Writer Jonathan Lethem creates a different and interesting perspective on plagiarism in his article in Harper’s Magazine. Harper’s magazine is an publication which aims explores interesting issues in the current time. It contains a mix of essays, fiction and reporting and has a left lean on politics. Plagiarism is an issue that is often brought up in the current times; authors, students, journalists often have trouble because accused of plagiarizing. Often in these cases, it unclear whether the individual was activity stealing another’s ideas, if it was a subconscious thing, or if they came up with the words by themselves and just happened to be very similar to another work. Lethem talks about many of the issues with plagiarism and some famous artists and shows which, strictly speaking, plagiarized. He points out how many of these plagiarized works are important parts of our culture – the Simpsons as perfect example. The concept that ideas are intellectual property can both help and harm society; help by protecting writers and artists but hinder by the death grip of companies upon their property. Lethem ends with this point, and asks readers to do a simple thing: respect his work, do not steal is editions, but feel free to use his ideas.
For those who care, my comments on plagiarism are less well spoken as those of Mr. Lethem. He, as a writer, has much more invested interest in the issues of copyright law and theft. However, plagiarism is still of interest to myself – as a student I am told in every class I take how bad plagiarism is. I do agree that quoting verbatim without giving credit would be wrong; I expect myself and fellow students to do their own work. However, I do like Mr. Lethem’s statement that we are free to use his ideas, but not his words. If creators are not allowed to build of each other’s ideas, then we place a huge restraint upon the materials that they can work with, stifling growth. Indeed, few works of today can actually be called original at first glace. If studied, we see the affects of other works and writers, of inventors and even tv shows. We should not curb this exchange of ideas. I do believe that authors’ works should be protected and they should receive something for those works, but I also believe that the ideas within those works should be less strictly regulated. As Lethem believes, Thomas Jefferson’s views on copyrights: enough to give writers motivation, and then allowing ideas to be freely used.
Lethem’s article:http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081387
I agree with the thought that we should be able to expand on each others ideas. We should give credit where it is due but sometimes it is almost impossible to be ‘completely original’. Just recently I was writing a research paper on Ghana and the Ivory Coast. I found tens of papers and almost everyone said the exact same thing but with minor differences. I don’t see how that could be considered plagiarism unless one of the author’s was taking words verbatim from another author.
-Fogarty
But is expanding on someone’s thought plagiarism if you give them credit for the original thought? – kdean
I also agree that using ideas is also acceptable. However, there is a fine line when using other people’s idea. I believe that an undeveloped idea should not be stolen from the creator but using something that is already published is ok.
I agree that people and students should be allowed to build on past ideas, and I also believe that Lethmen wanted to spread this idea to companies such as Walt Disney and Music Corporations to let others to build on their ideas instead of “holding their ideas hostage.”