How Are Copyright Laws, Plagiarism, and Academic Integrity Related?
If you take someone else’s work and put your name on it so others will think it is your original work, you are committing plagiarism, even if you paid for a legal copy of the materials. In addition, you are limited in the amount and nature of someone else’s work you can use for presentations, projects, papers, and reports without asking for their permission, even when you give credit to the work’s author/owner. Using more of someone else’s work than “fair use” allows, without their permission, is a violation of copyright laws. It is possible to violate copyright laws without committing plagiarism and to commit plagiarism without violating the copyright laws, but both situations would be considered acts of academic dishonesty under Penn State’s Academic Integrity policy.
