Focus on plagiarism - Definition, legal aspects and best practices

Focus on plagiarism NOV 2025 Information based on the presentation by Me Catherine de Gourcuff (lawyer) for the seminar of January 2025 Definition, legal aspects and best practices 2 Sommaire Focus on plagiarism 1. DEFINING PLAGIARISM 2. AVOIDING PLAGIARISM 3. PROTECTING YOUR WORK 3 Why focusing on plagiarism? Focus on plagiarism •Ignorance of citation rules •Carelessness in the rush of research (copy/paste and forgetting to cite) •Publish or Perish… •Cases at the highest academic levels 4 Cabanac, G.; Labbé, C.; Magazinov, A. Tortured Phrases: A Dubious Writing Style Emerging in Science. Evidence of Critical Issues Affecting Established Journals. arXiv July 12, 2021. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2107.0675 1. Wikipedia contributors. (2025, August 20). Olivier Voinnet. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:06, October 28, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Olivier_Voinnet&o ldid=1306861624 CC-BY-SA Piniewski, M., Jarić, I., Koutsoyiannis, D. et al. Emerging plagiarism in peer-review evaluation reports: a tip of the iceberg?. Scientometrics 129, 2489–2498 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-04960-1 Dupré, R. Affaire de la thèse plagiée: l’ex-avocat Arash Derambarsh entendu en garde à vue. February 12, 2025. https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2025/02/12/affaire-de-lathese-plagiee-l-ex-avocat-arash-derambarsh-entendu-en-gardea-vue_6544092_3224.html (accessed 2025-10-28). 5 1 DEFINING PLAGIARISM Focus on plagiarism 6 Defining plagiarism According to the website of Sorbonne University: • “Use of works (including those from unpublished sources), ideas (including structures) or formulations of third parties (persons outside the group in question) without correct indication of the source; •Use of third-party works with slight modifications or translations, without correct indication of the source ; •Reuse of substantial parts of one's own work from publications in scientific journals and research projects or from unpublished sources without proper indication of the source, especially if third parties have contributed to these works and projects ("self-plagiarism"); •Reuse of co-authored publications without proper acknowledgement of the source.” DEFINING PLAGIARISM Focus on plagiarism 7 In the French law Focus on plagiarism •The word “plagiarism” is not used in legal texts (although it may be used by universities, research and artistic institutions) •Plagiarism may be assimilated to counterfeiting Counterfeiting (Contrefaçon) in the Code de la propriété intellectuelle, article L335-3: “reproduction, representation or distribution, by any means whatsoever, of a work of the mind in violation of the author's rights.” DEFINING PLAGIARISM 8 In the French law Focus on plagiarism Only copyright works and industrial property can be protected against counterfeiting DEFINING PLAGIARISM 9 In the French law Focus on plagiarism Only copyright works and industrial property can be protected against counterfeiting •Copyright (droit d’auteur) protects original works of authorship : written works, oral works (lectures, interviews, etc.), audio works, photographic works, graphic works, etc. •Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, theorems, algorithms or methods. •This definition is recognised by 181 states through the Berne Convention. DEFINING PLAGIARISM 16 3 PROTECTING YOUR WORK Focus on plagiarism 17 How can you protect your ideas? •Develop it •Share them with various colleagues so you may have different witnesses •Write and upload a preprint on a server (most publishers in science do not refuse a manuscript that got public before as a preprint) even though you don’t have all your data yet •Choose a journal that requires pre-registrations •Conserve your e-mails for a potential internal investigation PROTECTING YOUR WORK Focus on plagiarism 18 To make sure you are dealing with plagiarism Focus on plagiarism •Refer to the definition •Use a plagiarism checker •Ask someone else’s opinion PROTECTING YOUR WORK 19 If you discover you got plagiarized Focus on plagiarism •Conserve evidence •Contact the referent for research integrity of your institution (Roger Guérin, for SU) •Use the disciplinary procedure of the institution •Eventually, you may contact a lawyer for advice or to engage a legal procedure PROTECTING YOUR WORK 20 Zotero and citations Consider using Zotero to cite your sources more effectively! Training session : Manage you bibliography and your PDF with Zotero –December 14th •Create and organize a library of bibliographic references and PDF •Generate automatically in-text citations and bibliography in the document you draft, according to a defined bibliographic style •Use advanced features of Zotero Focus on plagiarism 21 Further training sessions on copyright Focus on plagiarism Signer un contrat d'édition : publication et propriété intellectuelle - November 10th (fully booked) and April 7th • Comprendre un contrat d’édition • Connaître les différents aspects du droit d’auteur en lien avec la publication académique et notamment dans le cadre des contrats de recherche •Savoir choisir une licence Creative Commons adaptée à la diffusion d’une publication scientifique •Savoir appliquer la stratégie de non-cession des droits Utiliser des images dans ses travaux de recherche - November 27th •Identifier les droits associés à une image •Respecter les conditions légales lors de la réutilisation d’une image existante •Déterminer les droits applicables à une image produite dans le cadre de travaux de recherche SORBONNE-UNIVERSITE.FR THANKS !