𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐆𝐈𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐌 𝐀𝐒 𝐀 𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐄

“𝒲𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓌𝒶𝓁𝓀 𝒶 𝓁𝒾𝒻𝑒 𝑜𝒻 𝒽𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓈𝓉𝓎, 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓁𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝒶 𝓁𝒾𝒻𝑒 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝓇𝓊𝓉𝒽.” – 𝓣𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮𝓼𝓮 𝓑𝓮𝓷𝓮𝓭𝓲𝓬𝓽

Hello Readers! Welcome to my first blog. I am encouraging you to read this from start to bottom and maybe, you will learn something. The first content of this blog will be about social issue relating to Media and Information Literacy. One common issue or problem regarding this is about “Plagiarism”. For those who don’t know, “Plagiarism” is copying someone’s work without citations or credits from owners. To put it simply, plagiarism is stealing and stealing is a crime and since it’s a crime, it means it’s illegal but don’t worry, mild offenders like us (students) are not often sued. We can be compared to people selling pirated cd’s. They don’t get sued because it’s often understandable but let’s put all jokes aside and let’s focus on something more serious about this topic.

Everyone can plagiarize someone’s work. Students plagiarize because they lack expressing their ideas into writing. They steal or copy for their work because it’s faster and easier. Some maybe do not trust their own potential or capabilities to think. Students often employ plagiarism in their schoolwork and that is why we are just mild offenders. So, what about for those people who are not student and plagiarize? What are the cause and effect of doing such?
Recently, a news from Japan broke the internet. An Arson attack happened in an Animation studio in Kyoto that killed 35 of its staff. The suspect believed that his novel was intentionally stolen by the company and while it is believed that the accusations are still yet to be prove, it still was quite unfortunate that such event had to happen for such reason, but we already can see how far other people would go in regards of copyrights.

In most countries, laws about copyright infringement are implemented. In Philippines, we have a law called Cybercrime Prevention Act R.A 10175. It addresses legal issues relating to online interactions and internet in the country, this includes plagiarism as well. This law carries a penalty of 3-6 years imprisonment and a fine of 50,000 pesos to 150,000 pesos.

Students may be called mild offenders of plagiarism, but this does not mean that you should be encouraged to plagiarize. We may not be able to avoid it, but we can at least minimize it since plagiarism is not a good practice of originality. It is always better to voice out your own opinion and let the ideas of other people guide you. Sometimes, it is quite unethical to copy works of other people, since a crime is a crime anyway.

We know that there are some serious consequences for those people who plagiarize but we hope we won’t come to a point like what happened in Kyoto Animation. We better leave it to legal authorities because it is more ethical way of handling problems, if you ever come across against cyberlaw crime issues.

Sources:
https://variety.com/2019/film/news/revenge-motive-possibly-sparked-kyoto-animation-arson-attack-1203272796/
https://japantoday.com/category/crime/kyoto-animation-confirms-it-received-novel-from-writer-with-same-name-address-as-arson-suspect
http://www.ithenticate.com/plagiarism-detection-blog/bid/87800/Criminalizing-Plagiarism-in-the-Philippines#.XUOSUOgzbIU