Plagiarism

[Athens]

Legally speaking, what is the worst that can happen when an article gets plagiarized. Fines? Jail time? A ruined reputation? It is highly frowned upon, that's a given, but what are the legal consequences?

 

[handsonhosting]

Yes to all of the above!

 

[BlastPort]

Legally speaking, what is the worst that can happen when an article gets plagiarized. Fines? Jail time? A ruined reputation? It is highly frowned upon, that's a given, but what are the legal consequences?

Yep, absolutely all of the above, however, I wouldn't worry about jail time too much if you had a decent lawyer after getting sued. The courts don't make it a habit of locking away people for article plagiarism for long periods of time.

 

[zomgmike]

If you're the host and it's one of your customers, you're responsible for acting on a DMCA complaint issued to you about the article. When you receive the complaint you must act expeditiously to either remove the offending content or issue a legally binding rebuttal statement, declaring that you are within copyright law. Failure to do so makes you, the host, lose your safe harbor. Basically once you know about it, you're responsible for acting on it. If you don't, you're responsible for the content itself.

If you're knowingly using a plagiarized article yourself, then on behalf of whoever put the hard work into creating it, please stop.

And, with all advice on legal matters, what is important isn't want is said here - it's what your legal council tells you. We can give general advice, but we can't represent you. ;-)

 

[Collabora]

Legally speaking, what is the worst that can happen when an article gets plagiarized. Fines? Jail time? A ruined reputation? It is highly frowned upon, that's a given, but what are the legal consequences?

Although not normally a crime, a person who plagiarizes is subject to being sued for fraud or copyright infringement. Its a civil, not criminal, matter.

 

[VPS9.net]

All of the above can happen. As said by Collabora, Copyright Infringement is the first thing to happen.

 

[easyhostmedia]

If you're the host and it's one of your customers, you're responsible for acting on a DMCA complaint issued to you about the article.

If you are outside of the USA and get a DMCA complaint then you dont need to act on it as a DMCA is a USA thing and is only enforceable in the USA.
Although most host will act in some form if they get any complaint.

Plagiarism is also a strange thing as you really need to establish who the content really belongs too.

How do you know that it is just not 1 competitor trying to get rid of another when they say site A stole the content of their site, when they could have been the ones who stole the content of site A

 

[Collabora]

All of the above can happen. As said by Collabora, Copyright Infringement is the first thing to happen.

But there is a distinction. Plagiarism is simply copying without attribution. You can plagiarize and not infringe on copyright, you can infringe on copyright without plagiarizing, or you can do both at the same time.

It's common to equate the two as some have done here, but they are not the same thing. Generally speaking, plagiarism is an academic problem; copyright infringement is a legal problem.

 

[cpoalmighty]

Nothing more to say but YES YES and YES. Before stealing someone's content you should really be prepared to face the consequences of that action

 

[RH-Calvin]

If it happens that you use the article on your site or any other, it gets a spam notification from search engine point of view and you suffer the consequences. Your site will suffer the most and get penalized for such infringement activities.

 

[traxt]

All of the above, you just shouldnt do it at all

 

[Sister]

Generally speaking, plagiarism is an academic problem; copyright infringement is a legal problem.

At least Lautréamont don't care.

Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It holds tight an author’s phrase, uses his expressions, eliminates a false idea, and replaces it with just the right idea.