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."

Comments

well

[macadamia_harold]

All I have to say is, 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.

The /. headline is typically bad.

[Kadin2048]

The guy isn't talking about plagiarism; he calls the essay "a plagiarism" with (IMO) tongue planted in cheek. It's not correct to say that it's about plagiarism specifically, because to say that sounds like he's defending plagiarism specifically, when the issues covered in the essay itself are far more broad.

The essay is "on" creative influence, not plagiarism.

Re:The /. headline is typically bad.

[NetSettler]

One man's "creative influence" could very well be one lawyer's "plagiarism". It is all a matter of degree.

There are surely gray areas, but your remark suggests there is nothing but gray areas, and I don't think that's true. Under the law, copyright protects the form of a work, not an idea. It comes right out and says that plainly, in a way that law doesn't always do. Just to make sure there is no confusion. As such, "creative influence" insofar as it is an "idea" is generally protected.

The author of the article seemed to speak at times as if he were arguing against things that are in fact not in play. It is considered fair use to quote one another in the course of public dialog. (The right of fair use happens to be implementationally threatened by coercive DRM attempting to conform to the DMCA, but that's a slightly different problem. I have argued (but so far have not managed to convince any actual lawyers) that the legal concept of an easement (from Real Estate law) needs to be injected into Intellectual Property law in order to address the present state of affairs in that regard. For rights to be meaningful, having some way to enforce them seems useful. There are a number of mechanisms for addressing infringement, but there needs to be a counterbalancing force to address fair use. That the US Government Copyright FAQ does not even mention "fair use" in the set of questions is perhaps telling in and of itself.)

It is trivially true that as you morph an idea from a single source, there is a point in which the idea is still so much the original that the new form carries with it no serious value and cannot legitimately be called its own work. So in this regard, your remark is technically correct.

However, another way of interpreting copyright might be not to regard it as a right of use, but a standard we hold ourselves to before we call something a contribution. That is, if I take a play you wrote, change a word or two, and then offer it back to the public, odds are the public will say "this wasn't a material contribution". Forget copyright issues, my obligation to say I have contributed something is higher. If I'm a writer, even a good one, and call a press conference every time I type a period or comma, eventually people will get tired. It's not a novel, or even a chapter, until a chunkier contribution has been made. And copyright just enforces that same notion, but between people instead of internally within them.

So maybe it is just a matter of degree after all. But maybe degree matters. Maybe the whole point is, as in Aristotle's Virtue Ethics that at either end of the spectrum is an "unreasonable extreme", and that there really is no well-defined, uniquely determined midpoint, but that the goal is to seek a balance in spite of that fact, so that one doesn't slide to one of the endpoints. To say that any contribution, no matter how trivial, that includes another's work is ok is to create spam. To say that any contribution, no matter how large, that includes another's work, is infringing is to create a society that doesn't grow through interaction.

Wow, great article.

[88NoSoup4U88]

Whereas it's not usual around here ;) I read the article, and I think he makes some excellent points.
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 :

...Most artists are converted to art by art itself

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.

Re:Straw men considered highly inflammable

[PopeRatzo]

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.

Re:Straw men considered highly inflammable

[Znork]

"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.

Re:Straw men considered highly inflammable

[Selanit]

The parent poster said:

Taking issue with the idea that any work is 'untainted' by others' ideas.

Um, have you ever heard anyone express this idea? Me neither, it's completely absurd.

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.