Under copyright law, what matters is not that you copied someone else’s work.

What matters is what you copied, and how much you copied. Intellectual-property doctrine isn’t a straightforward application of the ethical principle

“Thou shalt not steal.”

At its core is the notion that there are certain situations where you can steal.

I just stole that from Malcolm Gladwell or did I simply relay his thoughts?  Am I taking credit for his astute thought?  No way.  But yes there is such a thing as plagiarism.  I pay money to the Library of Congress to protect every single word, phrase, paragraph and chapter I produce. Now I’m not vain enough to think it’ll ever happen (at least to me) but I am prepared if it does. But can thoughts and intentions be plagiarized?  They are far less tangible.  Harder to prove but in my opinion, a worse crime than copying and pasting some words.  Thoughts and theories can’t be copyrighted, but for someone to intentionally lift your thought process and likely perfect it (since they already have your hard work to rely on) isn’t flattering as they claim it is.  It’s insulting. There’s a saying that creativity is free and it is.  

So employ your own.  It might take you a bit longer to create something that’s original AND full proof, but stealing an already conceived and tested experiment in anything; writing, dancing.  All of the arts.  What about that person that conceptualized it first?  The person that weighed the pros and cons and tried stuff that failed then had to move on to find out how to fix it.  Sometimes in front of people waiting for you to figure it out.  That’s pressure.  Plagiarism is cowardly.  And to take a bow for something that’s not yours … well that’s pretty much disgusting.  

And how about when people tell you to watch a newly streaming series and preface it like this: it’s kinda like West Side Story except it’s on the Upper East Side.  Most thoughts and theories that find their success may likely be protected someday, but the copycat that beats them to the punch well that’s just called timing.  And the one left behind scratching his head because it’s still not 100% in their mind loses yet again.  They put out something unique yet not invincible. Copying is the furthest thing from invincible.  It’s just convincing.  The thief sees the conceiver stumble and figures out a fair enough solution to segway things forward.  Hate that.

It happens in politics too.  Most legislation is conceived by someone and then criticized by everyone because of its imperfections, then resurrected by some other force who gets the photo op behind the President signing the bill.  Sometimes with a big old black SHARPY.  Pretty sure that act will never be plagiarized.  Not the legislation.  The SHARPY.  He must have gotten a big campaign contribution from SHARPY Inc.  

Perhaps the biggest kick in the rumpus with plagiarism is avoiding risk at your expense since someone else already had those sleepless nights worrying something might or might not be well received.  The plagiarist sleeps with the greatest of ease through the entire night. So now I’ll show all the plagiarists out there how to fess up with dignity:

She floats through the air with the greatest of ease
You’d think her a man on the flying Trapeze
She does all the work while he takes his ease
And that’s what’s become of my love

Lyrics from a song in Public Domain