and international copyright protection.