Tuesday, November 22, 2011
What we should take from the QR Markham plagiarism scandal
guardian.co.uk: When does a mash-up become an infringement of copyright? When does playful anonymity become insidious disguising? The speed of technological change often outstrips legal and philosophical discussions of the impact of those technologies. I don't think it's too much to suggest that there is an almost pathological relationship between "online" and "real world" mental modes: the internet hysterically polices the contours of its own distorted reflection.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
The main problem with QR Markham's book was the fact that he failed to give proper credit to all the authors whose words he stole. Had he not tried to pass this work off as his own, it could have stood as as statement on the formulaic nature of genres or on copyright issues. Instead, it just serves to confuse everyone as to how someone could expect to have this pass.
Giving credit to other writers is one thing - remember that he lifted, with minor edits, both large blocks of text and the entire conceit of the book from other authors. I see your argument that the book could be sold as a commentary on formulaic plots and trite verbage (with the proper credit), but there's a distinct difference in the pastiche that may be allowable under copyright (even extending to the full co-opting of a storyline, such as The Wind Done Gone, which tells the story of Gone With The Wind, but through a slave's perspective, even with slightly altered transcriptions from the original novel) and the sheer volume of copying done in this book. The author here wasn't adding original content, thus making the book his own even through the interpretation of others work; rather, he was lifting work and taking away rather than adding. I got a little lost trying to follow the author's point in relating this to internet anonymity, but the article brings up the issue of contribution and how much is necessary to constitute an original work.
Nobody owns a word; or even a phrase. Yes, certain phrases and combinations of words can become attached to a certain story or play or film: I say, "Use the Force, Luke" or "To be or not to be" and most people would immediately know what I'm saying. And if I write that in a book or online or say aloud, does it mean I'm plagiarizing?
Is the line between plagiarism and not some sort of unspoken public or majority acceptance of it? If I were to write "To be or not to be" in a play, I'm willing to bet no one would call me a plagiarist because everyone knows where that line comes from. I couldn't hope to fool people into thinking it's mine, so I must have put it in there intentionally, as an homage. So, what's the difference between intentional copying and tribute?
We're theatre artists. Ninety-percent of what we DO is stealing others' ideas and making them part of our own. Should we all be locked up? Is it diminishing our artistic accomplishments to say we merely cut and pasted a bunch of architecture and clothing design and words other people have already spoken into something else? Or are we changing its meaning; like Christopher Logue's title of the first books of the Iliad? Are we plagiarizing Shakespeare when we produce Kiss Me, Kate?
I mean, really, when you get right down to it, the English language is just a study in statistical relationships between 26 phonetic symbols. So what if a few of them repeat every once and while?
Post a Comment