Any student can tell you that plagiarism is the number one taboo in any assignment. However, plagiarism is a problem that goes far beyond the academic world and may be spotted in media, cinema, music, and even business.

  • Academic classics

  • A case of nearly classic academic indecency was found in regard to an influential cancer researcher, Dr. H. Gilbert Welch. The investigation of his work took two years to conclude that Welch used a plagiarized graph in the paper he published in a reputable scholarly journal. This case unravelled into a scandal and made Welch resign from Dartmouth College, for the plagiarism in his paper undermined not only his own reputation, but the credibility of the very journal he published his work in.

  • Unscrupulous journalism

  • A reputable newspaper reporter, Anne Blythe, was accused of plagiarism. The journalist failed to credit the sources and the characters of her stories. Furthermore, the investigation of a single case of Blythe’s plagiarism revealed the same indecency in her previous work. The author quoted phrases or full passages from third-party sources with no credit or reference to the source, which resulted in her losing her job.

  • The case with the Oscars

  • The best-known creative plagiarism allegation opened the year 2018 right before the Academy Awards ceremony. Guillermo del Toro, the director of one of that year’s most nominated and discussed film, The Shape of Water, was accused of plagiarizing the plot of the film from the play Let Me Hear You Whisper by Paul Zindel. Despite the similarity of the events in the pieces, the director denied any resemblance with Zindel’s work. Remarkably, the plagiarism scandal before the Oscars did not undermine del Toro chances in taking the main Academy Award.

  • Musical quote

  • The most horrendous case of musical plagiarism in 2018 was attributed to Ed Sheeran for a country song that he co-wrote for US country musicians. His music for The Rest of Our Life turned out to be nearly an exact match with the work When I Found You performed by Jasmine Rae. Although Sheeran did not perform the song, he got plagiarism allegations for claiming its authorship.

  • Innovation plagiarism

  • One of the most prominent examples here is the blockchain project TRON. According to the experts’ investigation, TRON’s white paper contained borrowings from the white papers by IPFSbot and Filecoin projects concerning the algorithms of user identification. Even though the scandal was not resolved officially, it seriously damaged the rate of TRON’s cryptocurrency.

The Negative Impact of Plagiarism on Academic Progress

Sometimes plagiarism effects are instant; sometimes they fire back in years, like a long-range boomerang. Within the past decade, there were multiple cases when academic misconduct spoiled students’ lives or even ruined the careers of famous people.

  1. The “Copygate” scandal with the German defense minister Guttenberg cost him a position. Bayreuth University revoked his Ph.D. degree after non-original content was found in his doctoral thesis. At that time, Guttenberg was a promising politician, popular among the German people — some even called him a successor to Angela Merkel. And the plagiarism consequences deprived him of both his reputation and career.
  2. The president of Hungary, Pal Schmitt, also had to step down after discovering himself in the middle of the plagiarism scandal. Though his resignation had little to no effect on Hungary, as the country is a parliamentary republic, Schmitt’s political career was buried. Also, Budapest’s Semmelweis University revoked his 1992 doctorate.
  3. In 2016, three major Australian universities expelled 2 students, imposed severe penalties on 70 students, revoked 4 degrees, and revised their assessment policies to secure honest academic performance. This happened after around 1,000 students from 16 universities hired ghostwriters to complete their assignments.
  4. Cheating was also revealed at Harvard, despite its reputation as one of the top USA colleges. Around 70 students had to withdraw out of 125 suspected. Some of them enrolled back after a pause in their academic progress. Moreover, in 2024, the academic community was stirred by Claudine Gay resignation as Harvard President due to the plagiarism allegations dating back to 1993.

Each of these cases stirred the academic community with its negative effects. At the same time, they highlighted the importance of educating students on the possible consequences of misconduct.

More examples of plagiarism in academic environment in 2025

These are only a few cases when plagiarism was revealed. We don’t know how many of those remain unnoticed. Nonetheless, each plagiarism case has proven to cost the copycat their reputation or even career.

recent plagiarism cases

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