“On Plagiarism” by Richard A. Posner aims to distinguish the differences between different kinds of intellectual property stealing. While copyright infringement is driven by nothing other than financial motivation, plagiarism is simply unrecognized copying of someone else’s work. However, Posner argues that plagiarism is a good as a whole and believes “we want more plagiarism” because plagiarism encourages the building of new ideas on top of existing ones. His rhetoric draws in people’s attention because it disparages the foundation of a common belief—namely the idea that “stealing” ideas is wrong. Although Posner does not necessarily advocate for dismissing citations and not crediting work, he advocates that the stealing creates very desirable products, and in practical cases what is stolen does not matter to the average person. To that end, his incredulous tone towards the idea that authors must be completely original only furthers undermine the validity of the belief.
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