Plagiarism has been promoted as a bad practice in every school ever since we were young; it is understood that it is unfair to the original writers and bad for your character, but some people still can’t understand how to credit their “inspiration.”
People may not realize it, but there is plagiarism all throughout their social media home feeds and is being fed to them constantly.
There are many forms of plagiarism that most people do not know about or are not as familiar with. A perfect example of this is content mills. These are Youtube channels, Instagram accounts, Twitter accounts, etc, that exactly copy another person’s structure or the subject of content that they create. A good example of this is “challenge” youtube channels.
Famous Youtuber Mr. Beast is well known for his engaging and intense challenge videos that usually include a large sum of money for the winner. Content mills take this exact structure of a challenge with a large sum of money and pump out up to 4-5 videos that are not as good of quality as Mr. Beast’s, but still get thousands of views. Though this is a form of plagiarism, they are not penalized for it since there isn’t a way to copyright a challenge. These content mills can still hurt the creator that they are stealing from, especially if the creator has a small following or is not as popular. The content mills get all the credit and much more profit than the original creators.
“Honestly I think that all of it is plagiarized, and a lot of the time they don’t give credit to the person that actually made it,” said Alexa Gudiel ‘26 when asked about posts on social media.
Plagiarism in challenge Youtube videos may not seem as important because it is social media, and the public understand that the majority of content ideas did not come from the creator of that particular video, but what about the articles you read?
A once popular youtuber named Filip Miuci, known on Youtube as FILIP, posted content about video games such as: playthroughs, game reactions, game reviews, etc. It is actually his game reviews that eventually got him to work for IGN (the Imagine Games Network), a popular video game publication site that posts articles about news in video games, playthroughs, and walkthroughs. For a while, readers really enjoyed his articles on gaming and were doing really well on Youtube as well, but after some time, a Youtuber by the name of Boomstick Gaming called Filip out for completely plagiarizing his video review on the video game Dead Cells. This caused Filip to lose his job at IGN and raised suspicions that this might not be the first time he has plagiarized his work, and it in fact wasn’t. It turned out that some of his other articles and youtube videos were plagiarizing many other writers and creators on youtube–though in the end, he didn’t face any major consequences other than getting fired.
“I would take legal action for sure. I wouldn’t let it slide. I’d want to get justice for my hard work” said Eleana Locatelli ‘25 when asked what she would do if someone plagiarized her work.
Sadly, in the majority of plagiarism cases, punishment is never really given to those who stole the work. The writers, artists, etc, who try to take legal action on the person who plagiarized their work usually never win their cases. The only recent and relevant case in which the writers sued and won was in 1970 in the Harlan Ellison and Ben Bova’s case where they sued the Paramount executive, Terry Keegan, for plagiarizing their show idea called Brillow, and created Future Cop. Keegan was then sued by the writers and they actually won even though they spent years finding a lawyer who would take their case. Harlan Ellison and Ben Bova won $337,000 in damages and this became one of the most known and only cases where the writers won.
Plagiarism is not only found in mainstream media, but in our schools too, even at Bishop Gorman. There have been many cases where students plagiarize work and turn it in for a grade. There are precautions like the Academic Honor Code in place to help prevent students from plagiarizing, but that doesn’t always stop everyone.
Teacher at Bishop Gorman, Kathy Keating said,“Plagiarism is wrong…the kids don’t realize how much it hurts more than it helps”.
It is desperation that is usually the reason students plagiarize work, rushing to get the assignment in on time and to get the best grade. Though this shows the integrity and honesty of the student to both the school and future colleges and even jobs.
“The mindset of the student is desperation, they just didn’t do it, they got behind, they got lazy” Mrs. Keating said.
Though it may seem like basic knowledge, there are still many people out there that need to learn to just give credit. When using another source or quoting an article, be sure to cite your sources or to give credit to those who deserve it.
