The legality of using essay writing services like Essayshark is a complex topic with reasonable arguments on both sides. On one hand, sites that complete assignments for students could enable academic dishonesty. Others counter that these websites offer a service within a legal gray area and that banning them risks limiting educational opportunities. Let’s take a deeper look at the issues involved in determining if Essayshark is illegal or not.
Academic Integrity Concerns
One of the primary arguments against essay writing services is that they undermine academic integrity. When a student submits an essay or assignment completed by a third party as their own work, it constitutes plagiarism or cheating. Most educational institutions have strict honor codes that prohibit students from copying or submitting others’ work without attribution. By completing essays for clients and allowing those clients to submit the works as their own, sites like Essayshark arguably enable and profit from dishonesty within academia.
Defenders counter that the onus is on students to use these services ethically and avoid plagiarism. They note Essayshark and similar sites don’t market themselves as writing essays to be directly submitted—the understanding is the works are meant to be learning aids or starting points, not finished products intended for intentional deception. Critics argue it’s naive to think students won’t plagiarize given the opportunity and that these sites should know academic integrity violations are a likely outcome of their business model.
Copyright Concerns
Another legal concern involves copyright protections. When writers create custom essays and assignments for Essayshark, they retain ownership and copyright over those works as creative works of authorship. By allowing clients to download and potentially redistribute completed essays, experts argue Essayshark risks enabling copyright infringement.
Essayshark claims their terms of service prohibit clients from copying or redistributing written works without permission. They also say copyright is retained by writers. Critics counter it would be nearly impossible to monitor and enforce proper usage and attribution once essays are in students’ hands. There is a risk of unwitting or willful copyright violations downstream that Essayshark enables through its business activities.
Criminal Concerns
A small minority of legal experts argue essay mills could potentially face criminal charges in some jurisdictions. For example, it has been suggested services that actively participate in deception—by directly submitting or significantly rewriting works for plagiarism—could theoretically be considered criminal fraud or racketeering in rare cases. Most legal scholars do not consider run-of-the-mill essay writing businesses like Essayshark to clearly meet criminal statutes as written in any nation where they operate. While distasteful to some, their activities are not commonly regarded as violating criminal law.
Regulation vs Banning
Given these academic integrity and copyright concerns, many educators push for strict regulation or outright banning of essay writing services. Others argue an total ban may be overreach that risks limiting educational access for some students. They note certain regulations could force transparency without prohibition:
Requiring sites to clearly disclose they do not condone or enable plagiarism.
Banning sites from directly submitting works or providing already graded essays.
Requiring copyright disclaimers advising students essays are not to be copied verbatim or redistributed.
Collecting user data to aid investigation of specific plagiarism incidents if they occur.
While not ideal from an academic standards perspective, some experts argue an outright ban on commercial essay writing risks disproportionate limits on opportunities for consulting, researching, or drafting help—activities they view as existing in a legal gray area versus clear violation. There are also concerns about ‘Whack-a-Mole’ effects, where banned sites continuously rebrand or go underground. Overall, regulation versus prohibition remains hotly debated within legal and educational communities.
Foreign Complications
Determining the legality becomes even murkier when essay sites operate across international borders. While Essayshark is based in the USA, many experts believe their large pool of foreign writers means jurisdictional accountability is difficult. US or other national law enforcement may have little power over foreign nationals operating abroad. Likewise, local laws where writers reside may differ in their treatment of such services.
International copyright law gets complex as well. While US copyright would govern distribution of works within America, foreign nations’ statutes would apply to usage of copyrighted materials abroad. Enforcement against foreign operators becomes a major obstacle without clearer global standards or cooperation between legal authorities. The cross-border nature of many essay companies means definitive rulings on criminality or civil liability are rarely clear-cut.
So In Summary…
While academic ethical standards strongly discourage services enabling plagiarism like Essayshark, definitive proof they are strictly “illegal” is elusive and debated among experts. There are understandable concerns about plagiarism enablement, copyright issues, and potential deception. Most legal scholars do not view their core activities as clearly meeting criminal statutes as currently written—at least not for US-based operations. Likewise, regulation short of an outright ban is defended by some as a potential way to balance integrity, access, and civil liberties concerns.
With complex issues around academic standards, civil law, and international jurisdiction—there are good-faith perspectives on both sides. Overall, definitively labeling Essayshark as unambiguously legal or illegal remains challenging. Reasonable people of principle can disagree on how best to appropriately regulate rather than prohibit commercial writing assistance services. It remains a topic generating ongoing discussion and legal evolution within the academic community.
Andrew Stroud