What is plagiarism and what Indian Provisions are related to it?

Leezer Kaur
Jun 29, 2023
3 min read

"Written by Leezer Kaur, a student."

Introduction

The term ‘plagiarism’ is derived from the Latin term ‘plagiarius’ which means ‘kidnapping’. Earlier, the act of stealing was referred to as theft, but in the modern era, with the advancement of technology, this provision has also been extended to the internet. Today, the information is been stolen from the websites as well. Copying any information from the website of someone else or any other internet source and pretending that the information is of the person currently providing it is called the act of plagiarism. Further, the scope of the term is not just limited to published material but it extends to unpublished and unrecorded materials such as the ideas of a person. In case of plagiarism, the author is held liable for plagiarism and the published can avail the benefit of unawareness.

Kinds of Plagiarism

Complete Plagiarism: It is the most severe form of plagiarism whereby the person completely extracts and uses the information as it is.
Verbatim Plagiarism: It refers to copying and pasting information in pieces directly from the source of information.
Paraphrasing Plagiarism: It is a type of plagiarism where the person paraphrases the work without providing an appropriate citation.
Accidental plagiarism: When a person unintentionally uses the ideas or words used by some other person.
Mosaic Plagiarism: Such type of plagiarism is difficult to detect in any work.

Indian Legal Provisions

The Indian Law makes it mandatory for the author or online websites to get their materials or works copyrighted so that their works can be legally protected by the authorities. Mainly, Section 57 and 63 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 provides for some provisions related to the act of ‘plagiarism’. Section 57 provides the author with special rights in case of infringement of the copyright of a person. Such a person can claim damages in such cases. Section 63 provides for the punishment of imprisonment of six months to three years and a fine of rupees fifty thousand to two lakh rupees, in case of infringement of one’s copyright.

In the case of Mannu Bhandari v. Kala Vikas Pictures Pvt. Ltd., the court observed that there was a movie that was a distortion of a novel written by the plaintiff. In this case, the plaintiff settled the case by selling the novel rights to the defendant for the production of the movie.
In the case of Amarnath Sehgal v. Union of India, the court recognised an artist’s efforts and considered them as the ‘soul of their work’.

The term ‘plagiarism’ has not been defined under any of the statutes and the provisions related to it under the Copyright Act are also not sufficient to deal with the issue of plagiarism prevalent in India. So, there is a need for the enactment of new legislation, directly dealing with the issue of plagiarism. Further, there is a need to maintain checks on online websites to prevent the issue of plagiarism. It is also of great concern that the plagiarism-detecting tools that are easily available have increased the seriousness of the issue. Now, constituting people can get to know what all ideas in their work are constituting plagiarised work and accordingly, they modify that material. This deters them from trying to do their research and being original in their work. This prevents the acknowledgment of the work of the original owner who created it.

Some of the recommendations to use someone else’s idea or piece of work and also to prevent it from being considered plagiarised is that a proper citation or acknowledgment of the original owner must be there. Also, if a line or sentence is written as it is, that should be italicised. However, it is always better to be original in your work as this improves our research and writing skills along with the knowledge and also prevents someone else’s ideas from being copied or plagiarised.

Conclusion

The act of plagiarism refers to copying someone else's work and using it as if it were someone’s work without giving due credit to the original creator of that work. This is a prevalent trend in the growing digitalisation era and this practice reduces the originality and research skills of the people. The act of plagiarism is not specifically dealt with in any of the Indian Legislations. Just, a few provisions of the Copyright Act deal with it.

References

'Plagiarism and its penalties: an analysis', available at: https://blog.ipleaders.in/plagiarism-penalties-analysis/.
'Plagiarism', available at: https://people.wou.edu/~courtna/ch350/Plagiarism.htm.
Mannu Bhandari v. Kala Vikas Pictures Pvt. Ltd., AIR 1987 Delhi 13.
Amarnath Sehgal v. Union of India, 2005 (30) PTC 253 (Del).