Intellectual property is protected only in case if the person uses it for commercial purposes. I support the protection of intellectual property but on the other hand a lot of countries where people are very poor and they cannot afford to pay real money. On the other hand China in General is the king of plagiarism and provides fakes the whole world.
Commercial is one thing, but what about using it to get a degree, in form of plagiarism?
I oppose plagiarism and I think there should be some laws protecting intellectual property, but I also oppose abusing these laws to prosecute sharing of digital media.
It's stupid that a person can go to a friend and watch a movie with him at his house, or take that dvd, that he bought, and watch it at home, but cannot share it with someone in the internet.
If you copy somebody else's work, writing for example, and claim that it is your own, in a word 'plagiarism', then you are lying, which is a separate issue.
It has never been acceptable in universities to lie regarding information, whether lying about the source of the information, lying about its content or lying about some other aspect. There has never been a university or other organization that said "we are not sure whether lying and / or plagiarism are okay".
There has never been a need, and hopefully never will be, to decide whether a student can lie in order to prove expertise. It is a subject people agree on, students lying is not good. But that is a completely separate issue from 'intellectual property'.