The world is very different now. The digital age has brought about a communications revolution, connecting people with instant electronic dialogue and archives of collective human knowledge at their fingertips. The nature of communication/information sharing has changed. This gives rise to a new concept, netiquette, and adds two ancient concepts, plagiarism and piracy. Of the three, in my opinion, plagiarism has the greatest weight. While vague associations can be made to intertwine the three, some of it is an exaggeration and I in three separate boxes, without any real or substantial interconnection. The advent of the machine necessitated the creation of a new law and, with it, penal codes and standards/best practices. Plagiarism, in its most philosophical sense, predates man. Reduced to its essence, “plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it later. (Plagiarism.org, n.d.). A practice of lazy people, plagiarism has a long history of being used in attempts at personal gain, whether it's a student trying to ace a class or an animal stealing a nest at the height of mating season. In today's world, texts and information written and published by others are at our fingertips. You are expected to gather information from other sources, however you are also expected to produce original content and make your own meaningful contributions (Stolley, Brizee, & Paiz, 2013). Piracy is similar to plagiarism only in that it is also theft, but that's where the relationship ends. The use of the term piracy dates back to any recorded copyright law. His first appearance was to refer to practitioners as “pirates of the word” (Dekker, 1603). Modern law......middle of paper......and quickly adapted.Works CitedDekker, T. (1603). The year VVonderfull. London.Lynley, M. (2014, January 16). Business BuzzFeed. Retrieved April 3, 2014, from HBO CEO Doesn't Care That You Are Sharing Your HBO Go Password: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mattlynley/hbos-ceo-doesnt-care-that-you-are-sharing - your-hbo-passwordPlagiarism.org. (n.d.). Retrieved April 1, 2014, from What is Plagiarism?: http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism/Purdue University Copyright Office. (n.d.). Retrieved April 2, 2014, from Copyright Inbreaking Penalties: https://www.lib.purdue.edu/uco/CopyrightBasics/penalties.htmlShea, V. (1994). Netiquette. Albion Books. Stolley, K., Brizee, A., & Paiz, J. M. (2013, June 7). Purdue Online Writing Workshop. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from Purdue OWL: Avoiding Plagiarism: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/