역사적 관점에서 본 표절과 저작권

There are many different definitions on plagiarism on the basis of varied perspectives, and none of them has been a leading theory ahead of others. Plagiarism could be characterized as a false representation to distort the attributed relationship between creators and their writings, spoken words and other types of work. In this view, the plagiarism and copyright infringement share applicable areas, i.e., many cases that could be treated as copyright infringement would cause plagiarism problems. Although the criterion of plagiarism is indefinite and could be explained in different ways of view, the resulting from plagiarism is socially serious and enormous. Nevertheless, the discussion in legal scholarship is on an elementary level thus cannot meet the increasing demand for solving the problem raised from mass media. This article is not about what constitutes a plagiarism, nor about whether or not some specific cases fall under it. The purpose of the article is to prove the relationship between copyright system and plagiarism in historical perspective and to predict the future development of 'law against plagiarism' in our legal community. Mainly discussed, the norm on 'making intellectuality of others one's own' could be considered legally prior to establishing and stabilizing copyright system. However, the legal framework of copyright system became to be more market-oriented and capitalized after development of the printing technology encouraged the publication and dissemination of works. During this process, the law against plagiarism melted into copyright law, and functioned partially as an auxiliary part in the field of moral right. Moreover, the moral right is reduced to one of little factors consisting contemporary copyright law as if its situation just guaranteed competitive position of copyright owners and investigators. It makes clearer that the question of plagiarism is treated as a matter of ethics, but not of law. The economic value of copyright becomes greater and this tendency leads the cultural and personality-respective copyright system to the industry-oriented. Policies aiming the promotion of this trend would be welcomed. However, the tendency may lead us fail to respect the personality value in copyright and a social role of law against plagiarism. We should embark on the discussion about what constitutes plagiarism and which role the moral right can play with regard to the plagiarism in the legal context.