Copyright Much?

As an university student, we are always concern on whether our work is been plagiarized by others or are we going to be get caught plagiarizing other's people work as well. This is because plagiarism is considered to be a very serious offense and issue in the university education. Assignments and assessments always required us to do research and quote other researcher's work. According to the University fo Pretocria (2003), it was stated that plagiarism is an unethical and illegal action because it shows the disrespect for the rights of the original author and it may tarnish the University's reputation as well. Therefore it is crucial to cite and credit the researchers from the original source that is taken .

(Source by Publishing Connect)

In the article Copyrighted Material: Fair and Unfair Use by Florence Pichon (2011), she stated that every since the advent of the world wide web there has been a confusion and a blurred line between copyrighted and free content. This is because recently Righthaven, a company that is specialize in copyrighting litigation have filed a sued law towards Wayne Hoehn because Hoehn had reduced the number of Revie - Journal site after posting an article at his website. However, Righthaven has failed to sued Hoehn because he does not have enough of venture in the argument to fil such law sued. Though Pichon (2011) stated that the fair and use defense allows for copyrighted material to be reposted however according to the Standford Legal Office (2002) there is a limit in publishing and copying an original source without the acknowledgement of the author itself. Thus, even Pichon (2011) herself mentioned in the article that journalists must be meticulous with the material they use as they'll be suspended if they plagiarized other's work.

( Source by Electic & Eccentric)

West and Game (1999) also mentioned that in the issues of authorship , duplicate publication and plagiarism in any form of scientific journalism papers can cause considerable conflict among the members of research teams references list. Therefore, i strongly believe that citing and crediting an author's work is crucial in order to avoid such complication. 

(Source by Instructify)

In conclusion, it is important to know the rules and regulation of the online plagiarism and practice ethical publishing. So that in the future, we can assure the integrity of the peer review process , and the integrity of articles which are published as a result of that process. (Taylor & Francis Group, 2011). 

 References List

1. University of Pretoria, 2003, Why is Plagiarism an serious offense, viewed on 6th November 2011, <http://upetd.up.ac.za/authors/create/plagiarism/serious.htm>

2.  Standford Legal Offices, 2002, Copyright Law and Fair Issue, viewed on 6th November 2011, < http://www-sul.stanford.edu/cpyright.html>

3. West. M and Game. A, 1999, Principle of Writing, Organisation of Studies, Ashton Business School, viewed on 6th November 2011, < http://www.psy.ed.ac.uk/psy_research/documents/BPS%20Principles%20of%20Publishing%20-%20Authorship,%20Duplicate%20Publication,%20Plagiarism,%20etc.pdf>

4. Taylor and Francis Group, 2011 , Ethical Publishing, viewed on 6th November 2011,  <http://www.tandf.co.uk/libsite/corporateResponsibility/ethicalPublishing/>

5. Pichon. F, 2011, Copyrighted Material: Fair and Unfair, viewed on 6th November 2011, < http://www.editorsweblog.org/newsrooms_and_journalism/2011/06/copyrighted_material_fair_and_unfair_use.php>