Slashdot Mirror
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?"
The difference between bands like Girl Talk who sample music to create new pieces, and someone copying someone else's words into a paper they're writing, is that Girl Talk doesn't claim to have made the samples. One of the aspects of why plagiarism is seen as wrong is because you're taking credit for someone else's work. When you're sampling music, you're crediting them.
Hello, kdawson.
No.
Who cares?
Yes.
No.
I might read the article next time.
Artists who sample should always give the original artist credit... This is a childish attempt to explain, or rather justify, a wrong AFTER the fact.
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
If she said that upfront - before all this blew up... then perhaps she might have a legitimate point. But after the fact is smacks of ignorance, laziness and a protozoan intellect pretending to be great.
As someone who is only slightly older than she is. Yes, this is plagiarism. I'm TAing now and if a student handed in something like this we'd fail her. No question. They might even go in front of a disciplinary committee and certainly would if this were not the first time.
This is also a gross abuse of copyright. I'm not talking about the evil "oh this has been copyrighted for 70s years" copyright, or even using copyright for non-commercial uses. This is classic copyright violation for her own commercial use. That's precisely what sensible copyrights prevent you from copying. And it isn't like these are short enough passages that there's even any real remixing but rather long sections and the like.
The fact that she didn't acknowledge the sources makes the whole thing all the more egregious and shows that she really probably knew what she was doing was wrong. If not, she was so ignorant that it didn't occur to her that this might be a problem. Either way, it is deeply unimpressive.
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?
It depends on how you define plagiarism. At the university I attended, making a mistake in the format of your references was considered plagiarism. I wouldn't personally hold anyone to that high if a standard. Did she originally claim complete ownership and provide no references or sources at all? Then yes, by any definition plagiarism and absolutely unquestionable wrong.
nothing is really original anymore. When you have a planet with a population of nearly 7 billion -- it is fairly easy for me to claim that 99.999% of everything written, said, or done today, has been done by someone else in the past: including music.
Even mathematics is full of stories where there is more than one inventor, who claimed that they developed ideas independently.
If the offense is blatant copy-infringement, and contributes more than an insignificant impact to the copied works, then let a judge determine a financial penalty.
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.
Deef Pirmasens, the blogger who discovered the passages taken from “Strobo,” said that he could understand a few words or phrases seeping into the work through inspiration, but that he quickly noticed that there were too many for it to be a coincidence. “To take an entire page from an author, as Helene Hegemann admitted to doing, with only slight changes and without asking the author, I consider that illegitimate,” Mr. Pirmasens said.
Entire pages verbatim? She is the Vanilla Ice of literature sampling then.
Expungement of a record wouldn't really be an issue--she hasn't committed a crime. In U.S. copyright parlance, she may have infringed copyright, but that's a civil matter that doesn't entail the creation of a criminal record.
I agree entirely that she should have sought permission from the authors whose work she was cribbing. The article indicates she lifted an entire page from someone's else's work with only minor changes. The authors whose works were use without permission ought to sue, and if Hegemann's half as smart as the article makes her out to be, she ought to settle up. The whole "this is what my generation does" schtick is not a new excuse for artistic laziness, but it does seem to be gaining some unfortunate traction here. I'm amazed the book prize committee even gave her a second look, much less a finalist spot, with full knowledge that she'd failed to attribute her sources.
Hey you! Stop "sampling" my work. I own the rights to ALL those words, and all the remixes, you thieves!
signed: Daniel Webster
Well I guess I am not from her Generation but sampling started when I was in my early 20s. If done correctly in music it is like a collage and it is a new piece of art.
When done wrong it is theft.
I am thinking of Ice Ice Baby as a good example of done wrong.
In this books case I would say it is theft from the story "In one case, an entire page was lifted with few changes."
Dude that isn't sampling that is a cover!
Or to put another way. Every generation at 17 thinks that the world is a totally different place from the one their parents lived in. By the time we hit 35 we all start to think man it probably really wasn't. And at 40 we all start saying What the hell where we thinking when we where 17. What idiots we where but it sure was fun.
So no she is just another dumb 17 year old that thinks the rules don't apply anymore because things are so different.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Referring to the German Amazon page about the book, the Times article said 'Under the heading “Customers who bought this item also bought” was “Strobo” by Airen'. I think that raises some interesting questions. Artistic questions aside, can you argue that plagiarism damages the author of the plagiarized work if it increases sales?
There are two common theories for why we have copyright. I think the more correct one (at least for US copyright law -- yes, I realize that these events are playing out in Germany, under German law) is that copyright exists in order to promote creativity, and on that basis it's very hard to argue that "mashup" works that actually do create something new and interesting by combining pieces of older stuff don't satisfy that goal just as well as purely original works. And in this case, no one appears to be arguing that this young woman is simply riding the coattails of Airen.
The other theory is the economic one: that copyright exists so that authors get paid. Although we'd need to see real numbers to know for sure, the fact that sales of "Axolotl Roadkill" seems to be driving increased sales of "Strobo" seems to indicate that this usage of text from Strobo satisfies that version of copyright rationale as well. It'll be interesting to see what Airen says about the use of his work. Does he feel ripped off, or flattered?
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I think that it's possible for a book composed entirely of excerpts to be an excellent, creative, and original work. The key question for me is whether the author stole someone's novel and changed some bits, or genuinely pasted together pieces from a body of work in order to create something new.
Having not read the book, and seen no real analysis of its content, I can't comment on whether this was achieved, but if it was I don't think it flies in the face of copyright (especially as applied to literature).
You copyright a work, not a portion of a work (though of course portions are also protected), and the purpose of that copyright is to prevent mis-attribution of praise (whether monetary or otherwise) for the creative output generated. If her book uses the words of another author in parts in order to support her unique overarching theme, I don't think the spirit of copyright has really been violated.
If you sample a female actress and you are a male singer, it's pretty obvious. (and vice versa)
Or if it is from a very recognizable song.
Past there it gets increasingly muddy.
Plagiarism is bad because it's been ruled to be bad in the past. Why is it bad per se if the result is informative or entertaining?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Still waiting for copyright enforcement advocates to realize that copyright infringement isn't always a bad thing.
Nothing that is against the law or otherwise a violation of a property right is always a "bad thing".
No form of stealing is always bad. Trespassing isn't always bad. Neither is copyright infringement. Neither is outright theft. But in each instance, you impinge on someone's inherent and exclusive rights (otherwise known at law as "property"), and the adult thing to do is to face the consequences of that action and pay the price.
Take trespassing, for example. Unless you're stomping on some prized and rare flowers, it causes no harm to anyone and permanently deprives the owner of the land of nothing. And yet, it remains unlawful because the owner of the land has the sole right to authorize admission onto it, whether it would be reasonable to deny entry or not, or whether he charges for admission at a reasonable rate or not. If you trespass, you are liable for damages should the owner wish to pursue them.
Now maybe you were injured and had a reasonable justification to trespass in order to get timely medical assistance. That's something that can be considered in the weighing of damages, but it doesn't change the fact that what you did was unlawful. It doesn't have to be reasonable, and the trespass might have been economically efficient or otherwise better than the alternative.
Taking food without paying when you're about to starve isn't a bad thing. But then turning and claiming you did nothing wrong is. You did what you had to do, and that will be considered in sentencing. You'll pay for the food that you took (restoring the tangible), and you will pay for the injury you caused to the food's owner by taking it without permission.
With copyright infringement, you pay for the injury, your depriving the owner of his exclusive property rights. That can range anywhere from a few hundred dollars (less than damages for trespassing) to many thousands, depending on the seriousness of your violation and the value of the work. Yes, there should be a cap on damages for private citizens infringing without commercial gain, but no, there should be no exception for arguing that your breach of law was a net positive. It often is with property crimes and impingement.
The law protects the rights of owners to maintain the freedom to make determinations on the use of their property. When an owner decides to sell some of those property rights, he has the right to determine at what price and under what conditions to do so, constrained only by other laws limiting his choice.
People are never required to do what's best with what they own. They're free to be as stupid, generous, savvy, greedy, or unreasonable as they wish, within the confines of the law.
That's like saying that if a thug violently raped a woman, and impregnated her, and then their offspring grew up to be a great author, that it sorta makes rape ok.
Anyway, what I find surprising about this story is that Axolotl Roadkill's publisher's have continued to print/distribute the book after knowing that it violates copyright.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
In terms of research literature, this happens too. In fact, it may be even worse if you think about it. I publish at least 3-4 papers each year in various different conferences and maybe a Journal or two. Go figure... even if it is my work, if I am not careful, then I may be liable for "self-plagiarism", from which they can retract publications and even my doctoral degree if the University deems it a serious offense. And we are not talking here about copy-paste to a whole paper section, even taking a sentence or two from one of your previous publications is debatable. I personally think this policy is ridiculous as it forces me to reword everything, even the obvious, no matter how much overlap there may be between the current paper and one I just sent in through the pipeline a month ago.
Because, as many others pointed and will point out, the plagiarist is taking credit on originality that belongs to somebody else.
It's not bad just because it's been ruled to be bad. It's bad because plagiarism allows anyone to do a quick search in "obscure" literature, pick up some particularly interesting piece and resell it as being his own original work. It's great for the plagiarist, may be good to the public, but not so for the original creator.
You can be informative and entertaining over other people's work, as long as you give them credit.
You don't need to claim authorship to be entertaining.
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
So, when is someone going to make the freely downloadable opensource remix of her book then?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
1) Be transparent. If it's not obvious where you are copying from, ad a "thanks to" or "credits" page or bibliography.
2a) Respect social norms or be up front if you are deliberately disrespecting them, say, as a protest.
2b) Respect the law, in this case, copyright law.
Alex Haley of Roots fame learned this the hard way, see Wikipedia: Harold_Courlander#Roots and the issue of plagiarism and its references for more details.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"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
Books and maps were originally allowed to be copyrighted for 16 years as this was viewed as necessary to help people recoup their costs of production, newspapers, handbills, plays, and music were not allowed copyright protection.
With on demand publishing the cost of publication is essentially covered by the purchaser, negating the original rational for copyright protection for books.
If the point of copyright protection is to increase the number of works available to the public, in both quantity of titles and the availability of those works, it would seem like the only form of work that requires substantial investment, in 2010, is movies. Most other things can be done with a capital expense of a $300US computer and an internet connection.
With two hundred years of tweaking copyright law there has become a perception of rights of creators. While this may be a worthwhile endeavor to purse such an objective, it has never been openly made, but rather stuck in the back door.
Claiming credit for something someone else did is slander under certain circumstances, and there is a lot to be said for truthful acknowledgement of creation, but a creative work is generally more than the sum of its parts, and the pro copyright supporters seem to be failing to acknowledge that copyright as it is currently implemented causes a great number of works to be unavailable to the general public, in direct opposition to the intent of granting copyright, and the pro copyright supports do not seem to be answering this rather important question. — How is copyright helping create more books in todays world where we have word processes on almost every desk, and multiple printing on demand services?
Work bio at MMWD
Even if you sample in music, the sampling is just accompaniment, backing tracks. In other words, the DJ samples, the MC does not.
Further, you don't pretend you didn't sample, you give credit where it's due. You often pay the original artist, especially if the sampling is very prominent.
This young lady is not only guilty of plagiarism, but also of misunderstanding sampling. It's not plagiarism.
The literary version of sampling would be to write a new, unplagiarized book using existing characters and settings from another book. Like a Star Wars themed novel. In that case you use Star Wars as backing for a new work.
The tragedy of this is the manuscript should have been considered a first draft and rewritten in one voice, even by a ghostwriter. Publishing the same exact phrases is not required in order to be unoriginal.
A mutt can be an excellent dog even if it doesn't have any papers. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Neither art nor music should have any position about plagiarism. Plagiarism is for academics whose need for acknowledgment overwhelms their desire to further their own and society's knowledge, and those who care more about their bank account than producing something of value. While it seemed distasteful to me at first, Bowie, Mercury, and Van Halen were all exposed to new audiences when they were sampled, and I truly believe they were better off for being sampled. Jazz, Blues, and Rock and Roll would not exist without constant borrowing and even stealing. The best music in the world was created when everyone was stealing from everyone else in the 50's, 60's, and 70's. Would Hendrix have been as big if he hadn't covered a folk song, All Along the Watchtower? Would Zeppelin, the Stones, or Clapton have been so big without such obviously stolen blues songs and riffs? Did Dylan suffer from Jimi's cover? No, his fan base grew. Did all the Blues musicians suffer? No, in fact many were likely saved from obscurity, for at the time no 'decent' white folk would listen to such music. I think it axiomatic that the more selfish you are, the more yourself and the world suffers. The more generous you are, the more yourself and the world benefits.
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
I hope she makes lots of money . . . and every last dime of it goes to the people she stole from.
What a jerk.
At the university I attended, making a mistake in the format of your references was considered plagiarism.
Yeah... that's because otherwise people would claim that they just 'made a mistake' and forgot to mention a couple cites. At my college, when there were cheating scandals, we always heard the perp say that, which is crazy because it doesn't make any sense. If you, say, mistakenly put a comma where the citation format requires a semicolon, I hardly think any school would bat an eye; but if you mistakenly cite 7 papers when you have whole paragraphs listed from 6 others, that's gonna get you parkhursted. Of course, there is a scale all along between those extremes.
Because quality control, editing, and advertising isn't free, on-demand publishing is vastly more expensive per-book and doesn't scale well, the author's time is a significant investment from the standpoint of the author, and, frankly, you're only paying attention to one of the many claimed benefits of copyright.
To deal with these in order:
This whole discussion is stupid, of course, because, even in the sampling community, what the 17 year old author did would be considered stealing, because she didn't (until called on it) acknowledge that she was taking stuff from the original author.