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Jonathan Lethem On Plagiarism
tmalone writes "This month's Harper's Magazine includes an excellent essay by the novelist Jonathan Lethem titled 'The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism,' in which he discusses the public commons of ideas and the absurdity of restricting other peoples' right of second use. 'Artists and their surrogates who fall into the trap of seeking recompense for every possible second use end up attacking their own best audience members for the crime of exalting and enshrining their work.' Taking issue with the idea that any work is 'untainted' by others' ideas, he declares, 'Any text is woven entirely with citations, references, echoes, cultural languages, which cut across it through and through in a vast stereophony.' Later on he argues that 'Contemporary copyright, trademark, and patent law is presently corrupted. The case for perpetual copyright is a denial of the essential gift-aspect of the creative act.' Lethem finishes up with simple request: 'Don't pirate my editions; do plunder my visions.' The best part of the essay is at the end when he provides a key to all of the sources he stole his ideas from."
One man's "creative influence" could very well be one lawyer's "plagiarism". It is all a matter of degree.
take on intellectual property. Try to publish a cartoon featuring a mermaid or a
bunch of talking mice and their _ligitation_ department _will_ open fire on you.
Plunder my vision.. indeed.
Whereas it's not usual around here ;) I read the article, and I think he makes some excellent points.
:
...Most artists are converted to art by art itself
The Slashdot headline is a bit misleading as it isn't only about plagiarism, but more about the influence of external factors/one's environment on the output of an artist:
Whereas the author cites a few real cases of famous writers of the past literally copying other people's work, he makes a good case that most of that has unknowingly been used: The author's quote
seems to be very true.
From my personal experience I can say that the previous quote, and the article's explanation of how one gets influenced by his/her environment to produce an artwork, is very true (in my case, that is).
For me my big inspirations were architecture and games, which both formed me into my hobby/work I do nowadays (leveldesigner).
Other influences (of particular my gaming-past) only became apparent when the other day, I finished a gamedesign document (of a GPL-ed game I am working on) and showed it to some co-developers, who almost immedeately recognised and pointed out the various game elements/style from my most beloved games of the past, which I'd unknowingly woven into the total design. (to name a few; Lazy Jones, Jumpman, various NES/SNES classics)
Whereas I didn't anticipate on creating clones of those games, I'd somehow formed my idea around it (and -enhanced- it), by the external imprints of the past.
It's a shame that nowadays people/companies are becoming overeager to try to squash any sort of infringement on their work (I'm not talking about blatant copyright infringements), whereas most of the times the artists only builds on the existing intellectual property, thus imo enhancing it for people who are interested in views from third-parties (one could compare it to Mods for games).
To point out the computer-art bit some more; I'd like to think that the GPL is a prime example of how proper 'plagiarism' can take place, and create several new/enhanced products, as GPL-ed code is still attributing the initial authors/source, and on top of that there is the obligation to release the source too; Making the whole art-foodchain bigger and better.
Now if only the big media conglomerates would start to see that, for example, Dangermouse's "Grey"-album (which mixed the Jay-Z's "open-sourced" beats of his "Black"-album, with the Beatle's "White"-album) was an excellent example of how different age-groups can get exposed to the oldies: Thus, in the end, making more sales.
ThurlMakes7, read this article again a few years after you've graduated or dropped out and get back to me.
And no, "we" don't always know originality when we see it. Many need to have it explained to us. This is why people like you take lit-crit classes and learn words like "structuralism". Trust me, it's my business to recognize y'all. I get paid well to read your papers and give you grades so you can go about spending your parents' money thinking you're smart.
Jonathan Lethem (please learn to spell the man's name before you mention him in the context of "crit-lit") isn't trying to say our ancestors speak through us, he's saying that we can only give back what we've taken in. Some of us can do it in original ways.
As someone who's actually read Lethem's novels, I'd highly recommend them to any of you who like to read. And don't worry too much about originality or influences. Just love what you love.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The article itself is a massively wordy orgy of bullshit and bananas, written by a person that's clearly trying way too fucking hard to write. The writer violates a basic concept of writing, and writing well; get your point across with as few words as possible.
Language as art is a wonderful thing; trying to couch it as something that it isn't in a really wordy...wordy...wordy...essay isn't art, and you lose the point of your essay in the process, which is another way of saying you talk too much without saying anything new or interesting or anything of value.
Really, this article applies to writing doctorates (snicker) and people overseeing those efforts. The rest of the world won't care...or worse yet, hope a well written version of the bullshit will appear in Reader's Digest.
"but we still know originality when we hear it and see it"
Or we know originality when we dont hear and see the sources.
As the patent office has been so apt at demonstrating, a failure to find the sources and an unfamiliarity with the subject is easily mistaken for originality.
It's not really eveb a question of derivatives or plagiarism, it's merely the fact that when you have five billion monkeys banging along from more or less the same starting point, quite a lot of them are bound to hit the same keys by pure chance. And the human mind combines and extrapolates much less randomly than pure chance.
Great minds may think alike, and these days we have a lot of great minds, and a far more level starting point with the rapid and free flow of information.
So you don't actually know what you're talking about, then?
For that matter, it doesn't even sound like you read the essay; he's not saying anything of the kind. It's more of an on-the-shoulders-of-giants position that a there-are-really-only-3-stories position.
(Funny quip about everything is regurgitated. Though having giggled at it, I can't help wondering if you're actually mixing the author up with Jonathan Safran Foer.)
Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.
...the author was still alive when the copyright was allowed to then extend for another 14 years.
Then came the 'corporate authors', publishers if you will, and Disney has lots of money to spread around to PACs and other politically influencial uses such that they simply purchased a change in U.S. law allowing them to "keep" something they were not entitled to have at the time various copyrighted items were created.
That was changing the law 'after the fact'. But the political monies were acceptable as we have established proper procedures for use in Washington D.C. when we need to go to get laws changed, so it is no longer a crime, as long as we "follow the laws".
The laws don't allow bribes to be given directly to lawmakers, so we give them to ex-lawmakers who are now middlemen who accept the monies (& their former staff who often seem to move with them), who then go to 'seek favor' from the current lawmakers which will in turn some day become ex-lawmaker/lobbyists.
So bribery is not a crime once you institutionalize it by giving it a new name "lobbying", but plagarism is still plagarism and you can get kicked out of school or a job because of it?
Jonathan Lethem's Harper article "'The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism" was thought provoking in many ways.
The parent poster said:
Absurd it may be, but that doesn't stop people from suing one another over such 'taints.' I direct your attention to the case of Alice Randall. In 2001 she published a novel "The Wind Done Gone," a parodic re-telling of "Gone With the Wind." Margaret Mitchell's estate sued Randall, alleging plagiarism. Her book was too similar to Mitchell's; it was, in fact, "tainted." The case was eventually settled out of court.
And again, consider Kaavya Viswanathan. Last year she published a romance novel, "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life." Then it was alleged that substantial portions of the novel had been adapted from Megan McCafferty's novels "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings." The publisher recalled "Opal Mehta" and canceled Viswanathan's contract. Viswanathan claimed she had internalized McCafferty's work so thoroughly that she reproduced the passages unconsciously and unintentionally. Regardless of whether the "plagiarism" was intentional or not, Viswanathan's gained a reputation as a plagiarist that's going to follow her for years. You might say she's "tainted."
And finally, may I point out that Shakespeare ripped off basically everything he ever wrote? He plundered everything he could lay his hands on. Macbeth came straight out of Holinshed's "Chronicles." In Midsummer Night's Dream, the play that the rustics put on mid-way through derives from Ovid's "Metamorphoses." Romeo and Juliet was taken from a contemporary poem, "The Tragical Historie of Romeus and Juliet" by Arthur Brookes. Yup - all "tainted."
This is what Lethem is talking about: our greatest artists routinely rip off their predecessors. That's just how it works. Or rather, how it always has. These days, we're more likely to see a corporate lawyer drive a copyright through the heart of the next Shakespeare. Lovely.
An idea is not a possession. But, a book is. Or, whatever. It's impossible to claim ownership of or rights to an idea -- it's literally impossible to own the unownable -- so all the arguments about copyright and ideas are off the point at best, and FUD at worst.
However, it's obvious we can claim ownership of books, or any other object that records language, whether that language is spoken, sung, mathematical, algorithmic, or musical. In every instance, someone will possess the very first, original, version of such a work. That person -- barring prior legal arrangements -- owns that work and possess all rights inherent in it. That means no one has the right to copy any portion of it without permission, and that permission comes from the work's creator. (Fair use, etc., are elements of the prior legal arrangement that the creator must accept by virture of living in a country with copyright laws.)
If the work's creator sells a publisher the right to make copies in return for royalties, then anyone who purchases a copy from the publisher only acquires those rights sold to him by the work's creator via the publisher.
None of this is to argue that a work's creator has any ownership of or rights to the ideas in his or her work. A work is specifically intended to create and manipulate the thoughts and emotions of others.
Nor is it an argument to support the current abuses of copyright. The effective way to deal with abuse of an equitable law is to constrain the abusers and eliminate the abuse, not to challenge them with another kind of abuse. (Two can always play at that game, so success today mght be replaced by defeat tomorrow.) If you don't think the copyright law is equitable (assuming you've read it) then it's fair game for change, too.
But, let's try to keep things grounded appropriately. Copyright law isn't there to keep you from stealing ideas. It's there to keep you from stealing and misusing actual physical things. And, no one would deny that all creative, academic, scientific, journalistic, etc., draws on the ideas and effortrs of others. That's called culture. But, copying chunks of something that you did not create and claiming them as your own is always that particular kind of theft called plagiarism.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Hmm. Your post convinced me to start this off even though I don't think I am ready to.
I have been thinking lately about "copyright pollution" where the copyrighted works of others gets in our heads and pollutes them to to point where what then comes out of us is "tainted" as it were.
Now this should not really be that much of an issue in a sensible legal environment, but I think we may not be in such an environment now and I also think that those forces causing that environment to deteriorate for a good while now are still at work trying to make it worse.
Are we getting to the point, or will we get there in our lifetimes, where an artist cannot afford to pay attention to, watch, look at, read, etc. any works that are not in the public domain or that carry a free license of some sort? Sort of like where people say we are today with respect to software patents.
all the best,
drew
http://musicians.opensrc.org/DrewRoberts
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Under normal circumstances, I'd agree. However, the article (and I admit I read about half of it in detail and then barely skimmed the rest) didn't seem to me to be about plagiarism, which is (I assume) why the subject line upthread is "The /. headline is typically bad." It really seems to be an article about information-sharing, not about plagiarism. He cites numerous well-known authors with apparent (but seemingly ill-founded) concern that they have plagiarized, but I would say that the fact that those various authors were not discredited is illustrative of the power of both fair use and established/approved literary techniques such as homage, parody, etc.
The examples he uses really seem to me to illustrate that the existing system is in balance already... or has been until recently. (None of my remarks should be taken as an endorsement of the new trends introduced by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).)To the extent that your remark can be construed as an affirmation of the age-old line "one man's trash is another man's treasure", I certainly don't mean to detract from it. But I still have some concerns that your suggestion is not strong enough to really solve the problem. (My remarks here ran longer than I wanted, and I edited them down a bit. I hope the result isn't incoherent as a result.)
The problem is not that people can't or shouldn't start with small contributions and grow them to big ones. The problem is that referring to something by its history or pedigree is not the same intellectual activity as referring to something by class. One can trivially, but uselessly, describe a pedigree system as a class system, by saying that every pedigree names a class, but it defeats the ability to do generalized reference to something because each name is so heavily overloaded that short names start to have no meaning. As I was reading one of the books in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game trilogy, there was reference to a hierarchically oriented net that sounded like the idea that kids grew up posting in their town and if they gained enough stature, they were allowed to post nationally, and so on. There are obvious disadvantages of this when some governments are repressive, but just because something has disadvantages doesn't mean it's got no advantages. There's some value to saying that people should not post their first grade homework for world-wide scrutiny on usenet.
And note that I'm not trying to say that textual size implies importance. It probably tends to be correlated, but it's possibly different. A remark like "Fixed a big security hole." might be accompanied by a one-line change and yet the change might be a substantive contribution. But most small changes are not of that kind. And documenting that you only did a small change doesn't fix that--rather, it invites people to so overwhelm people with documentation that you can't tell it was just a small change. That's how lawyers have learned to address requirements for disclosure: don't withhold, but instead drown the opposition in so much disclosure that they can't find the thing they care about.
So I'm leary that encouraging "disclosure" as a standard for saying you made a contribution is, while a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Judging from a lot of the comments so far... are people really incapable of seeing what the author was trying to do here? Read the thing. Do you really still need it spelled out for you? Then read on. It's an essay about the universal practice of taking uncredited quotes from previous artists... MADE UP LARGELY of quotes from previous artists. It's a literary game. An attempt to prove a point. A clever idea imperfectly executed. He is trying to literally show the reader that almost anything you see or hear, Disney or not, probably contains many echoes of previous works by great artists. Get it?
Well, as your link states, Harrison was boned. While copyright allows for independent creation, access + substantial similarity == infringement. Intention to copy has nothing to do with it.
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12 was 12
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