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The New Yorker recently published a terrific piece by Malcolm Gladwell--whose article about the psychiatrist Dorothy Lewis was an uncredited source for a stage play by Bryony Lavery--on the messy ideas of plagiarism, creativity, intellectual property, and originality.

She didn’t copy my musings, or conclusions, or structure. She lifted sentences like “It is the function of the cortex—and, in particular, those parts of the cortex beneath the forehead, known as the frontal lobes—to modify the impulses that surge up from within the brain, to provide judgment, to organize behavior and decision-making, to learn and adhere to rules of everyday life.” It is difficult to have pride of authorship in a sentence like that.

Insightful and moving. Oh yeah, and I got this link from Will Shetterly.