TY - JOUR
T1 - "I know it when I see it": on academic plagiarism and how to assess it
AU - Quintela Ribeiro Neves Ramalho, Ana
AU - Santos Silva, Marta
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Kerala State Higher Education Council.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - In the academic context, plagiarism is usually seen as an ethical offence, the boundaries and definition of which are often unclear. However, in some countries, plagiarism is also a legal wrong, amounting to copyright infringement. This article proposes a test for assessing plagiarism of academic works. The test is based on the law and jurisprudence of a particular country – Portugal – , where plagiarism is framed as copyright infringement. Article 196 of the Portuguese Copyright Law sets four elements that must be fulfilled for a finding of plagiarism: there must be a protected work; the alleged plagiarist must have used a partial or total reproduction of that work; the alleged plagiarist must have failed to attribute the authorship of the work to its rightful creator; and the work of the alleged plagiarist must lack its own individuality. The authors argue that, even if the law of a particular country does not frame plagiarism as a legal offence, these elements should be part of a test to be adopted and applied by academic institutions for the sake of legal certainty.
AB - In the academic context, plagiarism is usually seen as an ethical offence, the boundaries and definition of which are often unclear. However, in some countries, plagiarism is also a legal wrong, amounting to copyright infringement. This article proposes a test for assessing plagiarism of academic works. The test is based on the law and jurisprudence of a particular country – Portugal – , where plagiarism is framed as copyright infringement. Article 196 of the Portuguese Copyright Law sets four elements that must be fulfilled for a finding of plagiarism: there must be a protected work; the alleged plagiarist must have used a partial or total reproduction of that work; the alleged plagiarist must have failed to attribute the authorship of the work to its rightful creator; and the work of the alleged plagiarist must lack its own individuality. The authors argue that, even if the law of a particular country does not frame plagiarism as a legal offence, these elements should be part of a test to be adopted and applied by academic institutions for the sake of legal certainty.
U2 - 10.1177/2347631120932238
DO - 10.1177/2347631120932238
M3 - Article
VL - 7
SP - 187
EP - 199
JO - Higher Education for the Future
JF - Higher Education for the Future
IS - 2
ER -