Sean Barrett wrote:
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geni stated for the record:
On 11/19/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
You are not "free to try and claim" so much as "it is very rare that people ever get taken to court for false copyright claims over PD material, even though it is illegal."
How is it illegal?
Fraud.
Indeed, plagiarism (claiming someone else's work as your own) is an extreme problem in academic and creative circles. It is even bigger than cheating on exams as a form of academic fraud, and indeed strikes at the very soul of the academic and scientific processes.
Additionally, Hollywood is plagued with plagiarism and even more so with accusations of plagiarism. Given the amount of money and energy that goes into every media production, the stakes in such battles are enormous. Literature has similar problems, with similarly high stakes: the novel "The Bear went Over the Mountain" is a wonderful satire on a subject that most writers quake in their boots addressing.