Court Penalties for Plagiarism
Having your carefully crafted words credited to another person is theft at its most basic. If you are able to prove ownership of the stolen work and a resulting financial loss, you can bring a lawsuit in a federal court. Songwriters and authors alike have found themselves facing charges of plagiarism.
Plagiarism is defined as "taking the writings or literary ideas of another and selling and/or publishing them as one's own writing," according to the Plagiarism Law & Legal Definition page at the USLaw website.
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Felony Penalties
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A person accused of plagiarism can face felony charges under federal law and certain state laws.
The determining factor is what the plagiarist earns from the use of material copyrighted by another person. If he earns more than $2,500 from the use of copyrighted material that belongs to another person, he could face as much as $250,000 in fines and as long as 10 years behind bars, says the Plagiarism.org website.
Misdemeanor Penalties
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Plagiarism generally falls into the misdemeanor category, writes the Plagiarism website. People who are convicted of a misdemeanor charge of plagiarism are given fines ranging from $100 to $50,000 and a jail sentence of up to one year.
People who break some state statutes on plagiarism are charged with a second-degree misdemeanor, according to the Plagiarism Law & Legal Definition page at the USLegal website.
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Federal Lawsuit
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Plagiarists can be sued in federal court for copyright violation, according to the Legal Zoom website. The federal government views plagiarism as an infringement of an author's rights to his intellectual property.
If the plagiarist is found guilty in a federal court, she may also be ordered to pay the rightful owner of the stolen work for the amount the amount the owner lost and any additional amount the plagiarist gained as well as attorney's fees, according to Chapter 5 of the U.S. Copyright Law.
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References
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