I don’t believe in IP laws, so I feel that it is acceptable to copy work. Is it, however, acceptable to copy work and pass it off as your own; or is that considered fraud?
It would be Fraud. It is trying to use someone else’s reputation in contracts between you and third party while misleading the third party to think that you can offer more than you actually may, by inflating your own reputation.
Your conclusion is correct, but you’re taking a very roundabout way to get there. And the continual usage of “reputation” is confusing, as, if you do not agree that IP is legitimate, you can’t be arguing that a “right to a reputation” is legitimate either.
The reason plagerism would be fraud is simply that you are making a fraudulent claim…that you authored the work, when you didn’t. Anyone who comes into interaction with the work is led to believe you were the originator, when in fact you were not. Thus, if someone who paid you for the work (say a publisher or an end reader) where to have had that information beforehand, they likely would not have paid you (or at least not the same amount). Thus, you defrauded these individuals by giving them false information and consequently they acted in a way they otherwise wouldn’t, had they not been deliberately misinformed.
Here’s a decent piece on the subject…
Leonard Read on Copyright and the Role of Ideas
fraud basically means misleading the customer. So if I want to by Armani Jeans, and instead get some ripoff, then I can take the owner of the shop to court. However, fraud is one of those things (I think) that is quite hard to prove, because it involves “intention”. Was my intention to buy just jeans or specifically Armani jeans? Etc. etc. etc. Still, fraud would be punishable in Libertopia.
P.S. I love jeans.
You don’t have to prove your intention…just that you were given false information. The Armani label informs you that they are jeans made by Armani. If they in fact weren’t made by Armani, it makes no difference if you were just buying the jeans because you liked them, and the label didn’t affect your decision. The fact is you were still under the impression you were buying jeans made by the Armani company, and you didn’t get what you thought you were getting. You were defrauded.
Now, whether or not you choose to go after your aggressors for retribution, that’s a different subject.