<p>Words belong to the person who wrote them. There </p>
<p>are few simpler ethical notions than this, particularly as </p>
<p>15</p>
<p>society directs more and more energy toward the creation </p>
<p>of intellectual property. In the past 30 years, copyright laws </p>
<p>have been strengthened, fighting piracy has become an </p>
<p>obsession with Hollywood, and, in the worlds of academia </p>
<p>and publishing, plagiarism has gone from being bad literary </p>
<p>20</p>
<p>manners to something close to a felony. When a noted </p>
<p>historian was recently found to have lifted passages from </p>
<p>other historians, she was asked to resign from the board </p>
<p>of the Pulitzer Prize committee. And why not? If she had </p>
<p>robbed a bank, she would have been fired the next day</p>
<p>What does the "And why not?" part mean?</p>