If this were to happen, legitimate students who use material honestly and properly cite all sources will be losing out on untold amounts of useful information. There are several ways which would prevent plagiarism from getting out of and any further. In recent years, many colleges and universities have begun using programs to detect plagiarism. Schools turn to services such as www.TurnItIn.com as a prime weapon in the fight against plagiarism. These services run received papers through an immense database which contains publications from around the world. The service looks for certain key words and sentences which it compares to other key words and sentences in other previously published works. Using this new technology, most work turned in by students is checked and verified in the database. If something is too close for coincidence, or is obviously not cited right, this information will turn up during a scan through the database. A way to try and prevent plagiarism is to go back into teaching styles and to try and incorporate more information regarding how to properly cite sources used in research material. By more thoroughly...

What also needs to be expressed more in school are the severe legal and academic consequences of what plagiarism can cause. If students had more information about the legal ramifications of plagiarism, far less would actually be taking the risk of attempting it. Then, possible plagiarizers gain the opportunity to actually learn from doing the work themselves.
Despite preventative measures to curb plagiarism, it will continue to exist. As long as there are students with access to previously isolated and sometimes amateur resources, there will be plagiarism. This problem has been a part of academia for generations. However, by using these preventative measures, schools and universities are making a combined effort to stop the "theft of intellectual property." We need to try and attempt to stop as much of possible plagiarism as possible, as to ensure the rights of authors and publishers and keep people writing.