The future of plagiarism

[joanna bujes]

At 11:09 AM 06/22/2002 -0400, Carrol wrote:
>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.

I'm totally with you Carroll. I'm assuming that the current condemnation of 
plagiarism rests mainly on the primacy of private property and the need to 
support that in all domains.

When I was teaching at SUNY Plattsburgh, I was placed on a committee whose 
job it was to come up with a good definition of plagiarism so that 
instances of it would be easier to prosecute. So, endless hours of twattle 
trying to figure out how to combine the requirement for originality with 
the reality that maybe 1% of our students had the capacity to do anything 
original and with the other reality that 99% of instruction focused on 
making them learn and regurgitate ideas developed by others....... Finally, 
out of my mind with boredom, I argued that in the real (non-academic) 
world, almost everything was plagiarized and that no one could accomplish 
anything much if they didn't plagiarize. I'd say that at least 1/2 of 
everything I've written for the computer industry has been plagiarized. I 
mean, how many ways are there to describe asynchronous communication? or 
semaphores? or global variables? ...So, I said, maybe the thing to do is to 
teach them how to plagiarize well!!! Everybody looked at me like I had two 
heads and went on talking as if I didn't exist.

Plagiarism, in short, is a fine principle for composition...especially 
forced composition. But even if not forced, in its more respectable form of 
"imitation," it is the soil out of which all art grows.

As for copyright protection, it advertizes itself as a boon for artists and 
inventors but in reality it's corporations that are largely protected by 
it. I suppose the poster-boy for copyright protection is Mozart since the 
poor sod could only count on making money for the first performance of any 
piece, after which it was shamelessly ripped off by others, but this is 
only because he managed to be born in a no man's land between patronage and 
copyright. Better than copyright would be social support for artists, 
scientists, craftsmen.

Long live Lobatchevsky!!!! (Just remember not to shade your eyes, but 
plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize!!!)

Joanna