History Main / PlagiarismInFiction

Plagiarism is essentially taking the work of others and attempting to pass it off as one's own. It's [[ThisIsUnforgivable almost always considered an unforgivable sin in academia]], but has also gotten people in disgrace in the broader creative world as well. In the case of [[UsefulNotes/{{Copyright}} copyright infringement]], it may even land the perpetrator in some nasty legal trouble. There is a lot more to it than that. If you care about that, look it up on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism Wikipedia,]] [=WestLaw=], or [[{{UsefulNotes/Plagiarism}} our Useful Notes page]]. Around here, we're more concerned with plagiarism showing up as the topic of a story.

* ''ComicBook/SheHulk'': In ''ComicBook/SheHulk2004'', it's revealed that tourists from an AlternateUniverse without supers are sneaking into the main universe (gaining the powers of their counterparts in the process) and enjoying the lives of their alternate selves. When discovered and captured by S.H.I.E.L.D. we get to see a montage of attorney meetings, ComicBook/{{Beast|MarvelComics}} is suing his counterpart for stealing and patenting his theories in the latter's universe. Apparently in the Marvel Universe intellectual property laws have interdimensional jurisdiction. Seriously!
* In one early issue of ''ComicBook/TheSimpsons'', Bart and Milhouse create their own superhero comic book, which is so popular at Springfield Elementary that fights for an issue break out. They try to sell their comic to real artists at a convention, but are turned down. Months later, a new comic comes out, starring a blatant expy of Bart and Milhouse's character with only the name changed. However, this shows the problem with stealing someone's idea--because the company isn't imaginative enough to create new ideas, the comic's stories become stale, and the publisher has to blackmail Bart and Milhouse into making new comics for them.

** ''ComicBook/TheAmazingSpiderManNickSpencer'' kicks off with Peter being accused of this thanks to a program designed to figure out who has been plagiarizing their work in colleges. When Peter's is used, it's revealed that it's copied wholesale from something done by Otto Octavius[[note]]Otto, in Peter's body during the ''ComicBook/SuperiorSpiderMan'' storyline, copied and scammed an old colleague into believing that it was all good[[/note]]. Since Peter can't explain how it happened without revealing he's Spider-Man, he loses his diploma, his comfy job at the ''Daily Bugle'', and his Aunt May's respect.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: Lana Kurree's boyfriend steals her formula and research into a cancer treatment, and then frames her for murder so that he can try and pass it off as his own. Given who her friends are this does not work out for him.

* ''ComicBook/SheHulk'': In one issue, it's revealed that tourists from an AlternateUniverse without supers are sneaking into the main universe (gaining the powers of their counterparts in the process) and enjoying the lives of their alternate selves. When discovered and captured by S.H.I.E.L.D. we get to see a montage of attorney meetings, ComicBook/{{Beast|MarvelComics}} is suing his counterpart for stealing and patenting his theories in the latter's universe. Apparently in the Marvel Universe intellectual property laws have interdimensional jurisdiction. Seriously!

* At the very beginning of ''ComicBook/AvengersArena'', Arcade acknowledged that his plan (kidnap a large number of teenage heroes and [[DeadlyGame force them to kill each other]]) was "inspired" by ''Literature/BattleRoyale''. The result: the supervillain circle considers him a laughable, copycat hack, [[AllForNothing making his efforts to impress them completely worthless]].
* In one issue of ''ComicBook/SheHulk'', tourists from an AlternateUniverse without supers are sneaking into the main universe (gaining the powers of their counterparts in the process) and enjoying the lives of their alternate selves. When discovered and captured by S.H.I.E.L.D we get to see a montage of attorney meetings, [[ComicBook/XMen Beast]] is suing his counterpart for stealing and patenting his theories in the latter's universe. Apparently in the Marvel Universe intellectual property laws have interdimensional jurisdiction. Seriously!

* ''Franchise/SpiderMan'':

* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: Lana Kurree's boyfriend steals her formula and research into a cancer treatment, and then frames her for murder so that he can try and pass it off as his own. Given who her friends are this does not work out for him.

* Music/TomLehrer's "Lobachevsky", from ''Music/SongsByTomLehrer'':

Plagiarize!

Likely to end with AnAesop that CheatersNeverProsper, or (more cynically) NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught.

* In ''[[WebVideo/OutsideXbox Oxventure Presents Blades in the Dark]]'', [[TheSmartGuy Edvard Lumiere]] accuses public innovator Amadeus Astor of stealing his ideas and not having a single original idea in his life. [[spoiler:It turns out this is NotHyperbole and Amadeus stole a lot of Edvard's research ''and most unknown inventors in the city''.]]

* ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice'' features a popular Khura'inese TV show called "The Plumed Punisher: Warrior of Neo Twilight Realm" which is a shameless knockoff of "The Steel Samurai: Warrior of Neo Olde Tokyo", complete with an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtrEk6zagtE off key version]] of the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTzOl64SDu4 Steel Samurai's theme]] as main theme. Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, a huge closeted FanBoy of the Steel Samurai, has to use every ounce of self-control in his person to ''not'' call the Plumed Punisher a total ripoff while in court, eventually setting on simply commenting that it is "very similar" to the Steel Samurai. Privately, he's right down ''outraged'', specially at the fact that people from Khura'in think it's a completely original show. The third Steel Samurai fan Maya Fey actually loves it regardless and wants to pitch a crossover between the two when she gets back home.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Anime/ActionHeroineCheerFruits'': At the start of the series, the protagonists put on stage shows based off of the popular ''Kamidaioh'' character, though it begins going in its own direction. However, when they start making their own merchandise, the owners of the Kamidaioh IP serve them with a Cease and Desist, that serves as the impetus for the girls to create their own original property. Later in the series, the girls see a clip from another Action Heroine show whose plot was almost identical to one they were going to use; even though it's a total coincidence, they have to throw out their original script and start over because using it now would look like plagiarism.
* ''Manga/BillyBat'' first starts off when the maker of the titular character (an anthropomorphic bat detective in an American comic) realizes he may have accidentally plagiarized it from a character he saw while in Japan. The origin of the character turns out to be [[AncientConspiracy far more complicated than he'd ever imagined.]] Notably, there's also one scene where [[spoiler:[[MindScrew the cartoon character come to life, or a hallucination thereof,]]]] actually questions the concept of plagiarism, stating most of what humans regularly do had to have been copied from someone at some point.
* ''Manga/CaseClosed'': Being another detective series, it also deals with people being murdered over stolen ideas.
* In ''LightNovel/{{Haganai}}'', Yozora does this in a rewrite of her screenplay for the club's movie in episode 9 of Season 2. While Maria mentions at the end of episode 8 that the story seems familiar, its not until episode 9 and after they've already shot some scenes that Kate points out to Kodaka the similarities with an obscure movie. He then checks the movie and finds out their film was a shot-for-shot remake of that obscure film. Yozora is forced to kneel while wearing a sign saying she plagiarized, and the club goes with Sena's script which she wrote as a backup just in case Yozora's script didn't work out.
* ''Manga/TheKindaichiCaseFiles'': Plagiarism that causes the person stolen from to be DrivenToSuicide (or outright murdered) becomes the motive for murder in several of the mysteries, and in fact provides the StartOfDarkness for Kindaichi's greatest opponent.
* ''Manga/MissKobayashisDragonMaid'': It's implied that Shouta's father ripped off Tolkien via precognition. He states that [[WhatYouAreInTheDark it didn't count as stealing]] since [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveSupernaturalPowers copyright isn't retroactive]].
* ''Manga/MyGirlfriendWithoutWasabi'': Soon after they met, Rino tells Nozomu the story of a girl who blanked out on the entrance exam and copy-pasted from Wikipedia. When Nozomu asked if the girl had a death wish [[AndThatLittleGirlWasMe Rino just smirks and gives a thumbs up]].
* In ''Anime/OjamajoDoremi'', the backstory for Hazuki's mother, Reiko Fujiwara, involved a man by the name of Yoichi Sakuragi, who passed himself off as a fledgling poet by stealing previous poems. His motive? [[GoldDigger To marry her and get her family's fortune]]. When she confronted him after finding out, Sakuragi revealed his true JerkAss nature and basically told her he tried to sucker her for ForTheEvulz. [[BreakTheCutie Reiko was heartbroken]].
* An episode of ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' is about someone who needs actors for a film. When asked what it's about, the director pretty much sums up ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet''. After listening, Brock and Ash are moved to tears, but Misty asks, "Hasn't this already been done?'
* In ''Manga/PuellaMagiKazumiMagica'', one of the main characters, Umika Misaki, had her first novel stolen by her editor, who published it under another author's name and actually had the nerve to ask Umika for more work. Because of this, she made a contract to become a magical girl and used her wish to meet an editor who would recognize her writing talent.
* ''Manga/TimeParadoxGhostwriter'' centers on a struggling mangaka who recreates a manga sent to him from [[TimeTravel ten years in the future]]. At first, Teppei feels free to do so [[invoked]] [[ThatWasNotADream because he assumed the manga he read]] [[BasedOnADream was just a hallucination]]. He discovers the truth only after publishing a [[{{Pilot}} oneshot]] for his own version, and decides to continue because that's only way the story will be made ''at all'' in the current timeline.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* This is one of the main sources of wealth for Navarone in ''Fanfic/DiariesOfAMadman''. Though it should be noted that as the original creators are all dead and the art doesn't already exist in the world, he is providing a service by transcribing it.
* ''Fanfic/TheInfiniteLoops'': Loopers travel to infinite worlds, including worlds where they can access real fiction. Therefore, in their infinite boredom, they occasionally steal some of the plots they've read for use in their own loops.
-->'''Trixie:''' ...plagiarists.\\
'''Twilight:''' ''[eating popcorn]'' Oh, hush. So what if they stole the plot of Shrek?
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* In ''Film/BackToSchool'', Thornton Melon turns in an essay about a book by Kurt Vonnegut, written by Kurt Vonnegut himself, which he passes off as his own. The English professor gives him an F, telling him that whoever wrote the essay "[[YourCostumeNeedsWork doesn't know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut.]]" Later on, Thornton gets called in by the dean of the college, with accusations that Thornton has committed academic fraud by turning in homework done by someone else.
* In ''Film/BigFatLiar'', Jason Shepard is given a creative writing assignment, but has such a noted history of chronic lying that he is forced to write it by hand so the teacher is sure he didn't plagiarize something off the Internet. Then, through a stroke of bad luck, major Hollywood producer Marty Wolfe [[RefugeInAudacity steals his paper and turns it into his next big film]]. HilarityEnsues as Jason tries to get Wolfe to admit to plagiarizing his work while [[CassandraTruth unable to convince anyone but his best friend that he's not lying this time]].
* ''Film/TheDeadPool'': Subverted. When [[spoiler:Harlan Rook]] reveals himself as the Dead Pool killer, he rants and raves that [[spoiler:prima-donna director Peter Swan had stolen his film ideas and so his killing spree, which was designed to try to frame Swan, was justified revenge.]] He also kills [[TakeThatCritics a film critic]] earlier while ranting that how dare she denigrate and mock his work. [[spoiler:The subversion is in the scene that reveals Rook's the man Harry Callahan is looking for: a psychiatrist explains that Rook is just a LoonyFan of Swan that [[MotiveDecay has devolved]] and the plagiarism is merely a delusion.]]
* Jamal in ''Film/FindingForrester'' is accused of plagiarism when he turns in an essay written with Forrester's help. [[spoiler:Fortunately, Forrester shows up at the disciplinary hearing to explain what happened.]]
* In the 2009 film ''Gentlemen Broncos'', a teenager's science fiction story is plagiarized by a writer he idolizes.
* In ''Film/JumanjiWelcomeToTheJungle'', the reason Spencer and Fridge are in detention is they were caught plagiarizing. Spencer wrote a paper for Fridge to turn in, but it was so similar to his previous papers, the teacher recognized it.
* Ji-yun of Korean horror film ''Film/KillerToon'' becomes a prime suspect for murder after the grisly deaths she draws in her horror comic books start coming true in RealLife. She is then forced to admit that she is a plagiarist who has been publishing as her own work comic books that are being emailed to her by an anonymous author.
* ''Film/TheMilkOfSorrow'': Aida, a singer with a bad case of WritersBlock, takes a song written by her maid Fausta and passes it off as her own. When Fausta makes an innocuous comment about how the audience at the concert liked the song, Aida promptly throws her out of the car, leaving her stuck by the side of the road.
* In the 1962 version of ''[[Film/ThePhantomOfTheOpera1962 The Phantom of the Opera]]'', the titular Phantom's backstory is that he was a StarvingArtist who went to an influential aristocrat for help in getting his musical compositions published. That man ended up claiming the works as his own, triggering a chain of events that would result in the real composer being horrifically scarred from acid and becoming the masked Phantom. He is determined to sabotage the premiere of his stolen opera.
* ''Film/SecretWindow'' is about an author who gets a knock on the door from a stranger who accuses him of plagiarizing a short story he wrote.
* The B-plot of ''Film/TheSocialNetwork'' has the Winklevoss twins and Divya Narendra suing Mark Zuckerberg over his alleged plagiarism of the idea (though not any of the code or assets) for their social networking site, The Harvard Connection, which they consider intellectual property theft.
* In ''Film/TheSquidAndTheWhale'', Walt tries to pass off Music/PinkFloyd's "Hey You" as an original song he wrote for the school talent show.
* In ''Film/ThrowMommaFromTheTrain'', Larry's ex-wife Margaret gets rich publishing a novel he wrote as if it was her own work.
* The plot of ''Film/{{Tron}}'' is triggered by Flynn’s hacking into his old employer’s systems for documented proof of his old rival plagiarizing a series of games he created while he worked there.
* ''Film/{{Twister}}'': Jonas does many things in his role as the film's resident HateSink, and one of these is the reveal that he stole the concept of Bill's "Dorothy" project and passed it off to corporate sponsors as his own, named "D.O.T." (the jerk couldn't even think of a different name). The way Jonas puts it the fact that the idea was still "unrealized" at the moment he took it means he felt he had free reign.
* In the 2012 movie ''Film/TheWords'', A writer who is having trouble getting published happens upon an old manuscript which he passes off as his own and becomes a success.
* This exchange from ''Film/WorldsGreatestDad'' when Creator/RobinWilliams' character stops a student during a poem recital.
-->'''Lance:''' Stop. Jason, you didn't write that. It's a Music/{{Queen}}/[[Music/DavidBowie Bowie]] song, "Under Pressure". {{What were you thinking}}?\\
'''Jason:''' I didn't think you knew that one.\\
'''Lance:''' Jason, I'm white. Sit down.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/AnimalFarm''. Snowball -- [[BlatantLies by which I mean Napoleon]] -- comes up with the idea to build a windmill.
* ''Literature/AnimalInn'' (by Virginia Vail): In book 3, Val Taylor has written an essay for a contest being held by the Humane Society. When she hands it in in class, her AlphaBitch classmate Lila Bascombe manages to steal it and submits it her own name. Fortunately, having written it longhand (and then typed up ''two'' copies, the second after her temporary roommate Gigi the monkey tore up the first one), she's got it memorized and is able to recite it from heart, proving she was the original author.
* One of the subplots in ''[[Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar Changes]]'' has to do with the discovery that [[spoiler:Master Bard Tobias Marchand]] is passing off his student's work as his own.
* ''Literature/DearMrHenshaw'': At one point after he starts keeping a diary instead of writing to Boyd Henshaw on a regular basis, Leigh enters a story contest, with the top three winners getting to meet a certain famous author. His story "A Day on Dad's Rig" wins Honorable Mention; later, the second-place winner was revealed to have copied their winning poem out of a book and lost their prize as a result, and Leigh gets to go in their place.
* In the opening to the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' spin-off ''Nanny Ogg's Cookbook'', the overseer at the publishing house points out to his superior that Nanny's writing consists of taking any work she finds interesting, copying it out onto old sugar bags, and signing it G. Ogg in crayon. His boss reassures him that this is "research", and perfectly fine.
* The protagonist of Creator/RobertSilverberg's ''Dying Inside'' makes his (not very good) living by selling plagiarized papers to college students.
* In Creator/KurtVonnegut's short story, "Literature/{{EPICAC}}", [[NoNameGiven the narrator]] steals poems written by the computer EPICAC and passes them off as his own, in order to get Pat Kilgallen to marry him.
* ''Literature/FamilySkeletonMysteries'': The plot of the fourth book involves Georgia and Sid discovering someone has been responsible for stealing and selling artwork belonging to the students at the art college she's now working for, and one of her co-professors got killed over it.
* In ''Literature/{{Fangirl}}'', Cath writes some Simon Snow fanfiction and turns it in for a college assignment. Her professor gives her an F, arguing that while the story might have been original, using someone else's world and characters makes it plagiarism.
* ''Literature/IPartridgeWeNeedToTalkAboutAlan'' is presented as TV character Franchise/AlanPartridge's [[StylisticSuck poorly-written]] and [[BlatantLies nakedly]] [[UnreliableNarrator self-serving]] autobiography. At one point in this book, he copies much of Wiki/{{Wikipedia}}'s article on frequency modulation.
* ''Literature/JaineAustenMysteries'': In ''Death of a Neighborhood Witch'', [[spoiler:this is revealed to be the motive for Peter Connor murdering Cryptessa. Cryptessa showed him the horror story she had been writing for years because he is a book editor. Legally he couldn't take it because it was unsolicited, but when he read the manuscript she left on his doorstep, he found it was actually pretty good. He had [[GreenEyedMonster grown jealous of his clients making big bucks on books]], and figured he wanted in on the action. He murdered Cryptessa once he found out [[HaveYouToldAnyoneElse she hadn't shown the manuscript to anyone.]]]]
* One of the motives in the ''Literature/JudgeDee'' mystery [[spoiler:"The Lacquer Screen". The villain wanted to be rid of his wife because she was cheating on him, but the reason he had to kill her was that if he divorced her, it would come out that all of his best poetry was actually her work]].
* Creator/StephenFry's ''Literature/{{The Liar|Novel}}'' contains the oft-quoted line, "An original idea? That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them."
* The ''Literature/NeroWolfe'' novella ''Plot It Yourself'' revolves around plagiarism accusations.
* ''Literature/ThePragueCemetery''. The protagonist adapts earlier conspiracy theories for later clients, just changing the BigBad concerned (Jesuits, Bonapartists, Jews). Doing so helps reinforce each UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheory in the public mind, as people would vaguely remember hearing something similar, thus helping to 'authenticate' his own work.
* Creator/PGWodehouse wrote two [[RecycledScript very similar]] school stories in which a compulsory poetry competition is run and the protagonist asks a friend for help. In one, the friend copies the entry out of a book; in the other, he writes an entry, but his drafts get misplaced and copied in turn.
* In "Who's Cribbing?", first published in ''Startling Stories'' in 1953, a would-be science fiction writer gets every one of his story submissions rejected, each time with a letter saying it's too similar to a story already published decades before by an obscure author named Todd Thromberry. Further investigation leads him to form a theory that Thromberry somehow found a way to look into the future and steal his stories before they were written. [[spoiler:In the end, he writes up an account of the experience and sends it to a science fiction magazine in the hope that its readers can offer some explanation -- only to have it returned with a letter saying [[ProperlyParanoid they can't publish it because it's too similar to a story by Todd Thromberry]].]]
* ''Zombies of the Gene Pool'':
** Played with: the book starts off with English professor Marion ripping an unnamed freshman a new one, after said freshman wrote a paper accusing Joseph Conrad of plagiarizing Robert Silverberg's ''Downward to the Earth'' when Conrad wrote ''Heart of Darkness''. [[note]]For the record, Conrad was writing in 1899, Silverberg's novel is from 1970.[[/note]]
** Comes up again later -- [[spoiler:Marion points out the similarities between various stories written by the Lanthanides; Reuben Mistral brushes it off by saying they lived out of each others' pockets in those days and were bound to have hung onto a few ideas from the old times. But then Marion reveals the real point, namely that Erik Giles' writing style is nothing like his supposed PenName C.A. Stormcock's, but Stormcock's is very similar to the late Peter Deddingfield's writing, revealing that Giles and Deddingfield traded their names many years ago.]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''227'' had an episode where Barry has his students (including Brenda) write an essay on immigration and the top five would get to appear in a music video by Bobby Brown. Brenda wastes the time she was given and ends up plagiarizing an essay her mom Mary had written on the subject which had earned an A. However, Brenda only gets a C and Mary is doubly mad, both that Brenda ripped her off and that it had only gotten a C. (It turns out that was because it didn't cover immigration over the previous twenty years because it was written twenty-five years earlier.)
* When Erica Strange had to hurry to write a poem for an English composition class in ''Series/BeingErica'', she plagiarizes "...Baby One More Time" by Music/BritneySpears. It was a big hit and as she was time travelling (long story) at the time, no one caught it.
* A plot point in the 10th series of ''Series/BirdsOfAFeather'' was that Dorien was being accused of plagiarizing ''Literature/FiftyShadesOfGrey'' for her book, resulting in her finances being frozen. The case is eventually resolved in her favour after the memoirs of a man she had a steamy relationship with (and whose exploits are mentioned in her book) are released and mention her.
* A major plot arc in ''Series/{{Californication}}'' is when the young woman Hank slept with in the first episode is revealed to be Mia, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Hank's ex-wife's new fiancé, who goes on to steal the manuscript for his new book and threaten to reveal that they had sex (which would get him charged with statutory rape) if he tells.
* An episode of ''Series/{{Castle}}'' has the main character, a mystery novelist, reveal that when he was a kid he paid another student to write a paper for him, which went on to receive acclaim from his teachers when he submitted it. The guilt and shame of receiving praise for work that wasn't his and the resulting feeling of being a fraud so affected him that he claims his entire career since has been an attempt to make up for it.
* In one episode of ''Series/{{Cheers}}'', Diane was having no luck trying to sell her writing to a magazine, and was considering giving up. Then she was shocked to read that Sam had submitted a work that was accepted by the same magazine. She was almost certain that he had plagiarized it, and spent days trying to find the actual source, but could not. [[spoiler:Eventually, Sam told her that it wasn't his work - it was ''hers''. He had taken one of her old manuscripts and submitted it to tell her YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre.]]
* ''Series/{{CSI}}'': This was the big twist regarding the motive of the killer on "A Space Oddity" (the episode with the AffectionateParody of ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''): [[spoiler:the executive producer of a revival project of an InUniverse {{Expy}} of ''Trek'', ''"Astro Quest"'', had stolen the idea of a university literature professor on how to make the show DarkerAndEdgier ("deconstructing the idol", so she called it) and used it to create his pilot. The trouble is that he applied the philosophy that her treatise was trying to expose incorrectly, and the resulting demo reel was a "NothingIsTheSameAnymore" {{Wangst}}-fest that actually enraged the show's fans into nearly causing a riot (and to further the gag, no less a man than ''[[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 Ronald D. Moore]]'' called out the executive on the reel's awfulness). The professor confronted the executive on the theft and him twisting around the message she wanted to deliver, and [[AccidentalMurder he accidentally slipped and hit a part of the show's set hard enough to die on the spot]].]]
* ''Series/DeathInParadise'':
** Academic plagiarism was motive for murder in the episode "A Stormy Occurence". In this episode, the killer plagiarized the work of one of his [[spoiler: students]] and passed it off as his latest book. The victim found out and wanted to turn the killer in for plagiarism, which got him killed in the end. This is lampshaded throughout the episode, as the killer (who's supposed to be an expert) makes a faulty prediction about a hurricane passing over Saint Marie, while the victim (the actual genius) was spot on with his prediction.
** Comes up in the episode "The Secret of the Flame Tree." [[spoiler:It turns out Sylvie Baptiste did not, in fact, write ''The Flame Tree''; it was her mentally ill sister, Lizzie. Sylvie stole the manuscript knowing Lizzie was too sick to ever pursue publishing.]]
* ''Series/DegrassiJuniorHigh'' has an episode where Arthur helps Yick plagiarise Stephanie's work, as part of an experiment he is doing on Raditch (mainly to get Raditch to stop pigeonholing Yick). Raditch eventually sees through it, and Yick ends up writing some of his best work.
* ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration'' has at least one incident concerning Paige. She's overworked and suffering panic attacks (and isn't helped by a teacher who mispronounces her surname), so she downloads a paper. Unfortunately for her, it's a common method of cheating.
* In ''Series/DropDeadDiva'', a friend of Kim’s had her erotic novel ripped off by a major publisher, the novel was in fact based on her and her husband’s own experiences.
* ''Series/TheFactsOfLife'': When she has to hurry to write a poem for an English composition class, Blair hastily plagiarizes an Creator/EmilyDickinson poem about beauty. After the headmaster submits it to a competition and it wins, Blair is forced to admit the truth.
* In the ''Series/FatherTed'' episode "[[Recap/FatherTedS2E5ASongForEurope A Song for Europe]]", when working on an entry for the [[BlandNameProduct Eurosong]] competition, Ted steals the melody from the B-side of a Norwegian entry in the same contest in a previous year. He aborts the plan when he discovers that the original wasn't nearly as obscure as he'd thought.
* A RunningGag in ''Series/GoodnightSweetheart'' is that Gary has developed a reputation as a songwriter in 1944 based on the works of Music/TheBeatles. He has to keep coming up with excuses not to take them any further than playing them at the pub, lest he completely alter musical history.
* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': In the season nine episode "Secret Agent Man", one of Mikey Roberts's classmates at the U.S. Naval Academy is accused of plagiarism.
* ''Series/JulieAndThePhantoms'': Luke, Alex and Reggie are outraged to discover that after their deaths their bandmate, Bobby, released the songs they wrote together but didn't credit any of them (even though one song was called "My Name Is ''Luke''"). Julie notes that his music hasn't been as good in recent years, implying that he's run out of material to steal from his dead friends. When they learn how rich and famous Bobby became off their work the ghosts immediately decide to haunt him as payback.
* In "The Poetry Contest" from ''Series/TheKidsAreAlright'' Timmy swipes a poem his mother wrote and they enter into a battle of wills over whether he will confess, going so far as to enter the poem into a local contest, which it wins. It turns out that Mom had herself plagiarized the poem decades earlier so she can't bust Timmy without acknowledging her own wrongdoing.
* ''Series/KingdomHospital'': Dr. Stegman gets his biggest comeuppance toward the end of the series, when it's discovered that he put his own name on a young, female doctor's thesis (he credited her as "with assistance from"). He did it because he thought [[SmallNameBigEgo his name would give it some level of prestige]]. Thus begins his VillainousBreakdown.
* ''Series/LouGrant'': One of the episodes, season 3's "Lou," dealt with a young reporter plagiarizing from a college newspaper; predictably, Lou finds out and it isn't long before the reporter is searching for another job.
* The pilot episode of ''Series/MurderSheWrote'' featured this as a joke. Jessica Fletcher gets accused of this by a woman named Agnes Peabody during a disastrous trip to New York, and gets served a subpoena. Jessica later finds out from her new publishing agent that Agnes Peabody's actually a con artist who does that shit on every new author who comes to the city.
* In ''Series/MurphyBrown'', Corky's husband was accused of plagiarism of the childrens' book he was writing. The issue is eventually resolved in his favor when Corky's diary is read in court and expresses her bleeping frustration with her husband's work as it was going on.
* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'':
** In the episode ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S05E15TheWildWorldOfBatwoman The Wild World of Batwoman]]'', Mike and the bots watch a short educational film simply entitled "Cheating". They have a field day with it.
--->'''Crow:''' A Centron production. Although we got the idea from a different company. 'Cuz we're ''cheating''.
** Afterwards, Mike assigns the robots to write essays on cheating. Gypsy's essay is: "Cheating is bad. Richard Baseheart is good." Crow T. Robot's essay is copied verbatim from Gypsy's. The remaining host segments for the episode involve the rest of the cast trying to decide how Crow should be punished, with Tom Servo and Gypsy pushing for [[DisproportionateRetribution extreme violence]].
** In the first episode with TV's Frank (''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S02E01RocketshipXM Rocketship X-M]]''), Frank plagiarizes Joel's invention (didn't changed a single thing, not even the name) and presents it in the exchange. Dr. Clayton Forrester gets angry at this, because [[EvenEvilHasStandards plagiarism is the only vile act even he won't condone]].
** However, Clayton's daughter Kinga Forrester has no such reservations about stealing ideas. Starting with the episode ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S11E02CryWilderness Cry Wilderness]]'', all of her inventions are just adaptations of in-theater riffs from Jonah and the 'bots. For example, in one episode Jonah jokes that a ghost character's amulet must be an "Afterlife Alert", so in the next episode Kinga invents the Afterlife Alert for real. In ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S11E07TheLandThatTimeForgot The Land that Time Forgot]]'' Jonah finally figures out what's happening and calls Kinga out for the intellectual theft.
* The ''Mystery Woman'' TV movie ''Game Time'' has this as a plot point - [[spoiler:The murder victim hired a graphic designer/con artist to design his website. While working on it, he stole a prototype murder mystery game from the victim and passed it off as his own game. The con artist became a suspect when the author confronted him before his murder.]]
* One episode of ''Series/{{Roseanne}}'' has slacker Darlene buying a paper from Becky. When she gets a B, Roseanne is thrilled, until Darlene tells the truth.
* On ''Series/SchittsCreek'', Jocelyn accuses a shocked Alexis of plagiarizing her economics paper, and Alexis quickly realizes that she did not write it and figures out that Johnny had done so without her knowledge. She confronts Johnny who is holding the IdiotBall and is surprised to learn that taking something one's dad wrote and claiming it as your own is plagiarism. Alexis writes a new paper and gets a C, and Jocelyn tells the Roses that they should be proud of Alexis because she wrote her paper herself.
* In ''Series/SexEducation'', Maeve runs a side hustle writing essays for her classmates. She's a little ''too'' good at them, and gets in hot water when Adam enters the one she wrote for him into an essay contest and wins. Her teacher, Ms. Sands, decides that her being expelled would be a waste of her intellect, and decides to mentor her, eventually convincing her to join the school quiz team, which she excels at.
* Used in an episode of ''Series/TheSleepoverClub''. One of the girls is tempted to pay for a premade homework assignment to pass off as her own, but she ends up backing away, but both the AlphaBitch and one of the male antagonists paid for his services. [[spoiler:And they exposed each other when one of them read their report out loud...]]
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' plays this briefly as a joke. After Garth takes over the asylum in "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E14WhomGodsDestroy Whom Gods Destroy]]", he has the other patients put on a show. Another patient, Marta, agrees to perform a sonnet she claims to have written that morning. A minute into her performance, Garth jumps out of his chair yelling "''You'' wrote ''that''?" He points out that it was actually written by Creator/WilliamShakespeare. She admits that he wrote it and says she wrote it again that morning. Later in the episode, she recites another poem; although nobody bothers to point it out this time, it's equally unoriginal, being the first stanza of one of Creator/AEHousman's ''Last Poems''.
* ''Series/TheSuiteLifeOfZackAndCody'': London steals a short story from Maddie for a class assignment and turns it in as her own. Not only does the story get London an A but it also leads to her getting a book deal worth a lot of money. As it turns out, neither Maddie nor London is the story's true creator; Maddie based it on another story by another writer she had subconsciously remembered. When the original writer hears of it, she sues London for plagiarism.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "Take My Life...Please!", America's "hottest comic" Billy Diamond stole a routine about a gorilla eating a banana peel from a struggling young comedian named Dave, who approached him for advice. He performs it on the TalkShow ''Larry Gibbon's Hollywood'', unaware that Dave is in the studio audience. As he drives away from the studio after the show, Dave pulls a gun on him from the back seat. He is desperate as he has no money and his wife is pregnant. The two men struggle with the gun and both are killed when the car crashes. Diamond finds himself in an IronicHell where he is forced to tell an extremely amused audience about all of the terrible things that he has done, including stealing Dave's routine.
* ''Series/{{Victorious}}'' had an episode where Tori and Andre were working together to write a new song they wanted to show off to a music producer. The two had a falling out and Tori auditioned by herself, using music that Andre had written originally. She claims that she didn't mean to do it and that the music had simply gotten stuck in her subconscious. The two make up and work together to refine the song for the producer.
* ''Series/TheWaltons'' episode "The Chicken Thief" had a subplot where Ben won a magazine poetry contest, but was guilt ridden since he got the idea for from an old poem John-Boy wrote. After much trepidation, he confesses to John-Boy and learns that his older brother doesn't consider it plagiarism since what Ben did is perfectly acceptable for creative writing.
* ''Series/TheWestWing'', "20 Hours in America, Part 2":
-->'''Sam Seaborn:''' Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.
:: Which itself is a pre-existing saying.
* Season 1 of ''Series/{{Westworld}}'' shows one of the sequences in this tourist town of androids is robbing a local saloon/gambling hall. In season 2, when several of the Westworld hosts reach the feudal Japan-themed Shogun World, they're shocked to see a total replay of that same sequence, down to the dialogue. Programmer Sizemore defends himself on "you try writing 300 storylines in three weeks!" Then, Season 4 has a 1920's themed world called Temperance that uses the exact same scenario with gangsters.
* ''Series/WKRPInCincinnati'' has the episode, "Dear Liar" where Bailey wrote a story of a young patient was a partially fictional amalgamation of the patients she visited at a children's hospital. Before she could reconsider airing it, Les jealously decides to read on air as his own work and thus puts the radio station's broadcast license in jeopardy. When Andy confronts him about his plagiarism during the crisis by challenging him to look up the word in the dictionary, Les does so and reads "The act of plagiarizing" while completely missing the point of the definition.
* In ''Series/TheXFiles'', "[[Recap/TheXFilesS01E07GhostInTheMachine Ghost in the Machine]]", Mulder's old partner from Violent Crimes steals his profile on the killer and presents it himself. LaserGuidedKarma [[spoiler:drops his elevator down the shaft]].

[[folder:Music]]
* The title track of Music/CledusTJudd's album ''I Stoled This Record'' is "Stoled: The Copyright Infringement Incident", a parody of a John Michael Montgomery song that talks about plagiarizing a song and being taken to jail for it.
* "This Song" by Music/GeorgeHarrison may or may not count as fictional, given that it's a semi-autobiographical song about a real-life incident of plagiarism that also went before a judge: ''Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music'', the "My Sweet Lord" case.
* "My Iron Lung" by Music/{{Radiohead}}. "This/this is our new song/[[SelfPlagiarism just like the last one]]". It isn't literally a retread of any Radiohead song before or since.
* An Creator/OscarWilde quote, "Talent borrows, genius steals", was etched in the run-out groove of Music/TheSmiths single "Bigmouth Strikes Again".
* Music/TomLehrer's "Lobachevsky", from ''Music/SongsByTomLehrer'':
-->I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky.\\
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics:\\
Plagiarize!

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* A sample character in the ''TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness'' book ''Asylum'' is "The Fraud", a member of the mental hospital's facility who made his career by stealing a colleague's work. Now he's screwed, because in order to keep his reputation, he has to keep stealing from the other researchers. Sometimes he wonders whether to kill himself or commit SuicideByCop when they finally catch him -- he can't imagine surviving the scandal.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'':
** "Tears" to alternate universes sometimes open, letting you see the contents of another universe, often at a different time. Musician Albert Fink found some tears that had music playing, and readily claimed their lyrics and melody as his own while making them more like the kind of music played in the early 1900s setting. The result are anachronistically-arranged versions of songs that in our universe won't be written until decades after that universe's time, including a [[UsefulNotes/BarbershopMusic barbershop quartet]] arrangement of [[Music/TheBeachBoys "God Only Knows"]] and a ragtime piano cover of [[Music/TearsForFears "Everybody Wants to Rule the World".]]
** Albert's brother, industrialist Jeremiah Fink, used the tears to steal technology from [[VideoGame/BioShock1 Rapture]] and pass it off as his own inventions, such as plasmids, which he figured out how to make drinkable and marketed them as "vigors". Plasmid inventor Dr. Suchong found out about this and gave Fink a taste of his own medicine by stealing his drinkable plasmid idea and passing it off in Rapture as his own, earning praise from Andrew Ryan for "his" genius idea. "Theft of intellectual property... two-way street."
* ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'': In one sidequest, Sir Hammerlock shamelessly asks you to find his dead boyfriend's notes so that he can plagiarize them for his own manuscript.
* OG Loc in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'' is a try-hard {{gangsta rap}}per [[DreadfulMusician wannabe]] who finally achieves his big break when he enlists [[PlayerCharacter CJ]] to help him steal the rhyme book of the far more successful rapper Madd Dogg. It's enough to make him famous... at least, until Madd Dogg finds out and has CJ steal it back and publicly humiliate Loc.
* In ''VideoGame/NeoTheWorldEndsWithYou'', it turns out that [[spoiler:Motoi, the popular influencer known as An0ther]], stole his content from other people.
* In ''VideoGame/Persona5'', Ichiryusai Madarame is an artist who steals his students' work to pass off as his own. Fittingly, he represents Vanity of the SevenDeadlySins. In a case of GameplayAndStoryIntegration, this is also reflected in his boss battle. Several of Madarame's skills are the same as your own skills, only with fancier names (Thunderclap = Zionga, Flame Dance = Agilao, Silent Snowscape = Bufula, etc.). The best example being his special attack Madara-Megido, that unlike the real megido spells, does pitiful damage (~10 at a point where your characters' HP are above 200). This truly cements Madarame's creations are pale, inferior imitations of other works.
** In the game's sequel: ''VideoGame/Persona5Strikers'', [[ContrastingSequelAntagonist Ango Natsume]] is an author and the Jail Monarch of Sendai whose novel ''Prince of Nightmare'' is a highly-plagiarised and at times incoherent Frankenstein's monster of a story based on various anime and video game sources. Unlike Madarame though, Ango openly admits to being a plagiarist, only caring that he gets to one-up his publishers for talking down to him. [[AntiVillain He also shows genuine respect for those whom he acknowledges the talent of, such as Yusuke]], and instead represents the sin of Greed.
* ''VideoGame/Psychonauts2'': Hollis Forsythe's memories reveal that during her time as a nurse, she developed a research paper of using Mental Connection to treat patients. Her superior Dr. Potts renamed, published, and took all the credit for it, which caused a very upset Hollis to use her Mental Connection technique on Potts to mess with his mind in revenge.
* In D3's detective attorney game ''The Trial'', one of the cases [[TheHeroine Momota]] has to solve is about Paul, a fictional character from ShowWithinAShow anime ''The Stars'', who is [[TracedArtwork actually traced and modified]] from Kasuga, the mascot from the Kasugaya sweets shop. Momota the defense attorney must prove that the company who made the anime has plagiarized the shop mascot.

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* In ''VisualNovel/HotelDuskRoom215'', one of the supporting characters is [[spoiler:a novelist named Martin Summer, who is unable to write another successful novel, despite having a strong debut work. It turns out his first novel was actually plagiarized from a former friend's manuscript]].
* ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice'' features a popular Khura'inese TV show called "The Plumed Punisher: Warrior of Neo Twilight Realm" which is a shameless knockoff of "The Steel Samurai: Warrior of Neo Olde Tokyo", complete with an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtrEk6zagtE off key version]] of the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTzOl64SDu4 Steel Samurai's theme]] as main theme. Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, a huge closeted FanBoy of the Steel Samurai, has to use every ounce of self-control in his person to ''not'' call the Plumed Punisher a total ripoff while in court, eventually setting on simply commenting that it is "very similar" to the Steel Samurai. Privately, he's right down ''outraged'', specially at the fact that people from Khura'in think it's a completely original show. The third Steel Samurai fan Maya Fey actually loves it regardless and wants to pitch a crossover between the two when she gets back home.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''Webcomic/HarkAVagrant'' depicts a simplified version of the real life theft of Rosalind Franklin's research and innovations by male scientists in [[http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=240 "Every Lady Scientist Who Ever Did Anything (until recently)"]].
* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': Vaarsuvius gets Zz'dtri dragged off by the lawyers by realizing he's a rip-off of [[OverusedCopycatCharacter Drizzt Do'Urden.]] [[spoiler:Eventually Z returns because he declared himself a parody of the character rather than a copy.]]
* ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'': PlayedForLaughs with one of Gabe's later ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' games, which is simply ''TabletopGame/{{Dragonlance}}''. Not even the campaign setting--the novels.
-->'''Tycho:''' So you're just running Dragonlance? Are you switching it up at all?\\
'''Gabe:''' No way. Actually, I'm just reading directly from the book. Every couple of pages I ask them to roll some dice. Then I just nod and keep reading.
* In ''WebComic/XYAdventures'', The outfits that Xavier and Yvonne wear when trying to meet Diantha look like {{Palette Swap}}s of each other. Yvonne's convinced that Xavier stole her design.
* ''Webcomic/YumisCells'': After Isabelle reads Yumi's manuscript, she takes one of the ideas for her own story and publishes it first. Yumi is initially devastated but is able to learn from the ordeal and make a new manuscript. By that point, she's no longer upset, but she still wants Isabelle to face the consequences. Meanwhile, Isabelle is wracked with guilt over her actions.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* In ''[[WebVideo/OutsideXbox Oxventure Presents Blades in the Dark]]'', [[TheSmartGuy Edvard Lumiere]] accuses public innovator Amadeus Astor of stealing his ideas and not having a single original idea in his life. [[spoiler:It turns out this is NotHyperbole and Amadeus stole a lot of Edvard's research ''and most unknown inventors in the city''.]]
* The ''Castlevania'' episode of ''WebVideo/ThirdRateGamer'' uses the title character lifting material from ''WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd'' as a gag. Audio from the AVGN's review is used throughout the video, and at one point, TRG even overlays audio of them both asking "What's the point?" and cries out "WebVideo/YouKnowWhatsBullshit" as a pop-up then flashes exclaiming "What I'm saying is so completely different than what the AVGN says. Honest!" This parodies ''WebVideo/TheIrateGamer'', which was accused of lifting material from the AVGN.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AlvinAndTheChipmunks'':
** In "Court Action", to avoid having to write a report about a sport of his choosing, Alvin steals an old report from Simon's. Unfortunately, he forgets to check which sport Simon wrote about.
** The first time the Chipettes appeared occurred when the three main characters found out - accidentally - that this other band was using their name. Also accidentally. (While Dave did the smart thing and called his lawyer, Alvin decides to wager the name. (He loses, because the girls cheat.) The issue was resolved when the girls actually try to perform under the name, to an audience expecting Alvin's band. Uh-oh. (Fortunately for them, Alvin is very forgiving, jumping in and introducing them as guest musicians, who they quickly call the Chipettes.)
* WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'s friend Francine accidentally plagiarizes a school report off not-Wikipedia, not knowing what plagiarism is until after she hands it in. Once older sister Catherine finds out what she did, she enlightens her and tell her to tell Mr. Ratburn. Francine has a nightmare, and decided to confess, at which point he tells her that two crimes happen when someone plagiarizes: The original author is robbed of credit and the person who plagiarizes is robbed of learning something. She gets a "B", then kisses the paper. Arthur is confused at her pleasure, but she's happy because she earned the "B".
* The ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'' episode "Chicken and Beans" has Shake becoming jealous that Meatwad's eponymous song grew so popular that it made him a celebrity, so he decides to write his own song titled "Bruschetta Nights". However, it later turns out Shake actually plagiarized the lyrics to the Music/{{Scorpions|Band}}' "Big City Nights", for which he ends up getting sued for copyright infringement.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode, "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE40IfYoureSoSmartWhyArentYouRich If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?]]", Daniel Mockridge takes credit for the creation of a video game called ''The Riddle of the Minotaur'', created by his programer, Edward Nigma, and denies him any kind of royalties since he's under a work-for-hire contract. This comes back to bite him in the butt as Nigma takes on the persona, the Riddler, to take his revenge. Batman and Robin end up saving Mockridge, but Robin laments how legally, he's still is gonna get off scot free and make a fortune off of the game. Batman points out that may not be the case, since they were not able to catch the Riddler, meaning [[MeaninglessVillainVictory Mockridge may have his fortune, but will now live in a constant state of paranoia over Nigma coming back to possibly finish the job.]]
-->'''Bruce Wayne:''' ''[[ParanoiaFuel How much is a good nights' sleep worth?]]'' Now there's a Riddle for you.
* From the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' episode "[[Recap/BatmanBeyondS2E24SentriesOfTheLastCosmos Sentries of the Last Cosmos]]", Simon Harper is eventually revealed to have stolen the credit for creating the titular video game franchise from it's actual creator, Eldon Michaels. He tries to have Michaels killed to cover it up before the truth is exposed.
* ''WesternAnimation/DastardlyAndMuttleyInTheirFlyingMachines'': "Magnificent Muttley" episode [[Creator/LeonardoDaVinci "Leonardo Da Muttley"]] featured a King offering a reward to whoever invented a flying machine. Dastardly stole two of Muttley's designs but both resulted in Dastardly believing he should suggest Leonardo to invent the parachute.
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'':
** One of the tangent gags shows Einstein working in a patent office. A man walks in wanting to patent his theory of relativity, and Einstein knocks him out and steals it.
** He's later shown [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu doing the same thing to]] {{God}}, after he invented shrinky dinks.
** In another episode, police officer Reese arrives at the scene of an accident, where the two barely-alive victims mention that one's peanut butter got in another's chocolate, and vice versa. After Reese tastes the chocolate/PB mixture, he promptly shoots them both so he can steal the recipe.
** ''FG'' also has an accidental version, where Brian's (terrible) novel ''Faster Than the Speed of Love'' is 99% similar to the ''Film/IronEagle'' movies, which he says he's never seen. His attempts to prove that his novel is original [[DiggingYourselfDeeper only make things worse]], such as when he mentions a drug-smuggling ring (which, as Lois points out between hysterical laughter, was the plot of ''Iron Eagle III'').
** In "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS11E10BriansPlay Brian's Play]]", one of Stewie's criticisms about Brian's play is that it is partially filled with bits stolen from other works, one of them being a line from ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'', with Brian claiming that he never saw that episode.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'''s episode "[[Recap/FuturamaS2E16AnthologyOfInterestI Anthology of Interest I]]", Fry discovers the "Fry Hole":
-->'''Fry:''' So what do you nerds want?\\
'''Creator/NichelleNichols:''' It's about that rip in space-time that you saw.\\
'''Creator/StephenHawking:''' I call it a "Hawking Hole".\\
'''Fry:''' No fair! I saw it first!\\
'''Stephen Hawking:''' Who is ''The Journal of Quantum Physics'' going to believe?
* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' episode "Cloud Fathers", Xanatos captures Coyote the Native American [[TheTrickster trickster]] with [[OneSteveLimit Coyote]], a robot minion that [[OnceAnEpisode gets destroyed every episode he appears in]]. Coyote says that he should sue Xanatos "for trademark infringement." Subverted in that Xanatos himself considers the robot a tribute.
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'', Phoebe steals a poem from a book and passes it off as her own until the guilt drives her insane.
* ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'': The episode "Misery Hearts" has Heloise reading a new romance novel, only to find out that the author, who happens to be Beezy under the PenName "Sir Gideon Writesalot", never finished it. She is then made by him to fulfill all sorts of ridiculous and humiliating requests to make him motivated and inspired enough to do it, until she finds out that Beezy actually didn't write the book and had just glued a picture of his face over the picture of the real author, Samy. Heloise is ''not'' pleased to say the least and forces Samy to finally finish his work by threatening to drop him into a shark-infested pool.
-->'''Jimmy:''' ''(After failing multiple times to write a novel)'' I've tried, but I don't think I can ever be a writer like you.\\
'''Beezy:''' It's a lot faster if you just glue your picture to the back of someone else's book. ''(Glues a picture of himself to another one of Samy's books)'' Presto! I'm an author.
* ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuestTheRealAdventures'': "The Haunted Sonata". For generations, the Duntchecks lived the life of RoyaltiesHeir because Franz Duntcheck stole a sonata from its real author, a woman named Anna Kafka who, because of her gender, was initially afraid of not being appreciated. Once the truth was revealed, Irina Kafka, as the current heiress of the real author, got the money.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheKidsFromRoom402'': Vinnie Nasta made a habit of presenting his big brother Tony's reports as his own but the teacher always remembers having already evaluated them back when Tony was her student. One time included a contest entry, which Vinnie checked to be sure Tony wasn't her student back then. She was a juror for the contest.
* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'':
** In one episode, after Bobby was given full credit from an essay that Peggy wrote and considered a good writer, he took her Musings papers and hand it to his classmates to give them good essay grades.
** In another episode, Randy Travis stole one of Peggy's song ideas and turned it into a hit. Peggy's KnowNothingKnowItAll boasting came back to bite her in the ass when nobody, not even Hank, [[CassandraTruth were willing to believe her complaints.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/LittlestPetShop2012'':
** In the episode "The Big Feathered Parade," Blythe tries to enter some designs she made into the titled parade, but gets rejected by the judges because she's too young. She then runs into another designer, Ramon, who admires Blythe's designs so much that he decides to steal them and use them in the parade. Luckily, he gets caught in the end and Blythe gets full credit for the designs.
** Ramon tried the same trick in the episode "Plane it on Rio," when Blythe enters Carnival.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheLooneyTunesShow'' has Daffy learn that Bugs got his vast fortune by inventing the carrot peeler. Jealous, Daffy steals Bugs' plans for an ''automatic'' carrot peeler and becomes rich, but the untested machines have a dangerous flaw. It could be dealt with, as explained in the seventh step in the plans, but Daffy was too lazy to read beyond step three. As a result, Daffy gets chased out of town by people with TorchesAndPitchforks.

* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'':
** In "Mr Pigeon," Chloe takes a picture of Marinette's design blueprints for a hat and hires someone else to make it. This backfires on her when it turns out that they did copy Marinette's design perfectly--[[FailedASpotCheck including Marinette's signature on the brim]].
** The conflict of the episode "Silencer" is kicked off by producer Bob Roth ripping off Kitty Section's video (which they submitted to Bob for a contest which turned out to be a scam) for use by [[DumbassDJ EDM disk jockey]] [[JerkAss XY]], and subsequently mocking Luka (the group's guitarist) and Marinette (their costume designer) when they sneak into the TV studio to call him out, which enrages [[MellowFellow Luka]] to the point where [[BigBad Hawk Moth]] is able to [[BrainwashedAndCrazy akumatize him]] into Silencer.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** In the episode "Rarity Takes Manehattan", Rarity lets Suri Polomare, an old friend who happens to have entered the same fashion contest as her, have a bolt of a new fabric Rarity had developed. Suri promptly uses the fabric (and the hoofwork of her BeleagueredAssistant Coco Pommel) to copy Rarity's dress designs, forcing a stressed-out Rarity to improvise new outfits and threatening her relationship with her friends. Fortunately, Rarity not only wins the contest, but Suri's {{jerkass}}ery drives Coco to quit and side with Rarity.
** In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS8E16FriendshipUniversity Friendship University]]", the Flim-Flam Brothers somehow came into the possession of Twilight's coursebook for her Friendship School, but skipped every other page so that they could teach the same thing in "half the time". And make ponies pay for it, of course.
* ''WesternAnimation/RandyCunninghamNinthGradeNinja'': Bash entered one of Viceroy's inventions as his own at the Science fair. His grade was a C, which he believes [[BookDumb to be a number]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E18TheDayTheViolenceDied The Day the Violence Died]]"; Roger Meyers Sr ripped off the idea for Itchy from a guy named Chester Lampwick; when exposed, his son tried to justify it:
--->'''Roger Meyers Jr.:''' Animation is built on plagiarism! If it weren't for someone plagiarizing ''Series/TheHoneymooners'', we wouldn't have ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones''. If someone hadn't ripped off ''[[Series/ThePhilSilversShow Sergeant Bilko]]'', there'd be no ''WesternAnimation/TopCat'', Huckleberry Hound, [[BreakingTheFourthWall Chief Wiggum]], WesternAnimation/YogiBear? Hah! Andy Griffith, Edward G. Robinson, Art Carney.
** And ironically, the elder Meyers was a victim too, it seems, the U.S. Post Office having stolen his "Manic Mailman" idea for the Mr. Zip design.
** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS15E22FraudcastNews Fraudcast News]]": Millhouse, who has joined the staff of Lisa's newspaper, ''The Red Dress Press'', admits he fabricated and copied content from other newspapers. The story he wrote about Baghdad was also a fraud. He was in ''Basra''.
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS10E2TheWizardOfEvergreenTerrace The Wizard of Evergeen Terrace]]", Homer Simpson dreamed about becoming an inventor. After some ideas of his were rejected, he "invented" a chair with a special mechanism that prevented him from falling but he later found out UsefulNotes/ThomasEdison invented but didn't patent it. Homer and Bart went to the Thomas Edison Museum to destroy Edison's chair so there'd be no evidence Homer didn't invent it. There, they had a change of mind and left without destroying anything. Unfortunately, they also left Homer's electronic hammer, which, [[ItWillNeverCatchOn unlike what Marge thought, caught on]]. Thomas Edison was credited for the hammer and his "already wealthy" heirs got even more millions.
** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS3E10FlamingMoes Flaming Moe's]]", as the beverage was called after Moe stole it from Homer. (Although, as Lionel Hutz later tells Homer and Marge, you can't copyright a drink.)
** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS19E14DialNForNerder Dial N for Nerder]]":
--->'''Bart:''' I didn't know there was a national park here.\\
'''Lisa:''' You wrote a report on it last week.\\
'''Bart:''' The internet wrote it. I just handed it in.
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E22KrustyGetsKancelled Krusty Gets Kancelled]]", Bart points out that the "patented Gabbo crank call" is a bit stolen from Krusty. Lisa tops him by pointing out that "Krusty stole it from Creator/SteveAllen", and this is confirmed when Krusty realizes the call was a trick -- "If this is anyone but Steve Allen, you're stealing my bit!" Grampa Simpson even pointed out that everything is stolen nowadays, like the fax machine (which, to him, is a waffle iron with a phone attached).
** And that was neither the first nor the last time. In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E15HomieTheClown Homie the Clown]]":
--->'''Woman:''' ''[over intercom]'' Creator/GeorgeCarlin on three.\\
'''Krusty:''' ''[answers phone]'' Yeah?... Lawsuit? Oh, come on. My "Seven Words You Can't Say on TV" bit was ''entirely'' different from ''your'' "Seven Words You Can't Say on TV" bit. ...So I'm a thief, am I? Well, excuuuse me! ''[to his accountant]'' Give him ten grand.\\
'''Woman:''' Creator/SteveMartin on four.\\
'''Krusty:''' Ten grand.
** And in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E1WhoShotMrBurnsPartTwo Who Shot Mr. Burns]]", Krusty accuses Smithers of stealing a joke from him, only for Sideshow Mel to remind Krusty that ''he'' stole it from last night's episode of a show called ''Pardon my Zinger''. (This is actually a clue that clears Smithers; the episode aired around the same time that Burns was shot, so if Smithers was at home watching the show, he couldn't have been the shooter.)
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs1981'' episode "Harmony Steals The Show", Harmony was accused of plagiarism when his accuser presented the argument before a judge that he wrote an original symphony for the Smurf to use as his own under a signed contract. Harmony was cleared of that charge when it is revealed that his accuser had plagiarized pieces of other musicians' works to create his "original" symphony.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Weight Gain 4000", Cartman wins the essay contest, only for Wendy to reveal at the end that the paper is just ''Walden'' with Creator/HenryDavidThoreau's name replaced with his. The townspeople don't care[[note]]since the paper is what got Creator/KathieLeeGifford to come to town, only for her to flee when Mr. Garrison tried to shoot her for upstaging him when they were kids[[/note]] and she expresses her anger.
-->'''Wendy:''' I bet if ''Walden'' was a sitcom you'd all know what it was!
[[/folder]]

* ''Series/TheSuiteLifeOfZackAndCody'': London steals a short story from Maddie for a class assignment and turns it in as her own. Not only does the story get London an A but it also leads to her getting a book deal worth a lot of money. As it turns out, neither Maddie nor London is the story's true creator; Maddie based it on another story by another writer she had subconsciously remembered. When the original writer hears of it, she sues London for plagiarism.
* ''Series/TheWestWing'', "20 Hours in America, Part 2":
-->'''Sam Seaborn:''' Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.
:: Which itself is a pre-existing saying.
* In ''Series/MurphyBrown'', Corky's husband was accused of plagiarism of the childrens' book he was writing. The issue is eventually resolved in his favor when Corky's diary is read in court and expresses her bleeping frustration with her husband's work as it was going on.
* In ''Series/DropDeadDiva'', a friend of Kim’s had her erotic novel ripped off by a major publisher, the novel was in fact based on her and her husband’s own experiences.
* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'':
** In the episode ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S05E15TheWildWorldOfBatwoman The Wild World of Batwoman]]'', Mike and the bots watch a short educational film simply entitled "Cheating". They have a field day with it.
--->'''Crow:''' A Centron production. Although we got the idea from a different company. 'Cuz we're ''cheating''.
** Afterwards, Mike assigns the robots to write essays on cheating. Gypsy's essay is: "Cheating is bad. Richard Baseheart is good." Crow T. Robot's essay is copied verbatim from Gypsy's. The remaining host segments for the episode involve the rest of the cast trying to decide how Crow should be punished, with Tom Servo and Gypsy pushing for [[DisproportionateRetribution extreme violence]].
** In the first episode with TV's Frank (''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S02E01RocketshipXM Rocketship X-M]]''), Frank plagiarizes Joel's invention (didn't changed a single thing, not even the name) and presents it in the exchange. Dr. Clayton Forrester gets angry at this, because [[EvenEvilHasStandards plagiarism is the only vile act even he won't condone]].
** However, Clayton's daughter Kinga Forrester has no such reservations about stealing ideas. Starting with the episode ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S11E02CryWilderness Cry Wilderness]]'', all of her inventions are just adaptations of in-theater riffs from Jonah and the 'bots. For example, in one episode Jonah jokes that a ghost character's amulet must be an "Afterlife Alert", so in the next episode Kinga invents the Afterlife Alert for real. In ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S11E07TheLandThatTimeForgot The Land that Time Forgot]]'' Jonah finally figures out what's happening and calls Kinga out for the intellectual theft.
* In one episode of ''Series/{{Cheers}}'', Diane was having no luck trying to sell her writing to a magazine, and was considering giving up. Then she was shocked to read that Sam had submitted a work that was accepted by the same magazine. She was almost certain that he had plagiarized it, and spent days trying to find the actual source, but could not. [[spoiler:Eventually, Sam told her that it wasn't his work - it was ''hers''. He had taken one of her old manuscripts and submitted it to tell her YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre.]]

* ''Series/TheFactsOfLife'': When she has to hurry to write a poem for an English composition class, Blair hastily plagiarizes an Creator/EmilyDickinson poem about beauty. After the headmaster submits it to a competition and it wins, Blair is forced to admit the truth.
* Similarly, when Erica Strange had to hurry to write a poem for an English composition class in ''Series/BeingErica'', she plagiarizes "...Baby One More Time" by Music/BritneySpears. It was a big hit and as she was time travelling (long story) at the time, no one caught it.
* ''Series/LouGrant'': One of the episodes, season 3's "Lou," dealt with a young reporter plagiarizing from a college newspaper; predictably, Lou finds out and it isn't long before the reporter is searching for another job.
* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': In the season nine episode "Secret Agent Man", one of Mikey Roberts's classmates at the U.S. Naval Academy is accused of plagiarism.
* ''Series/TheWaltons'' episode "The Chicken Thief" had a subplot where Ben won a magazine poetry contest, but was guilt ridden since he got the idea for from an old poem John-Boy wrote. After much trepidation, he confesses to John-Boy and learns that his older brother doesn't consider it plagiarism since what Ben did is perfectly acceptable for creative writing.
* ''Series/DegrassiJuniorHigh'' has an episode where Arthur helps Yick plagiarise Stephanie's work, as part of an experiment he is doing on Raditch (mainly to get Raditch to stop pigeonholing Yick). Raditch eventually sees through it, and Yick ends up writing some of his best work.
* ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration'' has at least one incident concerning Paige. She's overworked and suffering panic attacks (and isn't helped by a teacher who mispronounces her surname), so she downloads a paper. Unfortunately for her, it's a common method of cheating.
* ''Series/WKRPInCincinnati'' has the episode, "Dear Liar" where Bailey wrote a story of a young patient was a partially fictional amalgamation of the patients she visited at a children's hospital. Before she could reconsider airing it, Les jealously decides to read on air as his own work and thus puts the radio station's broadcast license in jeopardy. When Andy confronts him about his plagiarism during the crisis by challenging him to look up the word in the dictionary, Les does so and reads "The act of plagiarizing" while completely missing the point of the definition.

* The ''Mystery Woman'' TV movie ''Game Time'' has this as a plot point - [[spoiler: The murder victim hired a graphic designer/con artist to design his website. While working on it, he stole a prototype murder mystery game from the victim and passed it off as his own game. The con artist became a suspect when the author confronted him before his murder.]]
* One episode of ''Series/{{Roseanne}}'' has slacker Darlene buying a paper from Becky. When she gets a B, Roseanne is thrilled, until Darlene tells the truth.
* In ''Series/TheXFiles'', "[[Recap/TheXFilesS01E07GhostInTheMachine Ghost in the Machine]]", Mulder's old partner from Violent Crimes steals his profile on the killer and presents it himself. LaserGuidedKarma [[spoiler:drops his elevator down the shaft]].
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' plays this briefly as a joke. After Garth takes over the asylum in "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E14WhomGodsDestroy Whom Gods Destroy]]", he has the other patients put on a show. Another patient, Marta, agrees to perform a sonnet she claims to have written that morning. A minute into her performance, Garth jumps out of his chair yelling "''You'' wrote ''that''?" He points out that it was actually written by Creator/WilliamShakespeare. She admits that he wrote it and says she wrote it again that morning. Later in the episode, she recites another poem; although nobody bothers to point it out this time, it's equally unoriginal, being the first stanza of one of Creator/AEHousman's ''Last Poems''.
* ''227'' had an episode where Barry has his students (including Brenda) write an essay on immigration and the top five would get to appear in a music video by Bobby Brown. Brenda wastes the time she was given and ends up plagiarizing an essay her mom Mary had written on the subject which had earned an A. However, Brenda only gets a C and Mary is doubly mad, both that Brenda ripped her off and that it had only gotten a C. (It turns out that was because it didn't cover immigration over the previous twenty years because it was written twenty-five years earlier.)
* Used in an episode of ''Series/TheSleepoverClub''. One of the girls is tempted to pay for a premade homework assignment to pass off as her own, but she ends up backing away, but both the AlphaBitch and one of the male antagonists paid for his services. [[spoiler: And they exposed each other when one of them read their report out loud...]]
* In the ''Series/FatherTed'' episode "[[Recap/FatherTedS2E5ASongForEurope A Song for Europe]]", when working on an entry for the [[BlandNameProduct Eurosong]] competition, Ted steals the melody from the B-side of a Norwegian entry in the same contest in a previous year. He aborts the plan when he discovers that the original wasn't nearly as obscure as he'd thought.
* ''Series/KingdomHospital'': Dr. Stegman gets his biggest comeuppance toward the end of the series, when it's discovered that he put his own name on a young, female doctor's thesis (he credited her as "with assistance from"). He did it because he thought [[SmallNameBigEgo his name would give it some level of prestige]]. Thus begins his VillainousBreakdown.
* A RunningGag in ''Series/GoodnightSweetheart'' is that Gary has developed a reputation as a songwriter in 1944 based on the works of Music/TheBeatles. He has to keep coming up with excuses not to take them any further than playing them at the pub, lest he completely alter musical history.

* The pilot episode of ''Series/MurderSheWrote'' featured this as a joke. Jessica Fletcher gets accused of this by a woman named Agnes Peabody during a disastrous trip to New York, and gets served a subpoena. Jessica later finds out from her new publishing agent that Agnes Peabody's actually a con artist who does that shit on every new author who comes to the city.
* ''Series/DeathInParadise''

* On ''Series/SchittsCreek'', Jocelyn accuses a shocked Alexis of plagiarizing her economics paper, and Alexis quickly realizes that she did not write it and figures out that Johnny had done so without her knowledge. She confronts Johnny who is holding the IdiotBall and is surprised to learn that taking something one's dad wrote and claiming it as your own is plagiarism. Alexis writes a new paper and gets a C, and Jocelyn tells the Roses that they should be proud of Alexis because she wrote her paper herself.
* ''Series/{{Victorious}}'' had an episode where Tori and Andre were working together to write a new song they wanted to show off to a music producer. The two had a falling out and Tori auditioned by herself, using music that Andre had written originally. She claims that she didn't mean to do it and that the music had simply gotten stuck in her subconscious. The two make up and work together to refine the song for the producer.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "Take My Life...Please!", America's "hottest comic" Billy Diamond stole a routine about a gorilla eating a banana peel from a struggling young comedian named Dave, who approached him for advice. He performs it on the TalkShow ''Larry Gibbon's Hollywood'', unaware that Dave is in the studio audience. As he drives away from the studio after the show, Dave pulls a gun on him from the back seat. He is desperate as he has no money and his wife is pregnant. The two men struggle with the gun and both are killed when the car crashes. Diamond finds himself in an IronicHell where he is forced to tell an extremely amused audience about all of the terrible things that he has done, including stealing Dave's routine.
* ''Series/JulieAndThePhantoms'': Luke, Alex and Reggie are outraged to discover that after their deaths their bandmate, Bobby, released the songs they wrote together but didn't credit any of them (even though one song was called "My Name Is ''Luke''"). Julie notes that his music hasn't been as good in recent years, implying that he's run out of material to steal from his dead friends. When they learn how rich and famous Bobby became off their work the ghosts immediately decide to haunt him as payback.

* A plot point in the 10th series of ''Series/BirdsOfAFeather'' was that Dorien was being accused of plagarising ''Literature/FiftyShadesOfGrey'' for her book, resulting in her finances being frozen. The case is eventually resolved in her favour after the memoirs of a man she had a steamy relationship with (and whose exploits are mentioned in her book) are released and mention her.

* The title track of Music/CledusTJudd's album ''I Stoled This Record'' is "Stoled: The Copyright Infringement Incident", a parody of a John Michael Montgomery song that talks about plagiarizing a song and being taken to jail for it.
* "This Song" by Music/GeorgeHarrison may or may not count as fictional, given that it's a semi-autobiographical song about a real-life incident of plagiarism that also went before a judge: ''Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music'', the "My Sweet Lord" case.
* "My Iron Lung" by Music/{{Radiohead}}. "This/this is our new song/[[SelfPlagiarism just like the last one]]". It isn't literally a retread of any Radiohead song before or since.
* An Creator/OscarWilde quote, "Talent borrows, genius steals", was etched in the run-out groove of Music/TheSmiths single "Bigmouth Strikes Again".

* In ''VisualNovel/HotelDuskRoom215'', one of the supporting characters is [[spoiler: a novelist named Martin Summer, who is unable to write another successful novel, despite having a strong debut work. It turns out his first novel was actually plagiarized from a former friend's manuscript]].

* In ''VideoGame/Persona5'', Ichiryusai Madarame is an artist who steals his students' work to pass off as his own. Fittingly, he represents Vanity of the SevenDeadlySins. In a case of GameplayAndStoryIntegration, this is also reflected in his boss battle. Several of Madarame's skills are the same as your own skills, only with fancier names (Thunderclap = Zionga, Flame Dance = Agilao, Silent Snowscape = Bufula, etc.). The best example being his special attack Madara-Megido, that unlike the real megido spells, does pitiful damage (~10 at a point where your characters' HP are above 200). This truly cements Madarame's creations are pale, inferior imitations of other works.
** In the game's sequel: ''VideoGame/Persona5Strikers'', [[ContrastingSequelAntagonist Ango Natsume]] is an author and the Jail Monarch of Sendai whose novel ''Prince of Nightmare'' is a highly-plagiarised and at times incoherent Frankenstein's monster of a story based on various anime and video game sources. Unlike Madarame though, Ango openly admits to being a plagiarist, only caring that he gets to one-up his publishers for talking down to him. [[AntiVillain He also shows genuine respect for those whom he acknowledges the talent of, such as Yusuke]], and instead represents the sin of Greed.

* ''VideoGame/Psychonauts2'': Hollis Forsythe's memories reveal that during her time as a nurse, she developed a research paper of using Mental Connection to treat patients. Her superior Dr. Potts renamed, published, and took all the credit for it, which caused a very upset Hollis to use her Mental Connection technique on Potts to mess with his mind in revenge.
* In ''VideoGame/NeoTheWorldEndsWithYou'', it turns out that [[spoiler: Motoi, the popular influencer known as An0ther]], stole his content from other people.

* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'':
** In one episode, after Bobby was given full credit from an essay that Peggy wrote and considered a good writer, he took her Musings papers and hand it to his classmates to give them good essay grades.
** In another episode, Randy Travis stole one of Peggy's song ideas and turned it into a hit. Peggy's KnowNothingKnowItAll boasting came back to bite her in the ass when nobody, not even Hank, [[CassandraTruth were willing to believe her complaints.]]
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'', Phoebe steals a poem from a book and passes it off as her own until the guilt drives her insane.

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'':
** One of the tangent gags shows Einstein working in a patent office. A man walks in wanting to patent his theory of relativity, and Einstein knocks him out and steals it.
** He's later shown [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu doing the same thing to]] {{God}}, after he invented shrinky dinks.
** In another episode, police officer Reese arrives at the scene of an accident, where the two barely-alive victims mention that one's peanut butter got in another's chocolate, and vice versa. After Reese tastes the chocolate/PB mixture, he promptly shoots them both so he can steal the recipe.
** ''FG'' also has an accidental version, where Brian's (terrible) novel ''Faster Than the Speed of Love'' is 99% similar to the ''Film/IronEagle'' movies, which he says he's never seen. His attempts to prove that his novel is original [[DiggingYourselfDeeper only make things worse]], such as when he mentions a drug-smuggling ring (which, as Lois points out between hysterical laughter, was the plot of ''Iron Eagle III'').
** In "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS11E10BriansPlay Brian's Play]]", one of Stewie's criticisms about Brian's play is that it is partially filled with bits stolen from other works, one of them being a line from ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'', with Brian claiming that he never saw that episode.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' episode "Cloud Fathers", Xanatos captures Coyote the Native American [[TheTrickster trickster]] with [[OneSteveLimit Coyote]], a robot minion that [[OnceAnEpisode gets destroyed every episode he appears in]]. Coyote says that he should sue Xanatos "for trademark infringement." Subverted in that Xanatos himself considers the robot a tribute.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheKidsFromRoom402'': Vinnie Nasta made a habit of presenting his big brother Tony's reports as his own but the teacher always remembers having already evaluated them back when Tony was her student. One time included a contest entry, which Vinnie checked to be sure Tony wasn't her student back then. She was a juror for the contest.
* ''WesternAnimation/AlvinAndTheChipmunks'':
** In "Court Action", to avoid having to write a report about a sport of his choosing, Alvin steals an old report from Simon's. Unfortunately, he forgets to check which sport Simon wrote about.
** The first time the Chipettes appeared occurred when the three main characters found out - accidentally - that this other band was using their name. Also accidentally. (While Dave did the smart thing and called his lawyer, Alvin decides to wager the name. (He loses, because the girls cheat.) The issue was resolved when the girls actually try to perform under the name, to an audience expecting Alvin's band. Uh-oh. (Fortunately for them, Alvin is very forgiving, jumping in and introducing them as guest musicians, who they quickly call the Chipettes.)
* WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'s friend Francine accidentally plagiarizes a school report off not-Wikipedia, not knowing what plagiarism is until after she hands it in. Once older sister Catherine finds out what she did, she enlightens her and tell her to tell Mr. Ratburn. Francine has a nightmare, and decided to confess, at which point he tells her that two crimes happen when someone plagiarizes: The original author is robbed of credit and the person who plagiarizes is robbed of learning something. She gets a "B", then kisses the paper. Arthur is confused at her pleasure, but she's happy because she earned the "B".
* ''WesternAnimation/DastardlyAndMuttleyInTheirFlyingMachines'': "Magnificent Muttley" episode [[Creator/LeonardoDaVinci "Leonardo Da Muttley"]] featured a King offering a reward to whoever invented a flying machine. Dastardly stole two of Muttley's designs but both resulted in Dastardly believing he should suggest Leonardo to invent the parachute.
* ''WesternAnimation/RandyCunninghamNinthGradeNinja'': Bash entered one of Viceroy's inventions as his own at the Science fair. His grade was a C, which he believes [[BookDumb to be a number]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs1981'' episode "Harmony Steals The Show", Harmony was accused of plagiarism when his accuser presented the argument before a judge that he wrote an original symphony for the Smurf to use as his own under a signed contract. Harmony was cleared of that charge when it is revealed that his accuser had plagiarized pieces of other musicians' works to create his "original" symphony.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheLooneyTunesShow'' has Daffy learn that Bugs got his vast fortune by inventing the carrot peeler. Jealous, Daffy steals Bugs' plans for an ''automatic'' carrot peeler and becomes rich, but the untested machines have a dangerous flaw. It could be dealt with, as explained in the seventh step in the plans, but Daffy was too lazy to read beyond step three. As a result, Daffy gets chased out of town by people with TorchesAndPitchforks.
* ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuestTheRealAdventures'': "The Haunted Sonata". For generations, the Duntchecks lived the life of RoyaltiesHeir because Franz Duntcheck stole a sonata from its real author, a woman named Anna Kafka who, because of her gender, was initially afraid of not being appreciated. Once the truth was revealed, Irina Kafka, as the current heiress of the real author, got the money.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** In the episode "Rarity Takes Manehattan", Rarity lets Suri Polomare, an old friend who happens to have entered the same fashion contest as her, have a bolt of a new fabric Rarity had developed. Suri promptly uses the fabric (and the hoofwork of her BeleagueredAssistant Coco Pommel) to copy Rarity's dress designs, forcing a stressed-out Rarity to improvise new outfits and threatening her relationship with her friends. Fortunately, Rarity not only wins the contest, but Suri's {{jerkass}}ery drives Coco to quit and side with Rarity.
** In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS8E16FriendshipUniversity Friendship University]]", the Flim-Flam Brothers somehow came into the possession of Twilight's coursebook for her Friendship School, but skipped every other page so that they could teach the same thing in "half the time". And make ponies pay for it, of course.
* ''WesternAnimation/LittlestPetShop2012'':
** In the episode "The Big Feathered Parade," Blythe tries to enter some designs she made into the titled parade, but gets rejected by the judges because she's too young. She then runs into another designer, Ramon, who admires Blythe's designs so much that he decides to steal them and use them in the parade. Luckily, he gets caught in the end and Blythe gets full credit for the designs.
** Ramon tried the same trick in the episode "Plane it on Rio," when Blythe enters Carnival.
* From the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' episode "[[Recap/BatmanBeyondS2E24SentriesOfTheLastCosmos Sentries of the Last Cosmos]]", Simon Harper is eventually revealed to have stolen the credit for creating the titular video game franchise from it's actual creator, Eldon Michaels. He tries to have Michaels killed to cover it up before the truth is exposed.
* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'':
** In "Mr Pigeon," Chloe takes a picture of Marinette's design blueprints for a hat and hires someone else to make it. This backfires on her when it turns out that they did copy Marinette's design perfectly--[[FailedASpotCheck including Marinette's signature on the brim]].
** The conflict of the episode "Silencer" is kicked off by producer Bob Roth ripping off Kitty Section's video (which they submitted to Bob for a contest which turned out to be a scam) for use by [[DumbassDJ EDM disk jockey]] [[JerkAss XY]], and subsequently mocking Luka (the group's guitarist) and Marinette (their costume designer) when they sneak into the TV studio to call him out, which enrages [[MellowFellow Luka]] to the point where [[BigBad Hawk Moth]] is able to [[BrainwashedAndCrazy akumatize him]] into Silencer.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode, "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE40IfYoureSoSmartWhyArentYouRich If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?]]", Daniel Mockridge takes credit for the creation of a video game called ''The Riddle of the Minotaur'', created by his programer, Edward Nigma, and denies him any kind of royalties since he's under a work-for-hire contract. This comes back to bite him in the butt as Nigma takes on the persona, the Riddler, to take his revenge. Batman and Robin end up saving Mockridge, but Robin laments how legally, he's still is gonna get off scot free and make a fortune off of the game. Batman points out that may not be the case, since they were not able to catch the Riddler, meaning [[MeaninglessVillainVictory Mockridge may have his fortune, but will now live in a constant state of paranoia over Nigma coming back to possibly finish the job.]]
-->'''Bruce Wayne:''' ''[[ParanoiaFuel How much is a good nights' sleep worth?]]'' Now there's a Riddle for you.
* ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'': The episode "Misery Hearts" has Heloise reading a new romance novel, only to find out that the author, who happens to be Beezy under the PenName "Sir Gideon Writesalot", never finished it. She is then made by him to fulfill all sorts of ridiculous and humiliating requests to make him motivated and inspired enough to do it, until she finds out that Beezy actually didn't write the book and had just glued a picture of his face over the picture of the real author, Samy. Heloise is ''not'' pleased to say the least and forces Samy to finally finish his work by threatening to drop him into a shark-infested pool.
-->'''Jimmy:''' (''After failing multiple times to write a novel'') I've tried, but I don't think I can ever be a writer like you.
-->'''Beezy:''' It's a lot faster if you just glue your picture to the back of someone else's book. (''Glues a picture of himself to another one of Samy's books'') Presto! I'm an author.
* The ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'' episode "Chicken and Beans" has Shake becoming jealous that Meatwad's eponymous song grew so popular that it made him a celebrity, so he decides to write his own song titled "Bruschetta Nights". However, it later turns out Shake actually plagiarized the lyrics to the Music/{{Scorpions|Band}}' "Big City Nights", for which he ends up getting sued for copyright infringement.

* An episode of ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' is about someone who needs actors for a film. When asked what it's about, the director pretty much sums up ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet''. After listening, Brock and Ash are moved to tears, but Misty asks, "Hasn't this already been done?'
* In ''Manga/PuellaMagiKazumiMagica'', one of the main characters, Umika Misaki, had her first novel stolen by her editor, who published it under another author's name and actually had the nerve to ask Umika for more work. Because of this, she made a contract to become a magical girl and used her wish to meet an editor who would recognize her writing talent.

* In ''Anime/OjamajoDoremi'', the backstory for Hazuki's mother, Reiko Fujiwara, involved a man by the name of Yoichi Sakuragi, who passed himself off as a fledgling poet by stealing previous poems. His motive? [[GoldDigger To marry her and get her family's fortune]]. When she confronted him after finding out, Sakuragi revealed his true JerkAss nature and basically told her he tried to sucker her for ForTheEvulz. [[BreakTheCutie Reiko was heartbroken]].

* ''Manga/CaseClosed'': Being another detective series, it also deals with people being murdered over stolen ideas.

* ''Anime/ActionHeroineCheerFruits'': At the start of the series, the protagonists put on stage shows based off of the popular ''Kamidaioh'' character, though it begins going in its own direction. However, when they start making their own merchandise, the owners of the Kamidaioh IP serve them with a Cease and Desist, that serves as the impetus for the girls to create their own original property. Later in the series, the girls see a clip from another Action Heroine show whose plot was almost identical to one they were going to use; even though it's a total coincidence, they have to throw out their original script and start over because using it now would look like plagiarism.

* In one issue of ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'', a teacher berates her class for plagiarism after almost all of them try using the lyrics of rap songs to do a poetry assignment. Several of them even used the same song.

* In one issue of ''ComicBook/SheHulk'', tourists from an AlternateUniverse without supers are sneaking into the main universe (gaining the powers of their counterparts in the process) and enjoying the lives of their alternate selves. When discovered and captured by S.H.I.E.L.D we get to see a montage of attorney meetings, [[ComicBook/XMen Beast]] is suing his counterpart for stealing and patenting his theories in the latter's universe. Apparently in the Marvel Universe intellectual property laws have interdimensional jurisdiction. Seriously!
* ''ComicBook/TheAmazingSpiderManNickSpencer'' kicks off with Peter being accused of this thanks to a program designed to figure out who has been plagiarizing their work in colleges. When Peter's is used, it's revealed that it's copied wholesale from something done by Otto Octavius[[note]]Otto, in Peter's body during the ''ComicBook/SuperiorSpiderMan'' storyline, copied and scammed an old colleague into believing that it was all good[[/note]]. Since Peter can't explain how it happened without revealing he's Spider-Man, he loses his diploma, his comfy job at the ''Daily Bugle'', and his Aunt May's respect.
* At the very beginning of ''ComicBook/AvengersArena'', Arcade acknowledged that his plan (kidnap a large number of teenage heroes and [[DeadlyGame force them to kill each other]]) was "inspired" by ''Literature/BattleRoyale''. The result: the supervillain circle considers him a laughable, copycat hack, [[AllForNothing making his efforts to impress them completely worthless]].

* A storyline in ''ComicStrip/FunkyWinkerbean'' has Les Moore dealing with a student who's buying essays of the internet, and pointing out that she's not ''learning'' anything this way. In the end, he says that if she's struggling with writing essays, she can write a song for her English assignment instead. Because ''that'' will help her learn... something, probably.
* One ''ComicStrip/StoneSoup'' story has Holly downloading someone else's term paper and passing it off as her own. She gets busted instantly because she forgot to change the original author's name with her own.

* TheReveal of ''WesternAnimation/{{Coco}}'' is that [[spoiler:Ernesto de la Cruz]], the true BigBad of the film, the most famous musician of all time who was known to have written all of his own songs, actually stole said songs from his best friend, [[spoiler:Héctor]], after murdering him.

* ''Film/SecretWindow'' is about an author who gets a knock on the door from a stranger who accuses him of plagiarizing a short story he wrote.
* Jamal in ''Film/FindingForrester'' is accused of plagiarism when he turns in an essay written with Forrester's help. [[spoiler: Fortunately, Forrester shows up at the disciplinary hearing to explain what happened.]]
* In the 2012 movie ''Film/TheWords'', A writer who is having trouble getting published happens upon an old manuscript which he passes off as his own and becomes a success.

* In ''Film/BackToSchool'', Thornton Melon turns in an essay about a book by Kurt Vonnegut, written by Kurt Vonnegut himself, which he passes off as his own. The English professor gives him an F, telling him that whoever wrote the essay "[[YourCostumeNeedsWork doesn't know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut.]]" Later on, Thornton gets called in by the dean of the college, with accusations that Thornton has committed academic fraud by turning in homework done by someone else.

* The plot of ''Film/{{Tron}}'' is triggered by Flynn’s hacking into his old employer’s systems for documented proof of his old rival plagiarizing a series of games he created while he worked there.
* In ''Film/TheSquidAndTheWhale'', Walt tries to pass off Music/PinkFloyd's "Hey You" as an original song he wrote for the school talent show.
* In Film/ThrowMommaFromTheTrain, Larry's ex-wife Margaret gets rich publishing a novel he wrote as if it was her own work.
* In Film/JumanjiWelcomeToTheJungle, the reason Spencer and Fridge are in detention is they were caught plagiarizing. Spencer wrote a paper for Fridge to turn in, but it was so similar to his previous papers, the teacher recognized it.
* ''Film/TheMilkOfSorrow'': Aida, a singer with a bad case of WritersBlock, takes a song written by her maid Fausta and passes it off as her own. When Fausta makes an innocuous comment about how the audience at the concert liked the song, Aida promptly throws her out of the car, leaving her stuck by the side of the road.

* The Literature/NeroWolfe novella ''Plot It Yourself'' revolves around plagiarism accusations.
* In Creator/KurtVonnegut's short story, "Literature/{{EPICAC}}", [[NoNameGiven the narrator]] steals poems written by the computer EPICAC and passes them off as his own, in order to get Pat Kilgallen to marry him.
* Creator/StephenFry's ''Literature/{{The Liar|Novel}}'' contains the oft-quoted line, "An original idea? That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them."

* The protagonist of Creator/RobertSilverberg's ''Dying Inside'' makes his (not very good) living by selling plagiarized papers to college students.

* Creator/PGWodehouse wrote two [[RecycledScript very similar]] school stories in which a compulsory poetry competition is run and the protagonist asks a friend for help. In one, the friend copies the entry out of a book; in the other, he writes an entry, but his drafts get misplaced and copied in turn.

* In ''Literature/{{Fangirl}}'', Cath writes some Simon Snow fanfiction and turns it in for a college assignment. Her professor gives her an F, arguing that while the story might have been original, using someone else's world and characters makes it plagiarism.
* ''Literature/ThePragueCemetery''. The protagonist adapts earlier conspiracy theories for later clients, just changing the BigBad concerned (Jesuits, Bonapartists, Jews). Doing so helps reinforce each UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheory in the public mind, as people would vaguely remember hearing something similar, thus helping to 'authenticate' his own work.
* In the opening to the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' spin-off ''Nanny Ogg's Cookbook'', the overseer at the publishing house points out to his superior that Nanny's writing consists of taking any work she finds interesting, copying it out onto old sugar bags, and signing it G. Ogg in crayon. His boss reassures him that this is "research", and perfectly fine.
* One of the motives in the ''Literature/JudgeDee'' mystery [[spoiler:"The Lacquer Screen". The villain wanted to be rid of his wife because she was cheating on him, but the reason he had to kill her was that if he divorced her, it would come out that all of his best poetry was actually her work.]]
* ''Literature/FamilySkeletonMysteries'': The plot of the fourth book involves Georgia and Sid discovering someone has been responsible for stealing and selling artwork belonging to the students at the art college she's now working for, and one of her co-professors got killed over it.
* ''Literature/AnimalInn'' (by Virginia Vail): In book 3, Val Taylor has written an essay for a contest being held by the Humane Society. When she hands it in in class, her AlphaBitch classmate Lila Bascombe manages to steal it and submits it her own name. Fortunately, having written it longhand (and then typed up ''two'' copies, the second after her temporary roommate Gigi the monkey tore up the first one), she's got it memorized and is able to recite it from heart, proving she was the original author.
* ''Literature/DearMrHenshaw'': At one point after he starts keeping a diary instead of writing to Boyd Henshaw on a regular basis, Leigh enters a story contest, with the top three winners getting to meet a certain famous author. His story "A Day on Dad's Rig" wins Honorable Mention; later, the second-place winner was revealed to have copied their winning poem out of a book and lost their prize as a result, and Leigh gets to go in their place.
* In "Who's Cribbing?", first published in ''Startling Stories'' in 1953, a would-be science fiction writer gets every one of his story submissions rejected, each time with a letter saying it's too similar to a story already published decades before by an obscure author named Todd Thromberry. Further investigation leads him to form a theory that Thromberry somehow found a way to look into the future and steal his stories before they were written. [[spoiler:In the end, he writes up an account of the experience and sends it to a science fiction magazine in the hope that its readers can offer some explanation -- only to have it returned with a letter saying [[ProperlyParanoid they can't publish it because it's too similar to a story by Todd Thromberry]].]]
* ''Literature/JaineAustenMysteries'': In ''Death of a Neighborhood Witch'', [[spoiler:this is revealed to be the motive for Peter Connor murdering Cryptessa. Cryptessa showed him the horror story she had been writing for years because he is a book editor. Legally he couldn't take it because it was unsolicited, but when he read the manuscript she left on his doorstep, he found it was actually pretty good. He had [[GreenEyedMonster grown jealous of his clients making big bucks on books]], and figured he wanted in on the action. He murdered Cryptessa once he found out [[HaveYouToldAnyoneElse she hadn't shown the manuscript to anyone.]]]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode, "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE40IfYoureSoSmartWhyArentYouRich If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?]]", Daniel Mockridge takes credit for the creation of a video game called ''The Riddle of the Minotaur'', created by his programer, Edward Nigma, and denies him any kind of royalties since he's under a work-for-hire contract. This comes back to bite him in the butt as Nigma takes on the persona, the Riddler, to take his revenge. Batman and Robin end up saving Mockridge, but Robin laments how legally, he's still is gonna get off scot free and make a fortune off of the game. Batman points out that may not be the case, since they were not able to catch the Riddler, meaning [[PyrrhicVillainy Mockridge may have his fortune, but will now live in a constant state of paranoia over Nigma coming back to possibly finish the job.]]

As the trope name should make clear, this is strictly InUniverse.

As the trope name should make clear, this is strictly InUniverse. Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease