Stephen Bainbridge looks at an issue I’ve been wondering about recently as I work on my computer crime law casebook: What are the rules and norms for copying your own scholarly writing? When working on my casebook, I often find myself covering ground that I have already covered elsewhere in articles, case updates (a service now-defunct, alas), and even as a government employee. Ignoring copyright issues — a realistic assumption, in that I own most of the copyrights, or else the works are not copyrighted — is there something wrong with copying a sentence or a group of sentences from my own prior written works as part of a new discussion in the casebook? On one hand, the concern feels a little silly; after all, the words are my own, and you can’t steal from yourself. On the other hand, cutting-and-pasting even from my own text feels, well, icky; I usually end up rephrasing and rearranging to feel better.
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