Plagiarism in Higher Education: Power Relations and Legal Aspects

Academic expression of a person is often manifested in various scientific works as a form of efforts to help ‘educate the nation's life’. However, this scientific work becomes the object of intellectual crime, namely plagiarism. In fact, these intellectual crimes occur in tertiary institutions by utilizing the power relation aspects of certain academic positions. This research is a legal research; which aims to describe power relations as the cause of plagiarism in higher education, and is associated with professionalism and academic ethics; then describe the legal aspects that can be imposed on plagiarism for plagiarism in the realm of Higher Education. In this legal research, primary and secondary legal materials are used to inventory in order to obtain a prescription study on the legal issues discussed. The results of the study state that power relations are the main cause of plagiarism in Higher Education; considering that power relations lead to the structure of academic positions; so that it has the potential to make individuals under the control and dependence of parties who have greater authority. Then, the legal aspects of plagiarism in Higher Education can give birth to legal consequences; in the form of criminal sanctions, civil sanctions, and administrative sanctions. Therefore, the researcher recommends revising the Ministerial Regulation regarding plagiarism in Higher Education; and revising copyright laws and regulations by including several norms regarding plagiarism.