Commercial fraud:
> The theory of contract espoused here demonstrates that fraud is properly viewed as a type of theft. Suppose Karen buys a bucket of apples from Ethan for $20. Ethan represents the things in the bucket as being apples, in fact, as apples of a certain nature, that is, as being fit for their normal purpose of being eaten. Karen conditions the transfer of title to her $20 on Ethan's not knowingly engaging in 'fraudulent' activities, like pawning off rotten apples. If the apples are indeed rotten and Ethan knows this, then he knows that he does not receive ownership of or permission to use the $20, because the condition 'no fraud' is not satisfied. He is knowingly in possession of Karen's $20 without her consent, and is, therefore, a thief.
There is no equivalent of harm done to property or person with plagiarism in an academic setting.
> Finally, it is curious that the first thing that occurs to people on first hearing the anti-IP case is plagiarism: “You mean it would be okay for someone to take an author’s work, put his own name on it, and sell it?”
> Two issues are conflated here. One can plagiarize without violating a copyright, and one can violate a copyright without plagiarizing. Under copyright law you may use brief verbatim excerpts of another’s written work without permission as long as you use quotation marks and attribute the text to the author. It’s called “fair use.” (Question for copyright fans: Isn’t even fair use a violation of an author’s rights?) If you were to use an excerpt that otherwise would qualify under the fair-use principle but without attribution, you would be guilty of plagiarism but not copyright violation. The same would be true if you quote Shakespeare without attribution. (Shakespeare wrote without benefit of copyright.)
> On the other hand, if you publish Atlas Shrugged with Ayn Rand’s name on it, you would be guilty of copyright violation but not plagiarism.
> For the sake of clear thinking, let’s keep these issues separate.
> Well, is plagiarism okay? No, it’s not! Obviously it is dishonest and dishonorable to represent someone else’s work as one’s own. But note, according to LegalZoom, “plagiarism is not a criminal or civil offense.” Nor should it be. It’s a breach of good conduct, and there is a plentitude of nonviolent, non-State ways to deal with it, especially in the Internet age.
Look, I get it's a bad in a practical sense if someone cheats or plagiarizes, especially to the cheater. It could even be a breach of contract between the student and the school. But it's not a crime against another person. It's a "victimless crime" essentially.
If someone falsifies licensing or safety requirements, like with an airplane or a building, that's a legal matter. Call that "professional fraud" -- it's illegal. But there is no law against cheating in school.
1. Every CS class I took had some form of curve. People cheating directly lowered the grade of people who didn't.
2. Cheating devalues the credentials that other students paid for. You can argue about the benefits of the credentialing system, but that doesn't change that fact that students cheating directly financially harms students who don't cheat.
3. It harms job seekers who now have to spend time going through additional screening steps because their credentials are no longer trusted.
It really seems like your trying very hard to justify some past behavior here.
Dude I've been out of school for almost a decade. I didn't major in CS. And the only stuff I learned that was useful for my future career was through a project class where it was impossible to cheat or otherwise bullshit your way to an A. Most of my programming skills were learned from coding games in my spare time.
