I generally come down on the side of copyright infringement is not theft - it's something different. If I copy the latest pop song, no one has been deprived of

I generally come down on the side of copyright infringement is not theft - it's something different. If I copy the latest pop song, no one has been deprived of it. However, in the case of plagiarism (and related forms of passing of another's work as mine...), there is something really akin to property theft: credit theft. If you take my words, and pass them off as your own, and get credit for them rather than me - well then it is pretty much the same thing as you taking my dollar: I am deprived of it.