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Is Plagiarism In Literature Just Sampling?
ardent99 writes "According to the NY Times today, Helene Hegemann's first book has been moving up the best-seller list in Germany and is a finalist for a major book prize. While originally this was notable because Hegemann is only 17 and this is her first book, and so earned praise as a prodigy, what's interesting now about this story is that she has been caught plagiarizing many passages in the book. Amazingly, she has not denied it, but instead claims there is nothing wrong with it. She claims that she is part of a new generation that has grown up with mixing and sampling in all media, including music and art, and this is legitimate in modern culture. Have we entered a new era where plagiarism is not just tolerated, but seen as normal? Is this the ultimate in cynicism, or is it simply a brash attempt to get away with something now that she's been caught? Is her claim to legitimacy compromised by the fact that she only admitted it after it was discovered by someone else? And finally, if 'sampling' is not acceptable in literature, is this reason to rethink the legitimacy of musical sampling?"
Hello, kdawson.
No.
Who cares?
Yes.
No.
I might read the article next time.
Helene Hegemann's first book has been moving up the best-seller list in
Germany and is a finalist for a major book prize. While originally this
was notable because Hegemann is only 17 and this is her first book, and
so earned praise as a prodigy, what's interesting now about this story
is that she has been caught plagiarizing many passages in the book.
Amazingly, she has not denied it, but instead claims there is nothing
wrong with it. She claims that she is part of a new generation that has
grown up with mixing and sampling in all media, including music and art,
and this is legitimate in modern culture. Have we entered a new era where
plagiarism is not just tolerated, but seen as normal? Is this the
ultimate in cynicism, or is it simply a brash attempt to get away with
something now that she's been caught? Is her claim to legitimacy
compromised by the fact that she only admitted it after it was
discovered by someone else? And finally, if 'sampling' is not acceptable
in literature, is this reason to rethink the legitimacy of musical
sampling?
Have we entered a new era where plagiarism is not just tolerated, but seen as normal?
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.
No.
Hey you! Stop "sampling" my work. I own the rights to ALL those words, and all the remixes, you thieves!
signed: Daniel Webster
Indeed: in writing, one commonly samples other people's work using a moderately well-known process called "quoting". I'm mildly surprised she hasn't heard of it.
In quoting, one marks the material quoted with either in-line or block quotes, and lists the source, usually at the bottom of the page in something called a "footnote" (;-))
--dave
[citation needed]
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different." -T. S. Elliot
"Bad artists copy. Great artists steal." -Pablo Picasso
"Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal." -Igor Stravinsky
"Good artists copy, great artists steal." -Steve Jobs
"Good coders code, great coders reuse." -anonymous
Even a cursory glance at how science works disproves your case. To start with, universities pay the bulk of academics' salaries. These are supplemented by grants from private bodies and government bodies to support work that they feel is valuable. Further more, many hoops must be navigated in order to see a shred of government money.
Finally, sadly you can't get that oh-so-valuable dribble without worthwhile lab time to test which bits are non-valuable dribble. A lot of the drool produced by scientists is actually quite worthless and flawed. The process is as follows:
Laboratories are highly-tuned apparatuses set up to extract the valuable drool milked from professors by their students. At weekly meetings, the students collect the drool on 'plots' and 'graphs' specially prepared for this purpose. In the lab, the students take the dribble and carefully distill the concentrated saliva to separate out the valuable fractions then bake them into what are called 'papers'.
These papers, once prepared, are taken back to the professor to be 'proofed', wherein the professor will produce further dribble, but of a much higher and refined grade than first obtained. This process is known as 'editing' and is a common technique used to refine otherwise coarse secretions across many industries. Once infused with the higher grade of slime, these papers are sent to a panel of judges to be assessed and certified. Only the very finest dribble is passed to be presented at fairs and meetings where these students show their prize professors and hawk the papers.
The very best papers may eventually be bought by investors who will take them and wring the saliva out of it and eventually incorporate it into any number of products. These include pharmacuticals, industrial lubricants, robots, batteries and computers. The uses of academic slime are truly limitless!
Over time, researchers exposed to the highest grade drool in the course of their work may begin to produce the dribbles themselves. When they are recognised as lucrative dribble producers, they will be put out to pasture themselves so that their valuable effusions may be harnessed. This is called 'tenure'.
And that's how science is done.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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