[Is there protection against copying? Thoughts about plagiarism].

There are at least two reasons why more and more cases of suspected plagiarism are perceived in the scientific literature. On one hand, the ever increasing pressure for publication makes it easier for authors, reviewers and editors to infringe or overlook this serious ethical misdemeanor; on the other hand, with the development of text analysis software, detecting text similarities has become a simple task. The judgement of actual cases, however, requires well-grounded professional knowledge and prudent human decisions.