Research On The Identification Of Plagiarism In Copyright Law

The problem of plagiarism is paid attention to in academia and in judicature more andmore. The concept of plagiarism is blurry and the identification procedures and methods ofplagiarism are undefined. The copyright case “You and Me” which was judged by Beijinghigh people’s court in2012provides referenced knowledge for the plagiarism lawsuit and theprecious judicial experience for research on the systems of identification of plagiarism.This paper is focusing on the case of “Wang Ruihua v. Chen Qigang”(copyright case“You and Me”).By clarifying the concept of plagiarism and exploring the inner mechanismof identification of plagiarism, the paper attempts to give some advice on the specific methodof identifying plagiarism and the specific problems which should be paid attention to.This paper is divided into five parts. The first part is composed of case, case andjudgment results, the focus of controversy. The complaint alleged that the defendantplagiarized his works “You and Me”, but the defendant argued that he didn’t plagiarize. Thecourt held that plaintiff “only on the basis of the evidence submitted by the plaintiff, cannotdetermine authorship; The works of plaintiff and the defendant didn’t constitute a substantialsimilarity and the defendant didn’t plagiarize plaintiff’s works.” Trial court held that "theplaintiff had completed the burden of proof on authorship, but it did not affect the final resultof the case, so upheld.” The author summarizes the two issues of the case: First, whether theplaintiff Wang Ruihua is entitled "You and Me" works of copyright or not; Second, whetherthe defendant Chen Qigang plagiarized Wang Ruihua’s works "You and Me" or not.The second part is mainly about clarifying the concept of plagiarism. Plagiarism is a tortthat "without the permission of the copyright owner, steal the other works or works in theelements and in his own name to confuse the works or works elements”. By researching onthe relationship of related legal action against plagiarism, such as coincidence, copy andillation, this part is In depth analysis of the connotation of plagiarism.The third part analyses plagiarism from the perspective of originality. Originality is thebasic problem of plagiarism identification. This paper first conducts the research on thestandard of definition of originality and concludes the relationship between creativity andoriginality. And then analyses the influence on plagiarism identification by originality: First,if the degree of originality of plaintiff’s works is lower, the standards for identification of plagiarism are more rigorous; Second, the limited degree of originality performance impactsthe identification of plagiarism.The fourth part mainly discusses the judgment of plagiarism including the subject ofidentifying plagiarism and the method of identifying plagiarism. This paper puts forward thatthe subject of identifying plagiarism should have “general knowledge” and “general ability”.When the judge doesn’t have the “general knowledge” and “general ability”, he may rely onthe third-party authentication institution to provide reference. In the specific steps ofidentification, the subject and the object of copyright should be clear. Identify plagiarismthrough the “contact+substantial similarity” method.And discuss in detail the specificproblems which should be paid attention to in the judge of substantial similarity.The fifth part is the conclusion mainly about the summary.