
Plagiarism is a distinctively American problem - dwaxe
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/21/12247032/melania-trump-plagiarism-history
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dalke
It doesn't explain why it's "distinctively American", only that it's a modern
Western belief.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism)
point out, for example, that "A passage of Laurence Sterne's 1767 Tristram
Shandy, condemns plagiarism by resorting to plagiarism"

At [http://listverse.com/2014/09/18/10-of-the-worst-
plagiarists-...](http://listverse.com/2014/09/18/10-of-the-worst-plagiarists-
in-history/) we read:

> "Few men have fallen further in the eyes of their scientific peers during
> their own lives than [19th century English biologist] Richard Owen ... Owen
> did a large amount of surprisingly blatant plagiarism, often stealing credit
> from people that were alive and in positions to respond. ... During debates
> about dinosaurs, Owen made his own accusations of plagiarism to discredit
> his opponents. He was ultimately voted out of the Council of Zoological and
> Royal Societies." Wikipedia says it was due to his plagiarism.

Or at [http://mentalfloss.com/article/21761/4-famous-cases-
plagiari...](http://mentalfloss.com/article/21761/4-famous-cases-plagiarism)
we can read about the 18th century Scottish literary forger William Lauder,
who tried to discredit Milton's "Paradise Lost" by claiming it plagiarized
from earlier works, which in actuality Lauder forged.

Or at
[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiat](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiat)
we see the French perspective:

> "Ce n'est qu'au XVIIIe siècle que le droit d'auteur se forme dans sa
> conception moderne, et que le plagiat devient juridiquement distinct de la
> contrefaçon. Diderot qualifie à cette époque le plagiat comme étant « le
> délit le plus grave qui puisse se trouver dans la République des Lettres »"

Google Translates says: "It was not until the eighteenth century that the
copyright forms in modern design, and that plagiarism is legally separate from
the infringement . Diderot describes plagiarism at that time as "the most
serious offense that could be in the Republic of Letters" .

So, how is it "distinctively American" when English and French sources before
the American revolution also decried plagiarism?

