Plagiarism

Doesn't plagiarism only count when the plagiarist is attempting to benefit fiscally or academically from the plagiarised work? And why does this website go down so often?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plagiarism?s=t noun 1. an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author: It is said that he plagiarized Thoreau's plagiarism of a line written by Montaigne. Synonyms: appropriation, infringement, piracy, counterfeiting; theft, borrowing, cribbing, passing off. 2. a piece of writing or other work reflecting such unauthorized use or imitation: “These two manuscripts are clearly plagiarisms,” the editor said, tossing them angrily on the floor.

"Doesn't plagiarism only count when the plagiarist is attempting to benefit fiscally or academically from the plagiarised work? " It should count if any benefit is derived. In this case having ones name in the headings counts as a benefit but also the website owner has to consider any copy-write issues arising from its publication. By knowingly allowing plagiarised work to remain on here Matthew does leave himself open to a potentially large bill.

Plagiarism is generally about pretending someone else's work as your own, without acknowledgement. I'm not sure if it's illegal, even if you make money or some other benefit, but it's usually considered unethical, often quite insulting to the person who created it, and definitely not acceptable in academia and many other circles (including here I hope). Copyright infringement *is* illegal. That's when you re-publish someone's work, without permission, before its copyright has expired. Copyright infringement is illegal even if you acknowledge the source. Copyright's applied to works automatically in most countries, including New Zealand. It has to be explicitly waived, or expire, for any random person to be able to legally pick it up and republish it. Otherwise you need to obtain permission, except for a few circumstances, like Fair Dealing, which is what makes it okay to reproduce representative quotes from a book, and similar. Copyrights do expire, for good reason when you get into it, but not for a while. For written works in NZ it's 50 years after the last author dies, and various copyright treaties mean it also applies to stuff originating internationally (and vice-versa). The recent cases on this site might not have been illegal from plagiarism, but they were almost certainly illegal from the copyright infringement aspect, unless permission was obtained. Most cases of plagiarism will be illegal due to copyright infringement simply because stuff that's copied without acknowledgement has usually been produced recently. I guess you could re-print some obscure work where copyright expired long ago, stamp your name on it and hope nobody would notice. A lawyer might need to comment on that one. Usual disclaimer: Not a lawyer.

Regardless of what 'counts' and what doesn't cut'n'pasting another persons work to this website and then passing it off as your own is pretty shameless. It cheapens the great work done on here by other members. It's also not very bright, given how easy it is to right click -> search Google on any given block of text....

So what was it anyway?

A couple of front page articles conveying the writer's 'personal thoughts' on food and footwear that were, in fact, word for word ripoffs from other sites.

just a thought. A lot of people use psudenums on this and other sites. These may be different on each site so it is entirely possible that the poster at the sharp ends of all the fingers may in fact be the original poster of the article in which case its not plagiarised. Of course if that had been the case Im sure there would of been at least a few words in defence by now.

Oh I see, I never read them :)