How common is it to steal someone's work and pass it as yours?

[Anonymous]

It happened to me in 6th grade. I was paired with 2 classmates to work on a science fair project. It won 2nd place but the jerk took most of the credit, copied everything from my research papers and put his name on top.

Even though we ended getting the same grade, he got received the extra credit, got praised by the teacher and we got invited desserts. He barely contributed in the project. I said nothing because I was a very shy girl at the time and he had already turned it on under his name.

Event though this was just 6th grade incident and nothing major, how often has this happen to others? Maybe the person that really discovered something (and probably could've been the real inventor) and got his/her work stolen but either never spoke up or got silenced? How common was this... for others to steal your work and claimed it as theirs?

[HippieVeganJewslim]

That reminds me of how Thomas Alva Edison took others’ inventions as his own, or at least people assumed that Edison invented them. Did Albert Einstein really theorise relativity, or was it someone else? I don’t know the answer to Your question, but I reckon quite common.

[jshm2]

Plagiarism is something kids tend to try in early school and something shut down pretty quick,

[maximumpower]

Happens quite a bit.
Wait until it really counts - they'll get hammered.