The Future of Plagiarism

[Carrol Cox]

An interesting article (book review) in current NLR which compares opens
source computer code to open source prose. It evoked for me from the
deep abyss of time one passage in my dissertation. I was discussing
various critics of Pope who damned the _Essay on Criticism_ for
unoriginality and those who labored to claim originality for it, and I
included parenthetically the proposition that "we are more interested in
a critic's rightness than in his newness." Why ask whether an essay or
book is copied or not if it is interesting, and if someonce can pull
together an interesting or useful essay by combining without attribution
direct borrowings from many sources, would that not be as legitimate as
using open source code for a new program? What's wrong with plagiarism
as a principle of composition? After all, it gave us the _Iliad_.

I haven't checked to see whether the text of Capital 3 is on line, but
are there not possibilities in just beginning to rewrite that incomplete
work rather than engaging in endless textual commentary, piecemeal
corrections heavily footnoted, etc? Treat Capital 3 as though it were
the linux core.

Comment?

Carrol