Many people plagiarize but how much is it really? Some are probably thinking like maybe fifteen to twenty high school or college students, right? Well that is incorrect because their is way more than that and it is not even just students it is also grown adults who have highly paid careers. Plagiarism is a serious problem that people need to recognize instead of just pushing it aside and thinking it doesn’t matter. If some are not sure of what plagiarism might be it is when somebody (student, artist, writer) takes someone else’s work and claims it as their own, original work that they use for either assignments, articles or music. Plagiarism is a serious problem the people need to know what it is, who is doing it and what the consequences are because plagiarism carries a lot of effects that can ruin a person’s career and what others think of them as an individual.
What Is Plagiarism and Copyright?
So let’s get into the basics of what plagiarism is. In the beginning it stated that plagiarism was when someone takes someone else’s work and claims it as their own. It is pretty basic information to know but let’s dig deeper to see what more it is all about. Most people probably thinks it is just something that people use or say to get people (mostly students) to do their own work and be original. Even though it is a federal law. According to the U.S law, expression of original ideas is considered intellectual property and is protected by copyright laws, just like original invention (What 1). Which means that it is pretty much illegal to steal another person’s work as if it was like a car or their property. For example if someone stole another person’s essay it would be just like taking someone’s car or personal belongings which is not ok. Not only is it writing people can plagiarize it can also be music, pictures and videos. It is not technically called plagiarism it is called copyright. Copyright is the exclusive legal right to use the matter and form of something such as a literary, musical, or artistic work that does not belong to the person using it (Merriam Webster Dictionary Entry ⅓). Which means that if someone wants to use somebody’s work such as music or images they have to make sure they give them the rightful credit they deserve just as they should with anything that doesn’t belong to you. Now that one is more familiar with what plagiarism and copyright is let’s move on to who is plagiarizing and why.
Who and Why?
Now let’s get into on who is plagiarizing and why they are doing. Yes, many people plagiarize and have reasons. Some people have reasons that are understandable while others have some that are not that understandable reasons to say why they cheated/plagiarized. An example of someone who had a not so great reason on why they stole someone else’s work is the one and only Robert Matthew Van Winkle also known as his stage name Vanilla Ice. Apparently Vanilla Ice was accused of stealing the beat of his most known song “Ice Ice Baby” from Queen and David Bowie’s song called “Under Pressure”. Vanilla Ice tried to claim that he didn’t steal the melody from them because he added a beat between two other notes. Which was not true and he said he was just joking around (Runtagh, Jordan paragraph 4). This here is a very bad excuse for plagiarizing another person’s work and claiming it as their own trying to say that it’s different by adding another beat in the original melody is very low and even worse it was not even true and he made it all up. This was a very serious case and he took it as a joke as if it was not a big deal even though it was and he lost song writing credits and some of the earnings of the song. Another person who has plagiarised another person’s work was former IGN editor Filip Miucin. He did not steal another person’s writing piece instead he stole a youtubers review video on a game and took it and typed it out to look like his own work. The original creator made a video of his own to show the side by side comparisons of his work and Miucin’s work and found plenty of things that he had said in his original video. Filip Miucin claimed that review process is not that different from other reviewers (Fogel, Stefanie Paragraph 3 and 6). This is a decent response for plagiarizing it is not the best reason neither is it the worst reason. Saying that review process is sort of similar to others who review is understandable because on one hand a lot of people review games in a similar way but on another hand everyone has their own personal thought process which would be hard to believe they both said the exact same words about the same game. Both of these reasons are really unbelievably on why they plagiarised because they knew what they were doing and had to come up with a “good enough” excuse to cover up on what they did. Both of these artists both had to suffer the consequences of plagiarism. But what exactly are the consequences.
Consequences Of Plagiarism:
There are plenty of consequences of plagiarism. But what are they some may ask, well here is one of the many consequences of plagiarizing another person’s work. One of them is getting sued. This here is a major one especially if you are a big singer/artist, such as Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars song “Uptown Funk” got sued by a 1979 band called The Gap Band because Ronson had some very similar beats to The Gap Band’s song “Oops Upside Your Head” and got sued for $150,000 and will have to share the earnings of the song “UpTown Funk” with each member of The Gap Band (Runtagh, Jordan paragraph 7-9). This one is a huge consequence because not only did they get sued for copying the beat of the song but they also have to share the earnings the song earns so lets say in a year the song earns like millions of dollars and originally it would only of had to been split 2 ways but since they got sued they now have to split it between 6 other people. Another consequence that people can face is it can affect a person’s academic life. Such as it can cause a person to get suspended from the college they attend or even fail that course (Plagiarism Policy HVCC Paragraph 1). For example if a college student plagiarizes parts of their essay they can easily get a suspension and is apart of the academic dishonesty which is really bad because not only is the person is getting failed or suspended but they also have to get stuck with a label of being known as “that plagiarizing student”. Which probably sucks because for their whole academic career they are most likely going to be known as a student who cheats and has no originality.
Now that people understand how many different age groups and careers people can plagiarize from and what it is now get a better understanding on that it is not just students and that it is people with high paying careers and should take action with the problem. Plagiarism is a serious problem the people need to know what it is, who is doing it and what the consequences are because plagiarism carries a lot of effects that can ruin a person’s career and what others think of them as an individual. Not only will plagiarism affect a person’s career or school life but can affect their real life too, so how will each and every one individual prevent it from ruining theirs.
This essay was donated by a student on 20.10.2018 in exchange for a free plagiarism scan.