Received wisdom

Academics often level charges of plagiarism against each other. But allegations of plagiarism are often tiresome since it is difficult to establish originality or authenticity. Besides, all scholarship, including poetry, involves a synthesis of ideas. For instance, several ideas in T.S. Eliot?s The Waste Land can be directly traced to the Upanishads and/or the Gita, and several ideas of Gandhiji to the Old Testament. One could go on and tear up many modern masters for borrowing ideas from different sources, synthesizing them and making them their own. Hence the question: what is plagiarism and is it a violation of the copyright law?

To begin with, the dictionary defines plagiarism as ?the practice of taking someone else?s work or ideas and passing them off as their own?. But this definition does not help because it leads to more questions than answers. What does the clause, ?passing them off as their own?, mean? Does it mean that the plagiarist has copied the words of the original author without acknowledgement and made them his own? Or does it mean that he has borrowed the main idea, added something of his own, but clothed the synthesized idea in his own words?

In the first case, it is not just plagiarism but intellectual theft; in the second, it isn?t plagiarism because the author has added his bit and presented the new material in his own words, based on his own experience and learning. In fact, all scholarship and creative writing is always based on a synthesis of ideas.

But in real life, the distinction between what is plagiarism and what is not is not as clear as this. The plagiarist is a clever man who knows all the intellectual sleights of hand. He lifts sentences and key clauses, adds a little of his own and then presents the ?dish? as his own creation. This kind of plagiarism, which is tantamount to theft, is common in doctoral theses or the numerous ?guides? that lift questions and answers from the standard textbooks.

Can anything be done to curb this piracy and is it a violation of copyright law? To the first question, the answer is yes, but it requires a great deal of time and patience to prove that matter has been lifted from well-established sources. The ?detective? would have to go through every line of the pirated matter, compare it with the original source(s) to show it is plagiarized. Very few would undertake the exercise because the rewards at the end of it are not worth the effort required.

Copyright violation too is never an open-and-shut case. For one, titles, ideas and facts cannot be copyrighted. Copyright applies only to the words used which can always be manipulated to get out of legal hassles ? just an ?and?, ?but? or ?if? is enough to get a plagiarist out of the legal net. That is the reason why, despite all the plagiarism that abounds in our textbooks at every level, no corrective action can be taken. The only safeguard against borrowed ideas and words is your own moral integrity, which is perhaps an old-fashioned and antiquated concept in this day and age.