Although research ethics and research ethics-related issues have been widely discussed and studied recently, plagiarism is still prevalent in colleges and universities, particularly in liberal arts disciplines. The current study is focused on the theory that plagiarism is not only related to the influence of the culture under which the author lives, but also the consciousness of rights in their culture. To examine this issue, we compared the understanding of the term “academic” between individuals from eastern and western cultures, and examined the concept of property rights. Based on the above consideration, the following conclusions can be drawn. In terms of understanding the concept of property rights, individuals from eastern cultural backgrounds exhibited less understanding than individuals from western cultural backgrounds. Intellectual property, which differs from property, cannot be explained by Locke’s labor theory. According to these two points, when we educate university students about research ethics, we should pay attention to education about research rules, as well as the consciousness of intellectual property rights, which most eastern universities do not teach due to cultural factors.