I almost replied that I had the same view after reading your comment but before opening the article in question. After reading the first but of the article, I

I almost replied that I had the same view after reading your comment but before opening the article in question. After reading the first but of the article, I think the GP is possibly saying something else, when taken in context, which is that this is exactly the behavior that would be expected from someone that's plagiarizing something else in general using the technique from the article, and all the criticism did was help them get a better plagiarized paper. I can't speak for GP as to whether this was true, or if there are different norms for that sector, or the author was slightly aggressive in asserting their rights, or the assumptions we're making about the content of the criticism are off, but given the article brought a new dimension to it, I thought that worth mentioning.