On the subject of plagiarism, Posner establishes the differences between infringement, plagiarism, and fair use. As he states:
“Reliance and hence fraud and hence plagiarism are matters of expectation.” (p. 31)
Which means to me that there is no clearly drawn line, but rather it is easily an arguable state. He would seem to imply an intent to defraud according to the beliefs of the reading public as the defining point. This covers and holds harmless then much research and ghostwriting that is a usual or normal practice to be ascribed to a single or certain authorship.
Fine and dandy, except that isn’t intent a much more difficult concept to prove? I can easily see the “well people knew darn well I didn’t write that but that so and so did” used as a justification. To carry it further into the academic scenario, it would seem that the very thing that tips professors off to check for plagiarism (that idiot couldn’t have written that) would be the idiot’s primary defense.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology