I know these reports of distinguished faculty getting nabbed for plagiairism is nothing new; nevertheless, I think it's always good to take advantage of these opportunities to reflect on our poorly developed views of the "crime of plagiarism." Some of you may have read my Critique of Plagiarism on my website, so you probably know my attitude towards the subject varies sharply from the norm.

Of course, this law professor is obviously guilty of another type of crime; namely, letting a grad student or two write his damn book for him. They get some "research credit," he gets another item on his vita plus whatever chump change he wrings from the sale of his book. We all know faculty like this, and it's good to see a few take some heat for this despicable practice.

Anyway, this whole thing seems to beg the question, "If a freakin' LAW professor at HARVARD is plagiarizing, should we really come down so hard on students who do the same?"

What truly disgusts me about the whole plagiarism business is that this is most definitely an ECONOMIC issue, and far more a nightmare for capitalists than for proles. I equate our "war on plagiarism" with our "war on P2P," and see it quite honestly for what it is: A lame attempt to inhibit progress by abusing law and privilege to serve the best interests of the rich. Everytime we prosecute a plagiarist, we are serving as loyal henchmen of that happy 1% of the population we call capitalists. Meanwhile, we're screwing over our students and ourselves.

Who gets hurt when a student copies an essay, or, better yet, assembles an essay with parts copied and pasted from various sources on the net? What is the nature of this "crime?"

Well, the obvious crime is reducing the value of the documents he or she copied from. Think about it...

How long will it take before some of our nobler and wiser indulgers in that field we dare call "critical theory" will take time from their pedantic but spirited defense of the "subalterns" of some obscure Third World country long enough to see the oppression we're offering our own students in the form of a "war on plagiarism?"