:Plagiarism means a fradulent claim of authorship in order to get academic credit. It's all about papers written for school. The standard encyclopedias (like Britannica, World Book, Encarta) do NOT cite their sources. It is not plagiarism because there is no academic claim being made, and no deception is practiced. We should follow the usual practices of encyclopedias, not the rules colleges lay down for freshman papers. [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 12:58, 7 October 2008 (EDT)
::That's not really true. Plagiarism is using someone else's ideas and passing them off as your own. EB doesn't plagiarize, because they describe subjects, not ideas. They have an editorial board, so their description of a subject ''is'' an idea, and it's their own; not someone else's. However, if you use someone else's ''direct words'', with no quotation marks (or no other way to set it off as a direct quote), it is ''always'' plagiarism, whether it be found in a freshman paper, a senior thesis, a professional journal, or an encyclopedia. [[User:HelpJazz|Help]][[User talk:HelpJazz|Jazz]] 13:35, 7 October 2008 (EDT)
== Plagiarism and the law ==
I'm pretty sure plagiarism and copyright infringement are different beasts. Plagiarism is a failure to give credit where credit is due (cite, as in a paper). Copyright infringement is using copyrighted material without authorization or compensation. Plagiarism is against the academic code, but not the legal code. Vice versa for copyvio. [[User:Ungtss|Ungtss]] 14:09, 7 October 2008 (EDT)