I was in e-conversation with a well known Goanetter about this rather unpleasant tendency among some of us to beat up on other people, especially those who might be down. The term 'schadenfreude' came up.I suppose that most among us would know what the term means. The term, indeed, is self-explanatory.
This is not to suggest that we should condone or applaud illegality or what might be lesser infringements. It is just that we might wish to be reasonable about it - even though the person "being beaten up" was thoroughly unreasonable / disgusting with those who were not his RW co-ideologues. Not being trained in psychiatry or animal husbandry, I will skip trying to explain 'wolf mentality'. A number of fancy words are being thrown about e.g. "Crime", "Criminal" "Drinking buddies". As I do not have any "drinking buddies", I will stick to terms which I am also trained to understand i.e. "Crime" and "Criminal" Here is something from some folks I can call my 'learned colleagues'. I hope these words help. Good wishes jc ps: I have always told myself that nature self-calibrates, and in doing so ....brings about equilibrium. I believe that it is very easy to participate in Schadenfreude. The Australian Aborigines have an implement known as the Boomerang! Often times, Schadenfreude is followed by Boomerang http://www.legalzoom.com/intellectual-property-rights/copyrights/plagiarism-what-is-it-exactly Although plagiarism is not a criminal or civil offense, plagiarism is illegal if it infringes an author's intellectual property rights, including copyright or trademark. For example, the owner of a copyright can sue a plagiarizer in federal court for copyright violation. The plagiarist in turn may have to pay the copyright owner of the plagiarized works the amount he or she actually lost because of the infringement, in addition to paying attorney's fees. Yet, plagiarism does occur and may likely continue to occur. Many famous icons have been proven to have plagiarized, either intentionally or accidentally. Helen Keller was accused of plagiarism during her school years, as was Martin Luther King, Jr., when a Boston University investigation revealed he had in fact plagiarized approximately one third of a chapter of his doctoral thesis. Best-selling historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Stephen Ambrose were accused of stealing from other writers, and former Beatle George Harrison was sued for plagiarism because the melody of his song "My Sweet Lord" was too similar to the Chiffons' song "He's So Fine." Probably the most recent form of plagiarism was the actions of former *New York Times* reporter Jayson Blair, who plagiarized from other newspapers more than three dozen articles and faked quotes for numerous prestigious stories. Blair's deceit motivated the paper to investigate the management within the newspaper so that this type of farce would not happen again. In fact, *New York Times*executive editor Howell Raines and managing editor Gerald Boyd resigned following criticism that their management approach may have led to Blair's professional growth at the paper
