PLAGIARISM

PLAGIARISM [From Latin plagiarius a kidnapper, literary thief]. The appropriation of someone's artistic, musical, or literary work for personal ends. Because most artists are affected by other artists, it is not always easy to decide where legitimate influence ends and plagiarism begins. The term is usually reserved, however, for the flagrant lifting of material in an unchanged or only slightly changed form and its dissemination as the plagiarist's own work. In oral and scribal societies, most performers ‘plagiarized’, in the sense that they borrowed material but failed to identify their sources. It is unlikely, however, that this interaction was considered reprehensible. In addition, insofar as educational institutions invite students to model themselves on others, a degree of plagiarism and pastiche are built into the acquiring of creative skills. The concept of plagiarism as a serious legal offence became clear-cut with the growth of printing and the establishment of authors and publishers as people and institutions with property rights. See DERIVATIVE QUOTATION.