Week 1 - Plagiarism talk

This is the dictionary definition of the word plagiarism I found at http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/plagiarism

plagiarism

Line breaks: pla¦giar|ism

Pronunciation: /ˈpleɪdʒərɪz(ə)m

NOUN

[MASS NOUN]

the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own:

there were accusations of plagiarism

[COUNT NOUN]: it claims there are similar plagiarisms in the software produced at the university

Derivatives

plagiarist

NOUN

Origin

EARLY 17TH CENTURY: FROM LATIN PLAGIARIUS 'KIDNAPPER' (FROM PLAGIUM 'A KIDNAPPING', FROM GREEKPLAGION) + -ISM.

We were shown two music videos, one by Adriano Celentano and another by Willy Moon. Willy Moon clearly copied the entire video that was made for Adriano and remade it as his own. Nothing could be done about this because Willy Moon claimed it as homage.

I found this interesting because I didn't know people had blatantly plagiarised publicly like that. I decided to go off and dig for more stories about plagiarism cases.


I found some cases from the websites below, one being poems copied from a poet named Madison Cawein by T.S. Elliot. Another was from Martin Luther King whilst working on his dissertation for his doctor degree he plagiarised from another author working on the a similar subject to him.

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/mlking.asp
http://www.cracked.com/article_17198_5-great-men-who-built-their-careers-plagiarism.html