The key is to suspend disbelief and broaden the concept of plagiarism to include Marvel universe plagiarism! š Again, not that it makes it great writing (although I found these kinda funny).
Peter didnāt get caught simply because Otto failed to properly annotate the bibliography! His paper was run through a system that is apparently sophisticated enough (Marvel style) to know if heād been demonically possessed while writing it! The paper itself was wholly original, in Peteās name, etc. but recognized as the work of Otto Octavius. The patterns of language and potentially even thought processes simply didnāt match Peterās. As far as theyāre concerned Pete potentially paid Otto to write his thesis for him.
So in this case it does come down to the equivalent of āhaving a similar writing style constituting plagiarism,ā but on a whole other Marvelesque level!
This bizarre, geeky conversation is making me think of http://thelegalgeeks.com, a fun site that brings a bit of our real world expectations and procedures into the worlds of comics! š
I was trying to find a story I vaguely recall reading, with no success yet. It was a murder trial in the Marvel Universe and the lawyer used a defense strategy to imply that there was no way of knowing the victim was actually killed citing all the ways death is impermanent and identity is fleeting (shape changers, alternate realities, etc.) in the Marvel universe. Ingenious!