Not sure if I'm leading this thread off-track but pragmatically as a 'go-to' guide, I find the
Center for Media and Social Impact's 'Guide to best practice in poetry' an invaluable resource, although it's worth noting that the UK is far stricter in its copyright regulations (so be careful if you're publishing in the UK, US poets).
Intellectual property is interesting and complex, particularly with the introduction of
creative commons licenses, although I don't think they're widely used in poetry the same way they are in open source software/images etc.
But it's a fluid landscape, attribution. And maybe underpinned by academic ethics (of referencing and the like) but then there are the arts-as-resistance ideologies that come into it too.
And then there is docupoetics, which is something different again (and which personally I'm really interested in but don't have enough time to properly read around at the moment.
I have to admit to a grave curiosity as to which publication 'The Freckled Vegetable' was. I will spend my evening thinking about bananas.
Anyway, I think the original question was 'does borrowing diminish', to which my answer would be that it's relative and dependent on both reader and writer and context. Are great paintings diminished when they're reproduced on a tote bag?
Sarah-Jane