Posner’s little book–and it truly is–is a full yet concise legal analysis of the concept of plagiarism. Evidently the concept of what constitutes the concept has been affected by the society in which time it has occurred, which helped assuage my initial shock at some of the historical references used.
What Posner stresses, and which makes sense to me, is that the plagiarist must have the intent to defraud the public by claiming originality of the copied passage. What surprises Posner and others is that quotation marks would easily clarify and negate any claim of stolen intellectual property yet many feel that this simple punctuation would detract from the natural reading of the work.
It’s definitely an interesting and informative read and actually helped a hard-noser like me to be a little more tolerant.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology