Thread:Harostar/@comment-27247962-20160509051925/@comment-10733658-20160516112807

Well, those terms have different meanings.

Forgery typically involves material goods. It involves the process of making a copy of the original, and then attempting to pass it off as the real thing.

Plagiarism involves the taking of Ideas, and attempting to pass them off as your own.

Art Theft is the accepted term used to describe the act of taking artwork from someone, and then re-posting it either without credit to the artist or (in the most serious cases) attempting to pass it off as your own work.

These are different categories, and drawn from the Legal definitions into use for the internet. Each describes a specific act or intention, and typically deals with very different goods or materials.

If you forge a paper, you are creating a fake version of a real thing and trying to pass it off as such. (IE: Creating a fake ID.)

If you plagiarize a paper, you are taking credit for the ideas of another person. (IE: Printing out someone's essay and turning it in as your own for an assignment.)

If you are engaging in Art Theft, you are taking artwork that doesn't belong to you and either reposting it without permission/credit, or pretending you made it. (IE: "Hey, look at this cool thing I found in a random image search!" or "Hey, look at this cool thing I drew!")

I mean, it really isn't a confusing or difficult concept to understand. If you didn't create it, respect the creator enough to ask before you do anything with it. Give credit where it is due. And don't take credit for something someone else did.

The internet, unfortunately, makes it SUPER EASY to just take stuff from other people.