Copyright Infringement and Plagiarism

Copyright infringement is a legal issue relating to a copyright owner’s right to determine how their work is reproduced, performed, or published subject to limitations under the Copyright Act. When copyright protected works are reproduced without the permission of the copyright owner and a copyright limitation does not apply the reproduction is a copyright infringement. 

The Copyright Act provides remedies that copyright owners may pursue through Court if they believe a use of their copyright protected work is an infringement. Both civil and criminal penalties are possible outcomes of copyright infringement. 

While attribution to creators is important to ensure that their moral rights are being upheld, citation alone is not sufficient to permit reproduction of a copyright protected work where it would otherwise be prohibited.

Plagiarism is an ethical and academic integrity consideration involving taking someone else’s work or ideas without providing appropriate credit or failing to credit reuse of your own preexisting work or ideas. At the University of Manitoba plagiarism is defined as “the presentation or use of information, ideas, images, sentences, findings, etc. as one’s own without appropriate citation in a written assignment, test or final examination.”

There can be situations in which reproducing material you did not create can be a copyright infringement but not plagiarism (use is not authorized but credit is given), plagiarism but not copyright infringement (credit is not given but use is authorized), or both (use is not authorized and credit is not given).  It is important to take both issues into consideration when you are reproducing content that you did not create. 
 

Questions? 

If you have questions about reproducing copyright protected materials, contact the Copyright Office for further assistance. For questions about how to cite correctly, you can get assistance from the Academic Learning Centre, the Libraries, or your instructor or TA.