A friend of mine once said: “My intellectual work belongs only to me, if only one encroaches on it I will go to the court.” This is what we call Plagiarism. Speaking about this phenomenon we should first of all understand what it is from the scientific point of view. Our helper today is the Big Soviet Encyclopedia. It says that plagiarism is “a kind of violation of author’s or inventor’s right.” In other words plagiarism is when we use other people’s thoughts, words, and fruit of their mind for our own purpose, at the same time claiming them to be our own. In this essay I’m going to touch mostly the juridical and moral aspect of the issue.
The notion of plagiarism doesn’t have any definite content; very often it’s very hard to distinguish it from common notions, like imitation, borrowing, co-authorship and other similar cases. Anyway the coincidence of concrete ideas is not plagiarism as any new masterpieces are somehow based on the ideas that do not belong to their author. But I should also mention that usually a man that has made something up is used to treating himself as the only one to do it, and any imitation of his thoughts he regards as violation of his rights. To tell the truth the object of plagiarism is not the idea but its outer casing. Lots of literature pieces having nothing new in them consist in interpreting old ideas in other words, revealing new nuances of thoughts. So only the appropriation of this deeply individual side of the masterpiece can be called plagiarism. That’s why we can’t treat the following things as the plagiarism – borrowing of the plot, new variations for old characters, etc.
On the one hand the protection of copyright allowed defending of interests of authors suffered from plagiarism. On the other hand the legislation can be used as means for incorrect competition. Indistinctness of notion of plagiarism leads to the fact that courts considering the cases of plagiarism in most cases can’t independently take decisions about the presence of plagiarism in this or that case. Experts that prove the piece of art to be plagiarism are not always impartial. This is why when a huge publishing house has legal proceedings against one author, the last one has almost no chances – the company would hire a team of professional experts which would presume that there is plagiarism or there is no plagiarism depending on the status of the company.
Certainly it’s not very good to steal and appropriate the work of others. But evidently not everyone understands it. There are people, for example, who can make something up and then realize the idea, but there are also people that can’t do anything except to repeat what has been done by others. Finally there are people that can’t do anything at all – they are wonderful executors and helpers. But a human being is always improving and he wants something more in this life: he begins to imitate and copy his more talented and successful colleagues. In other words – to learn something. So here seems to be the rub; some people after having learned something begin to create their own things, but others still have no abilities to create. These people are usually trying to show others’ work as their own just not to look worse than others and to earn more. As in the science and technology all inventions are popularized and registered it seems impossible to steel any idea. But in the sphere of art people take others’ idea and pass them for their own. Sometimes they remake some parts and sometimes they just put down their signature.
Now let’s go to the problem of plagiarism in journalism. Instead of rushing around grasping the necessary information reporters usually use news or information and works of others published in the Internet that has become a distinctive lifesaver for them. But here as in any other case we deal with ambiguity. One thing is to download some exclusive material and put your signature having changed the title, and another is to use the necessary material creatively pointing the author and the source. But this should always be done correctly without violation of laws and copyright. A man stealing the work of others puts his signature under the powerlessness to make something of his own. Lately new forms of plagiarism have occurred and it’s very hard to define them as plagiarism. One of such forms is cinema and literature novelization of computer games, or vice versa the release of games using the plot of cinema and literature pieces. Sometimes such things are released on agreement with the authors, or even for advertisement purposes, which makes them non-plagiarism, but direct illegal borrowing allowing the accusation in plagiarism is also possible. Passage of the laws on the copyright protection turned the problem of plagiarism into juridical and commercial. Nowadays almost all states have the laws forbidding the violation of copyright. Violation of these laws may lead to serious sanctions including imprisonment.
The most interesting is that the product of mental work or creative activity is our society is not regarded as a flow-blown product. Though we have laws protecting the copyright. But it seems that only protection one can get is that he can be proud that he has it. To crown it all I should say that plagiarism is amoral as any other illegal phenomenon. Being a very broad notion it concerns almost every sphere of our life. It still seems that legislation can’t cope with plagiarism as an illegal activity, so everything is subject to our conscience. I should also mention that some do not really understand that plagiarism is stealing that is a sin. It seems that we would never get rid of plagiarism because thieves have always existed and will always be, but our task is to apprehend that cheating is not a way out. The desire to earn money shouldn’t prevail. Creativeness is what we’re eager for. | 
