Plagiarism involves copying someone else's work covertly or without authorization.
Plagiarism is both the action and the effect of plagiarizing . This verb, for its part, refers to copying other people's works , usually without authorization or covertly.
Plagiarism - from the Latin plagium - is therefore an infringement of copyright . The creator of a work, or the person who owns the corresponding rights, suffers damage from these illegitimate copies and is in a position to demand compensation .
Forms of plagiarism
Basically, there are two ways to plagiarize a work: make illegitimate copies of a copyrighted work or present a copy and pass it off as an original product. Both actions give the injured party the right to take the offender to court , and the consequences usually consist of the imposition of different types of fines and sanctions.
Movies with similar plots, books that present similar stories, and logos that look too similar are some of the clearest examples of plagiarism. Let's look at some sentences that contain this term: "The Argentine author Jorge Bucay was accused of plagiarism for copying texts without citing the sources" , "I don't know if this film is plagiarism or if the director simply has no imagination" , "Certain Asian appliance factories often plagiarize the names and logos of successful products in an attempt to confuse buyers .
The line between plagiarism and suspicious similarities is very thin, and it is always possible to claim that the similarities are due to cultural or historical issues, to a shared inspiration due to belonging to the same era or living in the same country. .
Plagiarism can appear in the field of music.
A problem on the Internet
Plagiarism of texts became widespread with the rise of the Internet . Despite the existence of several computer tools that allow us to detect plagiarized material, it is very common to find texts that have been copied directly from an uncited source , and without having requested the relevant authorization.
This phenomenon represents a deception to users and a way of contaminating the information that circulates on the Internet.
Video game plagiarism
In the mid- 1980s , mainly from 1982 to 1985, the well-known video game crisis took place, which was characterized by a profound lack of interest among the public in this type of entertainment, and by the closure of several North American companies. computer developers and manufacturers. One of the main reasons for this phenomenon was the abuse of plagiarism; Given the poor intellectual property registration measures by many companies of the time ( Atari being the most remembered), the market was flooded with low-quality clones.
This moment in the history of the entertainment industry clearly demonstrates the risk of plagiarism, when taken to the extreme: consumers lose confidence in the market and, as a consequence, look for new horizons where they can invest their money. On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that the benefits of this unfair practice not only reach its executors, but also the portion of the public that values savings, no matter how small, more than the quality of the products.
Fake brands
Regarding the priorities of certain buyers, there are countless false brands, imitations of products of all kinds that are offered for prices much lower than the originals and that satisfy those who cannot or do not want to face a considerable expense.
In the textile industry, plagiarism is accepted with complete normality: a large percentage of people usually wear garments that were designed "in the image and likeness" of top brand models, with the necessary differences to be able to market them, and with a very different finish. .