Plagiarism and Copyright

An Introduction

The image above is from Slideshare Here

There has been a lot posted about plagiarism recently and it is quite right that it is brought to the forefront and action taken where it occurs. The thing is that it has made me feel like the world’s biggest plagiarist because of the nature of my writing and has made me feel like I should drop out of the various Facebook Vocal groups because I am an effective writing criminal, though I will not leave unless asked to go or am actually removed. So here are a couple of definitions that I will work within this article which hopefully doesn’t get reported for plagiarism itself

What Is Plagiarism? - Definition from University of Oxford

“Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement. All published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under this definition. Plagiarism may be intentional or reckless, or unintentional. Under the regulations for examinations, intentional or reckless plagiarism is a disciplinary offence.”

What Is Copyright? Information From Copyright.Gov

“Copyright is a type of intellectual property that protects original works of authorship as soon as an author fixes the work in a tangible form of expression. In copyright law, there are a lot of different types of works, including paintings, photographs, illustrations, musical compositions, sound recordings, computer programs, books, poems, blog posts, movies, architectural works, plays, and so much more!”

So Why Am I A Plagiarist and Copyright Infringer?

I ran a plagiarism check on one of my pieces recently and it came up with 42% plagiarised although I had never visited any of the places I was supposed to have plagiarised and one of the flagged items was the word “Love” which was plagiarised because it appeared in an online dictionary.

Others were quotes by the artist I was writing about, so the artist had said the words themselves, someone else had also quoted what the artist had said so who is the plagiarist, me or the quoter. I would say neither as we are both reporting what the artist said.

I am inspired by song titles and lines for poetry but someone recently said that three words could be considered plagiarism. So “I Love You” must be a very common phrase but could that be considered plagiarism?

I share music on Instagram and was under the impression that the limit is 30 seconds, however if I share even ten seconds of a Led Zeppelin song it is immediately removed. This is ironic considering Led Zeppelin’s most famous song “Whole Lotta Love” is virtually lifted from Muddy Waters’ but he wasn’t credited until after a court case in 1985 and many of their songs were “enhancements” of existing blues songs such as “When The Levee Breaks” by Memphis Minnie.

In my second most viewed YouTube video / slideshow I took the wonderful Dr Seuss influenced drawing to storyboard Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand”. I contacted Dr Faustus but got no answer. I found this article on pleople steling his work ten years back.

I just wait for YouTube to contact me if there is a music issue, but I do not have enough subscribers to be allowed to make money on YouTube but always give a link for people to buy the music.

It is approaching ten thousand views so should I be punished for this. Hopefully you can see it below.

Musical Plagiarism Or Not?

I think music copyright is limited to four notes, so that is why George Harrison’s beauty “My Sweet Lord” lost to the Chiffons “He’s So Fine” but as someone pointed out it’s like comparing Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Ceiling to a semi detached magnolia plain ceiling, but you can see their point.

“Holidays In The Sun” by The Sex Pistols , “White Riot” by The Clash and “In The City” by The Jam all use the same descending six note guitar backing run as “Waiting For The Man” bt The Velvet Underground, although the song melodies are different, but this resulted in no court cases. Also check out the intro to Paul Weller’s “The Changing Man” against the electric Light Orchestra’s “10538 Overture”.

What To Do About Plagiarism

In the past six months I have reported completely plagiarised articles to the source owners and publishers of the plagiarised articles and bare the odd auto acknowledgement I am unaware of any action being taken against the plagiarist.

I am aware of work being rejected for plagiarism because citations were included. Removal of the citations for less obvious hyperlinks to the source resulted in publication.

Conclusion - Always Credit Your Sources

You can do this either by obvious links or citation lists. Sometimes you do find uncredited paragraphs sitting on the net but do make an effort to find out the author, and if you can connect with them they may even give publicity to your work too.

Again I feel like the world’s worst plagiarist because taking someone’s idea can also be seen as plagiarism but it does depend on how far you take it, but this is an article about plagiarism and copyright. Friends have recently written about this subject,so am I plagiarising them and should I be called out for it?