Media/Publishing Issue 2 (Copyrighted Material: Fair and Unfair Use)

(Source: macp.com)

The advancement of technologies can provide to be a disadvantage. Easy access to the internet offers people unparalleled opportunities to duplicate and to fabricate. Imagine; one click and you can access almost everything on the internet. The search engine Google simplifies the access to a great library of texts, increasing the opportunities of materials being harvest illegally. Websites such as Wikipedia, despite the wide range of information is user-generated and deemed untrustworthy, is still a popular site for rip offs. Academic journal databases such as JSTOR has become a victim of plagiarism, students or adults the like. The internet has now become a treasure trove for plagiarism.

The act of plagiarism is widespread and is affecting the academia and journalism field. According to Anderson (1998), defining plagiarism becomes murky and foggy when one tries to put exact boundaries on it however she defines plagiarism as the act of using the words of another without giving the originator credit. Just as how the article mentions it, it is so easy to collect, compile and modify information from the Internet searches that confusion concerning copyright is inevitable (Bruwelheide, 1995). Therefore, it is easier to remember if every work of others is credited and properly cited each time an essay is done. Avoid the practice of plagiarism as that act is against the law (McClain, 2011). Ethical practice should be encouraged and enforced on students and journalists. Originator should be credited whenever their work is taken and those who do not abide to the ethical rules should be punished. Unfortunately, there are users who believe that anything available over the Internet is fair game and public domain. They think that just because the information is there and easy to manipulate, it has no copyright protection. It is because of these people that plagiarism still continues and if not, is expanding.

Adelaine

(306 words)

Reference

Anderson, J 1998, Plagiarism, Copyright Violation, and Other Thefts of Intellectual Property: An Annotated Bibliography with a Lengthy Introduction, McFarland, United States of America.

Bruwelheide, JH 1995, Copyright Primer for Librarians and Educators, 2nd edn, ALA, Chicago.

McClain, S 2011, The Disadvantages of Plagiarism, viewed 15 November 2011, http://www.ehow.com/info_7874574_disadvantages-plagiarism.html.