Buran was copied in shape and in overall capabilites, once on orbit, for the reasons mentioned. Buran wasn't copied both internally and on the launcher side - so we might say Buran copied some things, but had others originally developed.
Soviets were great copiers, in many areas - and in many others there weren't where to copy from. They had to develop great many things themselves.
Well, the point is that it's a common belief the thing A was stolen, not developed independently, and in practice for a state of the art technical achievement you usually already have to be pretty damn good just to be able to copy verbatim, not to mention to have substantial advantages.
I won't say Concord was copied from Tu-144. Similarly, I wouldn't say soviet electronics was just a rip-off; there were enough original works even outside of the relatively well known BESM-6 project. Even to copy chips in 1980-s it takes you to have the necessary technology for reverse engineering - something I doubt any country ever had on that scale, at least at the time.
Wikipedia (unfortunately, sourcing a print book so I can't vouch for its having been quoted fairly) indicates Soviet agents were definitely stealing Concorde plans during the Tu-144's development.
I'm, of course, interested in arguments with some base to them. Wikipedia marks the section as "disputed" and mentions that stolen (if) were the preliminary designs.
Again, you have to know a lot to have use of plans like that - especially when the design is a moving target.
Buran was copied in shape and in overall capabilites, once on orbit, for the reasons mentioned. Buran wasn't copied both internally and on the launcher side - so we might say Buran copied some things, but had others originally developed.
Soviets were great copiers, in many areas - and in many others there weren't where to copy from. They had to develop great many things themselves.