Intellectual Property Rights and Plagiarism in Information Technology Research

In present times, intellectual property rights are the central focus of international economies and global market competitions among enterprises due to their important role in fostering cultural prosperity, economic development, and progress in the field of information technology. The advancement in information technology has made the field even more complicated as firms struggle to protect their copyrights in the face of online data explosion, dynamic e-commerce environment, and rising disruptive technologies such as Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence. On the other hand, plagiarism is on the rise in recent times. Students knowingly or unknowingly practice plagiarism daily to meet their stringent academic demands. Information Technology Tools encouraging plagiarism have further aggravated the problem. Intellectual property rights and plagiarism awareness are relatively weak even among scholars. Do intellectual property rights protection and existing plagiarism trends have any effect on the field of information technology research? This paper discusses intellectual property rights and plagiarism with the mindset of information technology research. The paper seeks to shed light on aspects of intellectual property rights and how they affect academic research, in the field of information technology. If after reading this paper a researcher, can take intellectual property rights and plagiarism seriously, then, this research would have achieved its desired outcome.