In Jonathan Lethem’s article, “The Ecstasy of Influence,” Lethem discusses how William S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, incorporated writing from other writers’ texts into his work.  Though Lethem was shocked as he was taught by his teachers that this “cut-up method” is considered plagiarism, Lethem explains how he could not contain his excitement and that “the hairs on my neck stood up” while reading Burroughs’ book.

Instead of condemning Burroughs’ stealing technique, Lethem boldly states in his article that Burroughs “was no plagiarist at all.”  Though I sometimes agree that imitation is the best form of flattery, I strongly believe that plagiarism is no form of flattery.  More so, it is a form of stealing and is thus just for one to sue due to the stealing of one’s property.  In Lethem’s article, he also discusses intellectual property.

While discussing intellectual property, Lethem highlights how technology expansion is making it more difficult as “technology is exposing those restrictions…”  As technology is in fact getting faster, easier to use, and more universally accessed, this should be even more of a reason to protect one’s ideas, thoughts, copyrights, etc so that no one experiences stealing and plagiarism.

Though Lethem writes about the “beauty of second uses,” even he agrees that copyrights and intellectual property should rightly belong to the individual who created it when talking about “usemonopoly.”  Hence, as copyrights are a form of intellectual property as are ideas, words, song lyrics, etc, one should believe that imitation is not always flattery as imitation in the context of plagiarism is stealing and cheating.