Peter, I wish you every success, and hope that you never have problems with competitors passing off your work as their own to try and make a profit.

Perhaps if the menu — the actual paper and plastic — belonged to Dominos, it’d be theft of that menu. But if they owned the menu (having bought it from Dominos, or recovered it from their trash or something), it wouldn’t be — though I can’t imagine why they’d ever think patching over the competitor’s menu could help their business. Printing up their own menu that looked the same as the Dominos one, except for the colour scheme, logos and phone numbers, wouldn’t be theft.

If plagiarism isn’t that big a deal, I’m going to start photocopying the Harry Potter novels and selling them with my name on them.

I didn’t say it “isn’t that big a deal”; I didn’t say it isn’t despicable, even. I don’t like drug dealers, either, but what they do isn’t criminal in any legitimate sense.

there’s a commercial intent behind it somewhere…

There’s a commercial intent behind every business that starts up. Nevertheless, about 80% of new businesses fail. Tough. When you start a business, you don’t get to have men with guns force people to buy stuff from you against their will — you can’t have your own thugs, and you shouldn’t be able to use thugs who carry badges and papers and call themselves “police” or “government” or whatever (though, all too often, you can).

If plagiarism isn’t that big a deal, I’m going to start photocopying the Harry Potter novels and selling them with my name on them. I know that’s more clearly a commercial activity than say, writing articles but I’m fairly sure that Maeve doesn’t write these things just because she loves us all – there’s a commercial intent behind it somewhere… No offence intended, Maeve

Yes, but…your “reputation” is just “what other people think of you” – you certainly have no legitimate claim over other people’s thoughts; therefore “reputation” is not something that can be stolen from you (whether through plagiarism or, e.g., defamation/slander/libel). Similarly for (potential) earnings – it’s other people’s willingness to pay for your services; but you have no claim on that, otherwise it would “theft” when Pizza Hut opens a store in a town where Dominos already has a presence…

Dishonest, sure; you can say plagiarists are scumbags, but there’s a big difference between being a scumbag who everyone wants to avoid and being a criminal who should be prosecuted.

“What is taken when a work is plagiarized?”

Reputation: Person A writes an essay and Person B publishes it under someone else’s name.

Earnings: Person A writes an article for one market that could be sold again to another market, but Person B beats him to it, selling said article to someone else under his own name.

Those are just two possibilities. Besides, it’s dishonest. Why be deliberately dishonest?

Peter, if you are the Peter who often comments, your opinions often offer valid insights on the topic under discussion. Perhaps you’d like to write a guest submission in which you explore your view that plagiarism is not theft. It would make interesting reading.