copy and paste

Periodically throughout our class, we were reminded of the copy and paste "trick." But who are we tricking? Ideally, this shortcut can help us use tags that help us figure out how do put things on our pages. But if we take copy and paste too far, aren't we really just cheating? One complication of the internet is the idea of authorship. How much of what we code is creative work that we can take credit for? How much is just the equivalent of selecting options on a multiple choice test? Where is the line between appropriate and inappropriate?