Running head: COPYRIGHT, IS IT YOUR RIGHT, OR NOT?
Understanding Copyright/Plagiarism
Elizabeth Fuentes Malin
Lamar University
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The emergence of the Internet has mastered the art of copy and paste. We are immersed in society
driven by the Internet. Accessing information is just a click away. Students, professionals, and artists are
often exploring their creativity and hit a roadblock. It is convenient and easy to tap into someone else’s
creation and claim or pass it off as your own. This makes it easier for people to commit copyright
infringement. As scholars, teachers, administrators of technology education, we become equipped with
the tools necessary to apply the best practices of good digital citizenship. It is our duty and responsibility
to model, practice, and demonstrate responsible behaviors and practice what it means to have good digital
citizenship. One of those areas of digital citizenship is understanding copyright infringement
Writing a research paper is often pressure-ridden (written) all over it. Having the Internet as a
resources allows the process to be seamless as possible; however, one must be abreast of what copyright
and plagiarism look like in order to avoid these pitfalls. Copyright infringement is simply any
infringement upon the rights of a copyright holder (Bailey, 2013). Copyright law gives a copyright holder
(usually the creator of the work) a set of rights that they can and they alone can exploit legally (save for
expectations such as fair use) (Bailey, 2013). Writing an unauthorized sequel to a work as Bailey (2013) is
an example of copyright infringement. Copyright allows protections to the creator of a work of a tangible
item, this includes written material, books, printed material, digital works, artistic creations, poetry,
software, music, plays, novels, magazines, encyclopedias, and other printed literary works. When one
initiates the creation, the copyright is established. The person who created the copyright owns the work
and the copyright. Overall, the copyright has a protection of 150 years (80 initial years, plus another 70
years after ones death). Plagiarism occurs when one takes another’s writing and passes it as their own.
This is when one takes someone’s original work and uses this work as their own. According to
Bailey (2013), “plagiarism is defined as the taking of the original work or works of another and
presenting it as your own.” Both overlap. Bailey (2013) most plagiarism deals with either creative or
academic works and those types of works, typically, qualify for copyright protection when they are new.
An example of plagiarism is when a student uses a resource in their paper without properly citing their
source. Many times this could be using synonyms of words, changing the order of sentences around,
COPYRIGHT, IS IT YOUR RIGHT, OR NOT? 3
copying and pasting direct texts, and putting passages into your own words without giving proper credit
to the original author. When the distribution of a work is mass produced one needs to protect themselves
and register their copyright. What happens when material is borrowed and fair use comes to play? The
idea of derivative works is examined.
When content that provides commentary, inspiration, or influences from the original work often
it is derivative. When a parody of an work is stemmed from an original it is a derivative. Attribution
according to Creative Commons [is when one] must attribute the work in the manner specified by the
author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). An
example and good rule of thumb is to use the TASL (Title, Author, Source, License) when attributing
works. For example, according to Creative Commons (2010) on a webpage featuring your audio
recording, provide a credit list of material you used that adheres to best practices [regarding TASL].
