Plagiarise musical passage capturing Italian river (6)

I believe the answer is:

ripoff

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'plagiarise musical' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't judge whether this works.

'passage capturing italian river' is the wordplay.
'passage' becomes 'riff' (riff is a kind of passage).
'capturing' indicates putting letters inside.
'italian river' becomes 'po' (river in Italy).
'riff' going around 'po' is 'RIPOFF'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Another definition for ripoff that I've seen is " Exploitation".)

I've seen this clue in The Irish Times.

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