I think the problem is the professors and pundits who don't realise that the entire cathedral of human knowledge is built on a foundation of permanent, ruthless copying.

That "intellectual property" does not suffer from the laws of scarcity is one of the great gifts of the universe to Man.

"The student currently in charge of the honor code project said it was an oversight, but cheating experts say it illustrates a sloppiness among Internet-era students who don't know how to cite sources properly and think of their computers as cut-and-paste machines."

I have two things to say about this paragraph:

1) "Cheating experts say"... Cheating experts? Really?? Is this kind of phrasing any better than "They say that..." or "Everyone knows that..."?

2) If "cheating experts" see things one way, while "Internet-era students" see things another way, which point of view is more likely to survive in the long term?

Could it be that the "cheating experts" are actually the students who get away with cheating? They're the ones who are doing the cheating, after all.

It seems strange to me that anyone should care about having their honor code plagiarized (and in this case I'm not sure that the author(s) do care). If the point of an honor code is to get people to act better, shouldn't you be happy that your honor meme is spreading, even if you don't get credit for it?

In fact, to me, insisting on being credited seems to go against the spirit of creating an honor code.

I believe most honor codes have the prevention of cheating and plagiarism as their prime function -- which is why this is the perfect example of irony for your high school freshmen.

That said, you're addressing broader issues of intellectual property which certainly merit discussion. Giving credit, to me, is essential when basing work on a previous source.