Joe M.

Plagiarism is a serious transgression for writers for the same reason joke theft is a cardinal sin for comedians - it amounts to an attack on their profession. Creative theft is so hated because it steals the fruits of our labor even more fundamentally than just office politicking or project credit-taking. It erases the identity of the original author and creates in its place a lie - that the perpetrator of the theft deserves the accolades, finacial and social, associated with it.