The Conference Board of Canada plagiarism and undue influence story – which with the Board's report and overdue apology to Curtis Cook will now go on hiatus until new reports are issued in the fall – has obviously attracted considerable interest.  Looking back, while plagiarism is rare, it is the public airing of the copyright lobby policy laundering effort that is the far more important development. 

This lengthy post seeks to unravel the effort further by demonstrating how there has been a clear strategy of deploying seemingly independent organizations to advance the same goals, claims, arguments, and recommendations.  Over the past three years, this strategy has played out with multiple reports, each building on the next with a steady stream of self-citation.  The following diagram highlights the key players:

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