There is a thin line between 'being inspired by' and 'blatantly stealing.' It thins a lot more when it comes to academic works and other publications. A few words here and there, a turn of a phrase, a simple sentence, while could be pointed out exists here, here, and there, can be attributed to chance or embedded memory, or something that just can't be worded well any other way. But when you start stealing chunks, such as several sentences in a row, full paragraphs, or in this case, full works, it becomes quite obvious that someone took the easy way out. Wikipedia, of course, is full of examples of this, taking full chunks from varying websites.
Most professors notice this with students, especially those in class, when the paper's voice sounds a lot different from the student's voice. When it's something read by a large audience, such as a newspaper, magazine, or work of fiction, there's bound to be someone who has read the original source and will point it out. And when it comes to a tight-knit group like ours, it makes it just as easy.
