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How Plagiarism Helped Win the American Revolution
Hugh Pickens writes "Although today the stigma of lifting passages can haunt media professionals forever, Revolutionary War Historian Todd Andrlik writes that 250 years ago stealing another reporter's work without credit was an acceptable form of journalism. In fact, plagiarism was a practice that helped unite the colonies and win the Revolutionary War. 'Without professional writing staffs of journalists or correspondents, eighteenth-century newspaper printers relied heavily on an intercolonial newspaper exchange system to fill their pages,' writes Andrlik. 'Printers often copied entire paragraphs or columns directly from other newspapers and frequently without attribution. As a result, identical news reports often appeared in multiple papers throughout America. This news-swapping technique, and resulting plagiarism, helped spread the ideas of liberty and uphold the colonists' resistance to British Parliament.' For example, an eyewitness account of the Boston Tea Party by 'An Impartial Observer' was first authored for the December 20, 1773, Boston Gazette, but was soon reprinted without edit or attribution in other New England newspapers. News of the Boston Massacre, Battle of Lexington and Concord, the treason of Benedict Arnold and practically every major event of the American Revolution circulated among the colonies much the same way. 'Thanks in no small part to this plagiarism, newspaper printers fanned the flames of rebellion and helped colonists realize the conflict was closer to home than perhaps they wanted to believe.'"
You could write an article about how murder helped win the American revolution. True, but relevant?
When the USA had no good authors, Charles Dickens used to be pirated heavily in the USA. http://www.doctorsyntax.net/2010/01/charles-dickens-get-your-cotton-pickin.html
This primed the print industry in the USA. USA started worrying about piracy only after they had their own authors who needed protection.
This is the reason it's hypocritical when the USA complains about piracy in the developing countries.
Plagiarize
Let no one else's work evade your eyes
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes
So don't shade your eyes
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize
Only be sure always to call it please "research"
As others have pointed out, any and all businesses that depend on copyright in the US at one time or another (mostly in their beginnings but some even now) depend upon some form of IP infringement. The movie industry moved from the east coast to the west in order to escape Edison and his patents over the motion picture, for example.
Not much changed. These days newspapers across the world (especially English-language papers) have identical articles too. They just take it from "the wire" and reprint it without any editing usually. I literally see the same articles in a local Hong Kong paper that I see later linked from /. so some US online paper.
The only difference is that nowadays this exchange goes a lot faster, and that papers usually pay for the privilege.
The practise was known as 'boilerplate'. Smaller newspapers would buy printing plates from larger newspapers and only add their own title block and a few local stories. That doesn't mean plagiarism though - it was a sale.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
But it's the American Revolution! This insightful revelation shows that the Founding Fathers not only approved plagiarism, but that it was vitally important to their cause! Obviously, our modern politics are far out of line, having been corrupted by this silly "evolution of society" thing. This should be a clear message for Ron Paul and other politicians who actually care about the Founding Fathers' ideals that all copyright should be abandoned because it didn't matter in 1776.
It's perfectly clear that journalists back then had far higher ethical standards than modern journalists, because they wrote about the American Revolution! That immediately clears any doubt of their honesty, right? They wouldn't have copied something just because they could get away with it, but rather they did so out of a pure desire to spread the gospel of democracy.
Next week, we'll see the full story on how cholera was an effective means of population control, how slavery protected American companies from labor unions, and how an expensive and slow postal system encouraged only meaningful correspondence.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Ya, that freedom of speech bit is sooo out of date. we definitly shouldn't include that in the next version.
oh and the thing about police not being able to go into your house whenever they want: gotta get rid of that. to stop terrorists.
Oh and the whole right to a jury trial? Pfff. just expensive. Lets do away with that and trust the upstanding police to simply not arrest anyone who they're not certain is guilty.
after all. only the sections I agree with should still count.
This was not plagiarism. This is how things were done. Calling it plagiarism is demeaning to the efforts made to spread information back then. They didn't have the mass media that we have today. There weren't even analogous syndication services like AP and Reuters to syndicate columns and act as clearing houses for news articles. The societal infrastructure for syndication simply wasn't there. There were no methods for collecting royalties on articles except being paid through the local paper. Stuff got repeated and nobody got their panties in a twist. It's different today, because there are mechanisms in place for attribution and for people to get fairly paid.
Plagiarism is the *wrongful* appropriation of literary content. Back then it wasn't wrongful. Ergo, TFA calling it plagiarism is intellectually dishonest, at best.
--
BMO
It's called stability. The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution in such a way that it didn't need to be changed every few years while at the same allowing for the option to change it as needed.
Our values haven't changed that much. We still want our freedom from religion as well as being able to practice or not without the government telling us otherwise (well, the ones that know history at least), we still want the government to keep out of our bedroom (at least those that understand the Constitution was a limitation on governmental powers, unlike Roberts and Scalia), we still want our free speech, we still want equality for all people (except for those who think how a person is born limits those rights), and so on.
I'll take a system which is stable over the centuries rather than having to worry if the next guy who gets in office will scrap everything and declare themselves dictator for life (or in my case, benevolent dictator until such time as the people can get their heads out of their asses).
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
These days we call it syndication, and it's used to quash dissent, not encourage it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
4.3 million out of 300 million? Isn't that a tyranny of the minority?
No, it's the minority protecting their rights.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Why do you believe the 3/5's clause was put there?
As a compromise to get the South to sign the document, while at the same time diminishing the Southerners ability to control the House and Executive simply because they bought/bred more slaves?
It goes to show how flawed the Founding Fathers were; they thought of their slaves as people when it came to being represented, but not people when deciding on their representation. Oh, and you know that whole thing about being free and equal? That only applied to your if you were white (and had a penis).
How can there possibly be any doubt that the fallibility of the Founding Fathers? Even THEY knew they would get some things wrong... that's why you can amend the Constitution.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
If the Founding Fathers had insisted on universal suffrage and no slavery, there would not be a United States of America for them to have been Founding Fathers of. You are projecting your values and complete inflexibility on issues you consider important on to people trying to form a cohesive federation of States with very different interests.
Again, calling something bullshit does not make it so, no matter how loudly you say it.
No, but the fact that it's bullshit does make it bullshit. Were many of the Founding Fathers against slavery? Sure. Were many of them slave owners who were prepared to abandon the revolution if they had to give up their slaves? Also true.
Public school education huh? I'm sorry.
What? I don't even know how to respond to that sort of ridiculous statement. Sure, I went to public school. I also spent two years going to a private school in France, and have degrees from Stanford and the United State Naval Academy. What's your point?
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
This is a good point, And a difficult one to discuss, at least in the US. At that time (and for a shamefully long time after it) the common belief was that black people couldn't take care of themselves. They were viewed either as livestock or like a (working) pet. Today, this thought is reprehensible...but it was a commonly held belief then.
Exactly. The modern view is that nobody can take care of himself, and needs a government nanny to look after him.
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!