Copyright infringement is a legal offense and is punishable under federal law. It involves the unauthorized use or distribution of someone else's creative work, which can include writings, songs, video clips, movies, visual art or other creative works. Taking a copyrighted work and making changes to it creates a “derivative work,” which would not be considered a unique work and also would not provide you with full copyright ownership. Exceptions included in the Canadian Copyright Act allow for limited copying of others’ works for specified purposes.

The University of Saskatchewan (USask) is committed to compliance in all copyright matters. The USask Use of Materials Protected by Copyright policy states that it is the responsibility of each individual to comply with copyright laws and respect copyright ownership and licensing. Honesty and integrity are expected of every student, and academic and/or non-academic misconduct penalties may apply in a case of copyright infringement.

For more information about copyright infringement, please visit our What is Copyright? webpage or contact the copyright coordinator.

Plagiarism is a breach of academic integrity, which includes use of someone else's work without providing proper attribution and passing it off as your own. Plagiarism does not necessarily include copyright infringement, although it can be used as the basis to charge someone with copyright infringement. For example, even though copying one sentence from a short story or article is legal under copyright law, it may still qualify as plagiarism if the source has not been adequately cited.

Honesty and integrity are expected of every student, and academic and/or non-academic misconduct penalties may apply in a case of plagiarism or copyright infringement.

For more information about plagiarism and academic integrity, please visit the Academic Integrity webpage, which links to a helpful Tutorial.

For more information about academic conduct, including the Student Academic Misconduct Regulations, please contact the Governance Office.