The Price of Plagiarism

Article: Professor Copycat Article: Four Academic Plagiarists You've Never Heard Of: How Many More Are Out There? Article: What Is Plagiarism? Article: The Fallout Article: Mentor vs. Protégé Article: Judge or Judge Not? Article: How Long a Shadow Should Plagiarism Cast? Article: University Presses Choose Caution in Responding to Accusations of Plagiarism Colloquy: Join an online discussion about the extent to which professors plagiarize work done by the graduate students they advise, and about what can be done to deal with the problem. Colloquy Live: Read the transcript of a live, online discussion with Peter Charles Hoffer, a University of Georgia historian and author of a recent book about academic fraud, about why colleges, universities, journals, presses, and associations are so reluctant to take action against academic plagiarists. Printer friendly E-mail article Subscribe Order reprints

• Colleges and universities can, of course, deny tenure to, or terminate the employment of, a faculty member for egregious violations of ethical standards. There are also the lesser penalties of demotion, salary reduction, and prohibitions on serving as a principal investigator. (One caution: Each of those potential sanctions should be clearly spelled out in the faculty handbook, lest the institution find itself on the wrong side of a breach-of-contract lawsuit.)
  
  
• Journals and presses can refuse to consider a plagiarist's future submissions for a certain period of time, or for a lifetime. When serious plagiarism is detected in a published work, most scholarly journals will also remove the offending article from electronic databases.
  
  
• Scholarly associations can publicize an offender's wrongdoing or kick him or her out of the organization. If the perpetrator is a lawyer, psychologist, or some other sort of professional, he or she might also face a loss of licensure. (It appears that state bar associations have never censured or disbarred a law professor for purely scholarly plagiarism, but they could, in theory, since plagiarism violates the lawyer's ethical pledge to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.)
  
  
• Lawsuits might be filed against accused plagiarists on a variety of grounds. In a 2002 law-review article, Stuart P. Green of Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge described a number of civil actions that might successfully be filed against scholarly plagiarists. (Mr. Green hopes no one will ever actually attempt these arguments; he strongly prefers that plagiarism be dealt with out of court.)
  
  In certain situations, perpetrators can be sued for copyright infringement. It is also plausible, Mr. Green says, that plagiarists could be sued on grounds of unfair competition, under the legal doctrine known as "reverse palming off." If a local diner bought a boxful of McDonald's hamburgers and then resold them as if they were the diner's own product, it could be sued for reverse palming off. Mr. Green believes that plagiarists are in similar legal jeopardy.
  
  
• Prosecution under criminal laws is a farfetched possibility, but not impossible. Such a prosecution could take either of two forms: In a case of verbatim plagiarism, a district attorney could bring a charge of copyright violation.
  
  And -- more remotely -- it is possible that a court might permit a plagiarist to be prosecuted for theft. One key question here, Mr. Green argues, is whether the victim's loss (that is, the loss of reputation that stems from not receiving proper credit for one's ideas) constitutes a "thing of value" under the doctrine of theft.