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Feb
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Posted by Christopher Waldrop
February 22, 2008 |
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When poet Neal Bowers was plagiarized, some people responded by telling him he could just write another poem. This very response highlights a significant difference between the way we regard literature (or at least poetry) and other art forms, particularly films or music. And there is a significant difference: when a work of writing is plagiarized, it’s copied without attribution to the original. When a performance by an artist (as opposed to just the music and lyrics–that’s another issue) or a film is pirated the attribution is inherent. In fact it’s the name of the artist or the popularity of the film that makes it valuable. So is plagiarism better or worse than piracy? Well, that depends. Piracy is clear and obvious, and easy to define. Plagiarism isn’t always. As Richard Posner explains in The Little Book Of Plagiarism, “Copyright law does not forbid the copying of ideas…Only the form in which the ideas or facts is protected.” Posner, a judge on the United States Seventh Circuit Court Of Appeals, sorts through various examples of plagiarism, tracing, for example, a passage from a translation from Plutarch by Sir Thomas North which was then adapted (or some might even say plagiarized) by Shakespeare in Antony And Cleopatra. Shakespeare’s passage was then adapted, a few centuries later, by T.S. Eliot in The Wasteland. And yet, as Posner points out, in Shakespeare’s time plagiarism wasn’t considered a major crime; in fact, it wasn’t until 1710, nearly a century after Shakespeare’s death, that the Statute of Anne, the first law to recognize authors as the primary beneficiaries of their work, would be passed.
The problem for Bowers, as well as for some other authors who have been plagiarized, is that he couldn’t prove that he’d lost money or in some other way been harmed by plagiarism. Without being able to prove harm it’s difficult to prove that a crime has been committed. Recent charges of Senator Obama plagiarising parts of speeches haven’t stuck, at least partly because Governor Deval Patrick, whose lines he reportedly stole, didn’t have a problem with the Senator using his words; in fact, they’d reportedly discussed the use of Patrick’s words. Copyright violations–whether it’s a matter of copyrighted books, music, movies, pictures, or other works–are dealt with very harshly, often more harshly than simple plagiarism. Before stories of lead in toys, poisoned pet food, and other dangerous products came out, China was widely criticized for widespread piracy of books, movies, music, as well as other products. The problem, though, is that technology allowing the copying and dissemination of intellectual property moves faster and far ahead of the law. Piracy is, by its very nature, always at least one step ahead of the means of stopping it. And maybe that’s not always a bad thing.
Before I go any further, I want to state very clearly that I believe in protecting the rights
of that artists and other people involved in the production and distribution of intellectual property. I’m not just saying that for legal reasons; the production of art is expensive, and requires the efforts of numerous people. As Posner reminds us, there is still a “romantic notion” of the solitary artist, but in the production of a book, for instance, the author rarely works alone. There are contributions by editors, jacket designers, and the publishing houses that print, distribute, and, in many cases, market books. The recent writers’ strike is just one aspect of an evolving landscape where artists seek to control, as well as benefit from, their work. While The Kinks satirized the music industry’s parcelling out of money in their song The Moneygoround, which begins,
Robert owes half to Grenville
Who in turn gave half to Larry
Who adored my instrumentals
And so he gave half to a foreign publisher
She took half the money that was earned in some far distant land
Gave back half to Larry and I end up with half of goodness knows what
the truth is that a lot of great works of art–literature, music, painting, sculpture and others–would not be produced, or as widely recognized if, to put it bluntly, a lot of people didn’t get something out of it. At the same time, though, such protections aren’t–and shouldn’t be–permanent, and even originality may be overrated.
Comments
But then imitation is the sincerest for of flattery ….
True, but there’s a difference between imitating someone else’s style and taking credit for their work.