Plagiarism is a bannable offense

There were heated arguments in the past where high ranking members were accused of copy-pasting but they weren't banned.
I also read some members who were temporarily banned or signature banned for the same offense.

What can we conclude from here? The general rule is a permanent ban for plagiarism but there are always exception as you can see from the example above. Newbies won't likely get a second chance since they have zero positive contributions yet unlike the old high rank members.