Plagiarism is a terrible civil offense. Wrongfully appropriating someone's work in any manner and presenting them as yours is considered an injury to them mentally. The original author is entitled to a compensation and proper recognition of his work as his. My question then is; students given projects and assignments in schools (tertiary, secondary, university), lots of their works are 'copy and paste' of articles found online. Won't that be considered as plagiarism too? It's quite funny however, that the respective lectures, teachers and tutors award marks to the work of the students. Just my thoughts..