Nano-furor over plagiarism of quantum mechanics text

Theage.com.au notes that Scott Aaronson, a Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT has accused Love Communications, the makers of a commercial with female models mentioning quantum mechanics, of plagiarizing his quantum mechanics lecture for the models' words.

Theage compares the texts:

Brunette model: But if quantum mechanics isn't physics in the usual sense - if it's not about matter, or energy, or waves - then what is it about?

Blonde model: Well, from my perspective, it's about information, probabilities, and observables, and how they relate to each other.

[The ad can be viewed on YouTube; one comment on YouTube might interest Aaronson: vapid piece of physics as well- I'm glad I don't have to attend those lectures; a different comment: Nice, although the text is copied verbatim from the science blog "Shtetl-Optimized". (Aaronson's blog) ]

On his personal blog Dr Aaronson compares this to an excerpt from his lecture about "Quantum Computing Since Democritus".

"But if quantum mechanics isn't physics in the usual sense - if it's not about matter, or energy, or waves, or particles - then what is it about? From my perspective, it's about information and probabilities and observables, and how they relate to each other."

The age quotes Aaronson: "I got an email from the company basically saying we apologise and that we contacted a lawyer and our lawyer says we didn't violate any copyright."

IPBiz has noted that plagiarism and copyright infringment are different things.

For example:

The distinction between plagiarism and copyright infringement

Also:

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/10/on-cirm-extra-expense-for-bonds-and.html