This article explores the recurrent issue of whether graphic designers' standards of professional behavior should be rooted in both law, ethics, or both. Designers are often influenced by contemporary art and design and borrow elements for their own creativity. In general I think that designers are more likely to consider a work to have been plagiarized than I would as an attorney. This reflects a refinement of vision, but also relates to the disparity between what most designers consider plagiarism and the standard for copyright infringement.
Plagiarism is a moral term, while infringement is a legal term.
Also, the test for infringement under the copyright law may be very difficult for the designer to apply to his or her own work. That test is whether an ordinary observer who looks at an original work and an alleged copy will believe one to have been copied from the other. If the similarity is great enough, it will not be necessary to prove the alleged infringer had access to the original work to do the copying. Designers pride themselves on not being ordinary observers, and this may explain why designers are likely to see plagiarism. That this monopoly only lasts for the copyright term suggests the balance between the interest of the creator for longer protection and the public for free use.