Is plagiarism a copyright infringement?

Plagiarism and copyright are two such concepts which are most likely to be mistaken of being synonymous to each other. It is important to remember that the two are not the same. People who are victims of copyright infringement bring plagiarism under the ambit of copyright infringement, which is wrong and here’s why:

Copyright infringement

Copyright protection is a governed by a statute called Indian Copyright Act, 1957, which protects literary, dramatic or musical works such as books, plays, lyrics, etc. by disallowing their unauthorized reproduction, translation or adaptation. This right vest only on the copyright holder who usually is the author of the work.

Copyright infringement is a legal wrong in respect of which a civil suit may be instituted to seek the grant of a permanent injunction to restrain further infringement, damages, the rendition of accounts of profit, and the delivery of the infringed copies of the work.

Section 63 of the Copyright Act penalizes copyright infringers with imprisoned for between six months and three years and to be fined between fifty thousand and two lakh rupees or both, while Section 63A enhances the penalty for second and subsequent convictions.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is more of an issue of ethics than of law. Plagiarizer blatantly copies another author’s work and declares it to be his original work. It doesn’t matter if the work of the original author is copied word by word, as much as it matters that his idea or his concept is stolen from him without giving him any due. It may be considered copyright infringement in some cases, but not always. For example, one can say that he has written “The sound of music”. He is not infringing any copyright but he is denying the author’s attribution to his work. Since “The sound of music” is a public work and is not protected by copyright, this is called plagiarism and not copyright infringement.

The section 57 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 renders the author a “Special Right” to be attributed for their work. It is a moral right, perpetual, independent of copyright, and remains unaffected by transfers of copyright ownership. Thus, the right to attribution recognized by statute could be considered equivalent to the right not to be plagiarized. 

The difference is?

Not all plagiarisms are copyright infringements and not all copyright infringements are plagiarisms. One can plagiarize almost anything, including works which are not protected under copyright act, such as works which are publicly available for use. Whereas, copyright infringement can happen only when copyright of the work exists. Also, one can plagiarize a work even when he has obtained permission from the copyright holder to use his work, hence causing no copyright infringement.

Copyright infringement is about hurting only one individual who is the copyright holder, whereas, plagiarism not only hurts the author who may or may not be the copyright holder as well as the people who are lied to about the origin of the work.

Hence, plagiarism is a serious offence, but it is not always illegal just like it is not always a copyright infringement.