5 Copyright and 5 Plagiarism Stories NOT About AI from 2025

Every year for the past 20 years I’ve run Plagiarism Today, this time of year has been a moment of pause. It’s been a chance to look back at the year that was and read the tea leaves to predict the next year.

However, for the last three years, there haven’t been many tea leaves to read. Everyone already knows what the big story of the past year and the next year is: AI.

It doesn’t matter how you come at it. If you come at it from a legal/copyright standpoint, the year has been dominated by AI headlines. If you look at it from the viewpoint of authorship and academic, the headlines are equally AI-centric.

So, while I could wax poetic how AI slop is overrunning many popular platforms, the tech has, so far, failed to live up to its promises and that this was a year of hype correction, I won’t. Others have already done a much better job than I could and, like many people, I’m exhausted talking about it.

So, for this year’s round-up, we’re going to look at five non-AI plagiarism stories and five non-AI copyright stories. While these might not have captured the biggest headlines, there are all important stories that flew under the radar.

5 Non-AI Plagiarism Stories from 2025

There were a great deal of plagiarism controversies in 2025. However, the story was often not the controversy itself, but how the entity involved responded to it. University administrators and major corporations alike have been accused of plagiarism, but it’s been a study in opposites in how they addressed the issues.

1. The Continuing DEI-Related Plagiarism Allegations: In December 2023, Claudine Gay, then president of Harvard, was accused of plagiarizing various academic works. Since then, nearly a dozen high-profile academic figures have faced similar allegations. Those allegations continued in 2025 as Heidi Anderson, the president at University of Maryland Eastern Shore, was accused of plagiarizing her dissertation. She is now suing her accuser. The University of Maryland system also cleared another president, Darryll Pines of the University of Maryland, of plagiarism after a 15-month investigation. Though not nearly as active as 2023/2024, it was another rough year for school officials facing plagiarism allegations.
2. Fan Art Plagiarism: 2025 was also a banner year for companies facing accusations of plagiarizing fan art. It began in March with Second Universe, the developers of Marvel Snap. They were accused of plagiarizing fan art to create pixelated renderings for in-game cards. In May, Bungie was accused of plagiarizing an online artist in their upcoming game Marathon. Finally, in July, The Pokémon Company was accused of plagiarizing fan artists in two cards. The company blamed it not on the artist, but on incorrect reference material. Interestingly, Wizards of the Coast, one of the most common companies to face plagiarism allegations, had a relatively quiet year.
3. High-Profile Plagiarism-Related Removals: In July, webtoon author Jo Yong-seok faced allegations that he had traced several panels of his series Wind Breaker. Jo had been publishing the series for nearly 12 years and had released over 500 episodes. However, following the allegations, he not only ceased production, but removed the series from its longtime home at Naver Webtoon. Then, in December, Apple TV announced it would be delaying the release of its upcoming series The Hunt after it was accused of plagiarizing a 1973 book. As of this writing, the series has not been released.
4. Political Plagiarism Scandals: As with most years, there was also a fair amount of political plagiarism. The United States Secretary of War, a South Korean minister, a German Green Party Chancellor and a Slovakian spy chief all faced such allegations. However, most of these stories did not have a major impact. This points to likely burnout over such allegations.
5. Plagiarism Today Turns 20: Finally, it’d be remiss to not note that 2025 was also the year this site celebrated its 20th anniversary. I celebrated the month by sharing a bunch of highlights from the site’s history, including my craziest memories and articles that were just for fun.

All in all, while it was a major year for non-AI plagiarism. It’s also easy to see why those stories were overshadowed by AI issues, especially on the academic front.

5 Non-AI Copyright Stories from 2025

With dozens of lawsuits against AI companies, it’s difficult to keep track. But, while AI dominated the headlines, justifiably so, there were other major copyright stories taking place. Consider these five.

1. The CoStar/Zillow Battle: If you want one non-AI copyright story to focus on, this is likely it. The real estate information company CoStar has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against its rival Zillow. According to the lawsuit, Zillow illegally used CoStar-owned images on its site to promote its services. However, Zillow argues that those images were uploaded by users and that they are protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright. The case was just moved to Seattle, meaning that this battle of industry giants is likely just getting started.
2. The Chaos at the Copyright Office: In May, the Trump administration fired Shira Perlmutter, the Register of Copyrights. Or, at the very least, they attempted to. Almost immediately it was unclear if the President has the authority to fire the Register of Copyrights as it is a position under the purview of Congress. After a brief standoff and months of uncertainty, an appeals court restored Perlmutter to the position back in September. However, now both sides are appealing the case to the Supreme Court, which will likely rule on the case sometime next year.
3. The Deflated Basketball Case: In July, artist Tyrrell Winston filed a lawsuit against the New Orleans Pelicans alleging that the team copied a sculpture he created featuring deflated basketballs. The lawsuit is ongoing, though the Pelicans did file a motion to dismiss the case in October. Though the case may seem silly on the surface, it, like similar cases, delves into questions about what is and is not protected under copyright. It’s a thorny case where both sides have significant challenges.
4. The Dark and Darker Ruling: The fight over the game Dark and Darker has been going on four years. However, 2025 was when it came to a head. In October 2021, a group of Nexon companies left the company to form their own game development startup, Ironmace. They released the game Dark and Darker to early access in August 2022, but Nexon accused them of using both copyright-protected work and trade secrets to develop the game. In February, a South Korean court ruled that there was no copyright infringement, but that there were trade secret violations. An appeals court reduced the damages and now the case is heading to the Supreme Court of South Korea.
5. The Copyright Claims Board Continues: 2025 was a big year for the Copyright Claims Board (CCB). The copyright “small claims court” ruled against Tubi, ruled in favor of a defaulting party and tackled some complicated copyright issues. However, the CCB was also impacted by the 43-day government shutdown, which saw it close for over a month. The board is now going through a massive backlog of cases and filings that will probably stretch well into 2026.

All in all, its easy to see why this year’s copyright news was so dominated by AI. Though there are major stories, they are mostly ongoing or still brewing. However, this does show that AI decisions aren’t the only ones that we should be eagerly awaiting.

Bottom Line

When we look back on 2025, it will likely be remembered for AI, for both better and worse.

But, even as AI has been soaking up all the oxygen, more traditional copyright and plagiarism disputes have been ongoing. Those stories can and will have an impact on copyright, authorship, citation and academic/research integrity moving forward.

To be clear, I’m as responsible as anyone for the dominance of AI coverage. It is a difficult beast to ignore, especially as the companies behind it continue to push it harder and harder on everyday users.

Still, it’s nice to take a respite from the wall-to-wall AI coverage. It’s a return to basics and a return to, what many would call, simpler times.

Even if those times were just three years ago…