“In comparative studies, you can copy others’ published works.” [?]

A post at nation.com titled PU finds 2 PhDs ‘case of full plagiarism’ describes copying by Punjab University professors in a paper published in the Journal of Chemical Society of Pakistan at 582-591 pages in 2009 of work previously done in the 1960's [e.g., ‘The Infrared and Raman Spectra of Cyclopentadienyl Compounds: Cyclopentadienyl-manganese-tricarbonyl’ written by I H Hymas, R T Bailey and E R Lippincott, published in Spectrochimica Acta in 1967. ]

Leaving aside the copying aspect [and the questionable defense “In comparative studies, you can copy others’ published works.”], one wonders "who cares" in 2009 about a comparison of work from the 1960s?

This story evokes Glenn Poshard's copying in his Ph.D. thesis at SIU. Apart from the copying itself, Poshard was using a prior discussion of the state of a literature to discuss a later time period. That is, forgetting the problem of copying without attribution, the copied text wasn't relevant to its attempted use. The reader of the thesis was mislead both as to the source of the text and as to the relevance of the text.