Legal Question in Intellectual Property in New Mexico
Plagerism
Our employer asked us to create something for use at work. While figuring out how to create this, we were given a copy of a story (without author or copyright information) by a consultant brought in by our employer to help us. We created a prototype of what our employer wanted us to create. Our employer asked us to use the prototype for work while giving us time to finish it including finding the author of the story. We never allowed anyone to see our prototype due to our concerns about copyright. We emphasized this was only a prototype until we could fix copyright issues. The item was never published. A nameless employee told our employer that by not giving credit to the story in the first prototype we had plagiarized her work. We were planning to give her credit after asking her permission to even use her work in the later version that we would allow the public to see. Our employer stopped the project and told us that we had plagiarized someone's work.
Are *we* guilty of plagiarism if we planned to get permission to use the item in the final version we would allow others to see? If not, can we get our employer to rescind that allegation?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Plagerism
"Plagiarism" is neither a crime nor a violation of civil tort law. It is a term from academia and scholarship and refers to unattributed use of another's work. What you did may or may not be a violation of copyright law, but to determine that question one would have to know other facts--did the original author register her work? could your use be deemed a "fair use" under the law? who read what you produced? how much of it was from the original source? etc.
In any case, it sounds as if heartfelt apologies and explanations rather than lawyers should solve this problem.
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