Purposeful Prose Advice Column: Plagiarism vs Copyright Infringement

Dear Purposeful Prose, 

I get confused about plagiarism and copyright infringement pretty often, and I’ve heard a lot of people use the terms interchangeably. Is there a real difference between the two? How do I know if I’ve done either one of these by accident?

Growing up, I used to rent VHS tapes with my family at a Blockbuster-esque video store. Kids’ movies could be rented for free. I spent many a happy evening with my family watching things like My Neighbor Totoro. If you’ve ever watched a VHS or some DVDs, you probably remember the FBI copyright infringement warnings. 

As a little kid, I used to try reading them even though I didn’t understand a word. Basically, the message concerned piracy and unauthorized distribution of the movie. We don’t have widespread messages like that on streaming services. 

Over the years, conversations on anti-piracy and copyright infringement have shifted. This article from the Hollywood Reporter gives interesting insight into conversations on anti-piracy notices over the years and where they come from if you’re interested.

Thinking of copyright infringement in terms of film can be easier than thinking of it in terms of books and the written words. If a piece of media has infringed on someone’s copyright, regardless of the medium, they have reproduced, distributed, or in some way used the work of someone else without their express permission. 

Upon creation of your intellectual property, you have full copyright ownership and are entitled to certain protections. If you, as a creator of intellectual property, want to be able to sue for damages related to copyright infringement, you might register your work with your country’s copyright office. In order for your work to qualify for copyright protections, your work must be original, in a fixed format (drawn and saved, written down, not just an idea), and it has to fall into a protected category. If you would like to learn more about copyright protections, this article from Rutgers University Library is a great, accessible source.  

Plagiarism, on the other hand, is often associated with academia. However, it can happen anywhere, and it can even happen by accident as you've pointed out. Copyright infringement can also happen anywhere, but there are several key differences. If credit is taken for someone else’s ideas by any means (this does not include tropes, idiomatic phrases, or common expressions), that is a case of plagiarism. Some more common instances of plagiarism occur when sources aren’t cited or are improperly cited. 

Plagiarism can become an issue of copyright infringement when the work is being used unlawfully, without the express permission of the copyright holder, but copyright doesn’t care about citations. You can cite a source perfectly and still face penalties for copyright infringement if the work does not fall under fair use statutes.

While someone can be sued for plagiarism, a lawsuit in the US can only happen if the instance of plagiarism is accompanied by copyright infringement, the violation of a contract, or similar. Also, unfortunately, plagiarism is often legal. That said:

• a distributor can refuse to carry your book if they find that it is plagiarized.

• an academic institution can penalize students for academic dishonesty.

• a business can refuse to publish work that has been plagiarized and can take action against the person who plagiarized.

• an online platform can ban or limit access to a writer they find is plagiarizing.  

For anyone who is interested in learning more about plagiarism, in academia or otherwise, plagiarism.org is a great organization. I find their material on building academic integrity policies to be particularly fascinating. For more information on plagiarism in the age of AI, I recommend this article by Jonathan Bailey on Plagiarism Today. 

As for how you know whether you've plagiarized by accident, you can use a plagiarism detector to help you. Manual searches can be difficult, but my best piece of advice is to take a lot of notes and make a careful record of any inspiration you draw from. You can use a record like that to determine whether what you've written is correctly attributed or transformative enough. As for how you know for certain whether you've accidentally plagiarized, you often don't, and it's harder to find instances of accidental plagiarism in your own work. What you can do is take steps to avoid plagiarizing by accident by taking good, comprehensive notes and doing as much research as you can.

If you have a writing or editing-focused question, I would be more than happy to dedicate a post to you. Contact us with any questions you might have or to schedule a free consultation with yours truly!

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