Consequences Of Plagiarism

Mike Deep • October 15, 2014

Plagiarism is not just unethical; there are legal repercussions for taking the legal property of someone else. Plagiarism defined by law is the taking of writing or ideas of an individual or entity and using them as one’s own. Plagiarism can affect students, journalists, professionals, authors and anyone who creates a product. While the charges brought to the individual for plagiarism vary by jurisdiction and the penalties are determined on the unique circumstances of each case, here are the consequences of plagiarism.

Examples Of Possible Consequences Of Plagiarism

Destroyed Reputation

A student accused of plagiarism can cause a student to be expelled and prohibited from entering another school. A professional can be relieved of their position and find it hard to obtain another job in the same capacity. An academic found of plagiarism will likely lose the privilege of publishing anything more, which may result in the end of his career. When writing essays, dissertations, presentations and more for your high school or college assignments, the ethical board of your school will not excuse plagiarism due to ignorance. A student is often suspended after the first offense of being found guilty of plagiarism and almost certainly will be expelled for further offenses.

Human Lives at Risk

Plagiarism in medical research is especially detrimental; doing so could result in widespread illness or loss of lives. Plagiarism during medical research is met with severe legal repercussions and consequences of plagiarism in this field can mean even imprisonment.

Monetary Loss

If a journalist works for a newspaper or magazine and is found guilty of plagiarism, the publisher that he works for may be sued and forced to pay costly monetary fees. An author can sue a person for profiting from their writings or literary ideas and be granted high restitution fees. The consequences of plagiarism here may be worth thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Legal Backlash

Neglecting to follow copyright laws is a second-degree misdemeanor. Plagiarism can lead to a prison sentence if it is found that copyright laws have been broken.

Plagiarism can affect students, journalists, professional, authors and anyone who creates a product.

The United States law states that all work is immediately the property of an author once an item is created in a fixed form of expression. This stands for musical compositions, news articles, books, movies and more. Musicians, authors, businesses, online radio stations and music publishing companies have all taken charges of plagiarism to the courtroom. When creating your work for academic use or even for your own recreation, be careful to use quotation marks, references, and footnotes to confidently avoid the long-lasting effects of plagiarism.

There are even more possible consequences of plagiarism. To have a full view of them just try to imagine the consequences of plagiarism as consequences of stealing something.  That will give you a clear idea of what plagiarism is and what consequences it may have.