Here's a Slate story of a brouhaha over the J. K. Rowling empire. Rowling vs. her fans -- probably not the best PR move for her: the fans want to publish (as a physical book) an online lexicon, and she's upset they're shoehorning in on her profits (like J. K. Rowling really can't spare a few pennies, but I suppose it's a matter of principle for her).
Other tangentially literary issues include unauthorized fanfic (and admittably some of Rowling's fanfic is Sadeian), or fiction written by fans furthering the adventures of favorite characters. Laurell K. Hamilton has spoken about her distaste for this: "Fan fic [sic] is illegal. Writers who give permission for their characters to be used by others can lose those characters. So no, I do not read fan fic. I don't surf the Internet so it has not been a problem for me. If I don't know about it, then I don't have to do something about it" (in this RBL Presents! interview). Is it illegal, though? She's clearly biased.
This seems to be an issue of when a traditional Luddite medium gets translated into a medium (or media) that are far freer and more open by nature (book to Internet, for example). It's a question of profits (most online stuff is free, like fanfic and the Harry Potter lexicon in question above, whereas a book published enters the realm of economical advantage and power).
The romance writer mentioned in an earlier post here was employing plagiarism, which didn't in her case cross media -- although it took new media, in this case, the blog, to expose it. I remember the Janet Dailey-Nora Roberts case, in which Dailey, Romance Writer #1, plagiarized egregiously from Roberts, Romance Writer #2 (and a much bigger-selling writer, too). That was a while ago. Roberts sued Dailey in the end. Copyright = corporate economics.
One final note (don't want this to be interminable!): last night I took a class on the history of the English language. Plagiarism must be a (very) recent concept! It also seems to be a cultural (Western) issue. I've had foreign students who didn't understand about citation, etc., in my 103, 104, and 110 classes taught at NIU. Media, genre, history, culture: all factors in our understanding of copyright/ownership concepts.
P.S. Here's a blog by the Senior Copyright Counsel to Google (formerly copyright counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives) -- obviously biased heavily and slightly technical but full of info, discussion, and useful terms. Looks like it's frequently updated.
13 comments:
When you say that plagiarism is a recent, Western concept, it brings to mind the One Laptop Per Child project, giving laptops and internet access to children (and their families, hopefully) who may not otherwise have had access to it.
dan, what do you mean when you reference plagiarism and the one laptop per child project? i'm not familiar with this issue. can you say more?????????
ehrengard, thank you for referencing my comment! i added some more to my post.
simplified copyright law - "cut and paste" :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3FJcL9Z2M0
Very simplified and easy to remember--thanks! I had no idea that a "movie in class" would be prohibited. This seems like it goes past the point of common sense. Is this one of those times when a law is made to cover everything but it's not really enforced or is this a serious issue/law that a future educator must adhere to? Thanks, I'm new to the "digital authorship" arena!
The video says that showing a movie in class for "reward or entertainment," but I imagine that showing one for "education" would be ok?
I was thinking about those in the third world, with their differing ideas about plagiarism, taking any content they find and using it.
I don't necessarily think it's a problem. But if we're suing kids in college for downloading a song, what happens in another country where the idea of "intellectual property" doesn't exist.
Not that it should exist at all. Just throwing it out there.
There is no such thing as an international copyright. Each nation essentially decides whether or not to honor copyrighted material from other countries. Hence, if print materials can be easily pirated, one can imagine how much easier it will be and no doubt is for Internet material. (see http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl100.html)
dan, you raise an interesting point. i don't know what type of copyright laws exist in other countries. i'm wondering, though, in this country - how do musicians make money if copyright laws aren't observed? how can we make it right so they get paid for their creativity and impoverished college students have access to the music? :-)
Hmmm. I would be on the side of intellectual property. If you put the time and effort into making something unique, and then someone immediately makes a knockoff and sells it at a much lower price (suddenly thinking of the fashion world where this happens all the time -- particularly in China knocking off European or American designers, and selling it on eBay or over the Internet to us in the West -- often claiming it's original, not a knockoff), isn't that unfair to you? The person who created the item should have some rights, at least in a decent society. I feel particularly strongly about this because it's happened to me (yes, I was stupid and greedy enough!). On the subject of music, there's certainly an argument for sharing versus stealing; however, when it becomes a society-wide phenomenon and starts cutting into the artist's profits, I do think that's clearly, obviously unfair and is unethical. I've never downloaded anything that wasn't for free -- but I have gone to the public library, checked out CDs, copied them to my iTunes, and then returned the CDs. Shady, if not entirely unethical (a library's purpose is explicitly lending out its items for others' use -- but they're expected to be returned unharmed). Am I being inconsistent here?
I really don't have a problem with other people taking my ideas, such as they are.
I don't make them for profit, so my motivations are a little ambiguous...
I'll think about it...does motivation matter?
Just an historical side note:
To the best of my knowledge, Ehrengard is correct that the concept of plagiarism as we understand it is relatively recent. Using material/ideas/stories/even language from other writers was a common practice among Renaissance poets and playwrights (to reference my own area of expertise). And with respect to some genres (like drama) authorship was not a particularly relevant issue -- Ben Jonson was ridiculed for calling his plays "Works" when he included them in his 1616 Folio of that name, and of course many of the plays attributed solely to Shakespeare in the 1623 First Folio were in fact collaboratively written. None of which even addresses the contributions of actors, printers, and even, sometimes, audiences. Just to complicate the issue further.
On final observation:
Copyright in the 16th and 17th centuries belonged not to the author, but to the printer.
And by the way, I'm completely with Laurell Hamilton on this. Fanfic when written for the private enjoyment of a fan is one thing; fanfic that is written and published for the public consumption of anyone who can access it, without any credit or royalty to the creator or owner or holder of the rights to the characters and/or settings (assuming those to be relevant in the case of something like Harry Potter or Anita Blake), is something else entirely. I don't see why we should consider online fanfic any differently than any other kind of illegal use of copyrighted material, simply because the publication medium is new.
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