在公开信中，伯恩斯坦声称，在美国，如果未获得版权拥有者的同意，即使适当归功于人，从同源作品中引用文字仍然不能超过250字。在中国作者不能引用超过3%的内容，而如果抄袭超过了25%，就会被剥夺学位。此外，即使原文指明了出处，但假如所涉及论点与例证有独特性且占据涉嫌作品的很大一部分时，也可能被视为抄袭。
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对此著作版权法方面的专家游云庭律师表示，剽窃不能说是很完全的法律概念。他不太了解美国的法律，但是，在中国没有明确的法律条文规定内容引用超过3%就构成著作权侵权。在中国引用不注明出处是非常明显地侵犯了著作权的做法；而如果注明了相关出处则属于规范、合理的引用，在中国的法律上并不构成侵犯著作权。

According to copyright law, a person may plagiarize another person’s work in several ways. The first is to copy their words without attribution. The second is to use more than a certain percentage of a work without explicit permission from the copyright holder. For example, in the U. S. one may not quote more than 250 words from a single source, even with attribution, without obtaining explicit permission from the copyright holder. I am told that in China, an essayist must not copy more than 3% of a text and that a student who copies more than 25% may be denied his or her degree. A third form of plagiarism consists of lifting another author’s arguments and examples without explicit permission. Accordingly, one may plagiarize a work even in the absence of copying its language and even with attribution, especially if the arguments and examples are unique and constitute a substantial portion of the work plagiarized.