I actually think of copyright infringement and plagiarism as distinct and often contradictory sins.

One may infringe while avoiding plagiarizing, as with the Napster example above. One may plagiarize without infringing, as when one rephrases a concept and claims it without granting credit.

We often conflate infringement and plagiarism. And it’s a shame. Copyright infringement is a complex legal concept — a matter of civil law (and sometimes criminal law). Plagiarism is purely an ethical abrogation — an offense against the norms of a discursive community. Thus is it policed by and within that community.

The idea/expression dichotomy makes it clear that plagiarism and infringement have almost no intersections.

2. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

I suggest that your reaction to the story indicates that the author has “gotten to a point” on the first page: to ask the reader to question the medium of writing, the goal of sentences, the structure of narrative, etc. In this sense he is hyper-aware of his audience, attempting to anticipate exactly what their reaction will be.

Release the constraints that years of reading and schooling have placed on you (and all of us) with regards to the order of things, take more than a few minutes to consider what he is doing with the links and how the narrative is flowing, appreciate the beauty of his prose and dialgue (which gets quite wonderful at points) and see where it takes you.

Siva