Just like you want to receive credit for your hard work in your classes, so do creators want to receive credit for their work. Copyright laws protect intellectual property and make copying the words, expressions of ideas, illustrations, and products of others a crime. This includes the right to have authorship recognized. These laws are designed specifically to protect writers and artists from exploitation and are in effect both here and abroad. Most written works are protected by copyright in the countries where they were published. In the United States, copyright laws extend to works of literature and scholarship, as well as to artistic expressions in other media.
Writers who accurately and appropriately credit the original materials used in their work avoid plagiarism and do not violate copyright law. Writers who plagiarize violate copyright laws.