Is plagiarism unlawful?

an article by Owen Dean (Spoor & Fisher, Claremont, South Africa) published in WIPO Magazine (September 2018)

“Plagiarism” is a much misunderstood and misused term in common parlance. In layman’s terms, it is generally used to convey the notion of copying or reproducing the work of another in a clandestine manner, usually without the permission of the author. It is often used as a synonym for “copyright infringement,” and it is generally thought to amount to the same thing. Presuming that plagiarism is copyright infringement by another name, it would naturally be unlawful. But is this perception correct?

The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines the verb “plagiarize” as follows: “Take and use as one’s own (the thoughts, writings, inventions, etc., of another person); copy (literary work, ideas, etc.) improperly or without acknowledgement; pass off the thoughts, work, etc. of (another person) as one’s own.” “Plagiarism” is the noun form of this verb.

The term is said to have its origins in the writings of Martial(is), the Roman poet, who in one of his works drew a parallel between his poems and freed slaves; he termed another poet who had misrepresented his (i.e. Martial’s) works as being his own, a “plagiarius,” or, an abductor, of them.

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