Australian prof on plagiarism as sign of discontent

Megan le Masurier of the University of Sydney: "Plagiarism is a sign of discontent. They think their teachers are so busy. They want to be noticed and it's almost a testing gesture, a payback, like a response to feeling neglected.

"Also, if your motive for learning is instrumental, perhaps you have a very different attitude to how you behave. It's a leap across a boundary, into dishonesty and, in the real world, into copyright infringements. But there is a sense in which it's an educational issue, not a legal issue."

Funding cuts have forced Australian universities to take in large numbers of fee-paying overseas students. They number about 240,000, or a quarter of the student body.

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IPBiz notes that plagiarism and copyright infringement are distinct concepts.
For example, look here Further, given the frequent appearance of plagiarism by professors (for example, at Harvard Law School), one surmises that students are indeed merely jumping into the real world. Also, if teachers were truly familiar with a given subject, they would recognize plagiarism at a glance, just as the readers of "Opal Mehta got kissed" recognized the plagiarism on sight.